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IBM System Storage DS5000 Series vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM System Storage DS5000 S...
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp FAS Series
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd), NAS (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of IBM System Storage DS5000 Series is 2.6%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 12.9%, down from 17.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NetApp FAS Series12.9%
IBM System Storage DS5000 Series2.6%
Other84.5%
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
 

Featured Reviews

Gustavo Rosello - PeerSpot reviewer
Technological Infrastructure Manager at Mercado Argentino de Valores S.A.
Provides solid hardware and ROI to users
Companies or groups of business units are growing fast. We have perhaps between four and five more people than what it was two years ago, so the systems are increasing, and now we are working with RPA in some of our processes for automation, especially wherever it is mandatory in the financial branch, like a common investment fund and the investment in action or where there are other products. Our market is directly related to small business. We are working with companies where data translation is needed or where invoices, specifically credit invoices, the negotiation of cheques, or a doc that shows receipt of money, which you can sell at a future date. We have a sub-warehouse that has a back office in the cloud to use all operations related to creditors so that the company can increase its share in the markets. I think that we may need something on-premises in the future. The trends indicate that users are returning to on-premises systems because of the high cost of public clouds. We are looking for a better data center. In Argentina, hardware costs are high, but now, it is a great investment. We are slowly planning to expand the tool. In the USA, when it comes to object-first devices, there is a cost of 48,000 USD for 128 TB, but in Argentina, the cost is 64,000 USD for 84 TB. In Argentina, we have a lot of taxes, and the government is in the process of reducing these taxes, but now we have a situation associated with our economy. Out of 100 companies, only two are seeking employees. We are waiting for the recovery of the economy, but everything here is expensive apart from the salaries.
Srikanth Purushothaman - PeerSpot reviewer
DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems
Has supported long-term data protection and backup while requiring better part availability and pricing options
For monitoring purposes, we normally use flash access storage exclusively. We utilize a hybrid system because we need performance, combining NL-SAS for the volume and SAS flash to use as a fast cache system that provides more IOPS. We normally implement RAID 10, which we prefer over RAID 6's n plus 2 combinations. We utilize it for data redundancy, even with write intensity on. Regarding the unified storage architecture for NetApp FAS Series, we normally opt for exclusivity unless budget constraints exist. Our IOPS are very high, reaching somewhere about 50k to 150k or 1.150k. The high performance ensures minimal latency. An advantage we've seen with NetApp FAS Series is that snapshots provide very rapid backup and fast recovery. We basically use snapshots for data protection as first-level protection, with deduplication between the two storages serving as second-level protection.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The IBM System Storage DS5000 Series can be integrated into various platforms such as IBM, Intel, Linux, and others. It provides flexibility in integration wherever storage is required."
"The solution is stable. I rate its stability a nine out of ten."
"The security and velocity for fetching data are valuable."
"The most valuable aspects of the DS5000 Series are its high availability (almost six nines), stability, cost-effectiveness, and the unique IBM FlashCore modules, which other competitors lack. These FlashCore modules enable local operations on the drive itself without a performance overhead, a significant advantage."
"The most valuable feature is compression."
"The solution is reliable."
"The system would work well for the customer."
"You can easily virtualize and share the storage."
"It's enabled us to allow admins across the IT organization to more easily manage their own subset of data within our organization."
"Data consolidation and visualization."
"A reliable and easily managed storage system is a key performance factor. The system also has more features than we require."
"​NAS stability"
"Flexible and reliable storage solution with multiple features such as cloning, replication, and deduplication. Data migration can be done without any performance implications on the production systems."
"The solution is very stable and reliable"
"It helps us meet all customer requirements. Customers have been using NetApp for many years. They are very satisfied with NetApp and continue to use NetApp and upgrade to new solutions."
"The most valuable feature for us is the combining of HA and SnapMirror."
 

Cons

"IBM talks about integration when we talk about Safeguarded Copy. It integrates with QRadar, but it seems as though IBM still is too separate, that is, the way IBM is measured on software and hardware."
"I don't like the storage now, as it is in the same data center. I want to separate the data center from the backup to another floor of the building or outside the building in a data center of another provider."
"I find the solution isn't so easy to understand. A user must be quite knowledgeable in the product. It isn't like HPE 3PAR, which you can use quite easily without too much storage experience."
"The product is very costly. Very few can afford it."
"The initial setup is hard."
"The price of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The amount of storage could be increased."
"IBM System Storage DS5000 is expensive when compared to other vendors."
"They should add new features to the product."
"If our customer needs a high-performance storage solution then we don't recommend this product."
"With scalability, we feel the system is limited."
"It was not possible to have a custom user inside ONTAP without the delete permission to delete the volume. We wanted others to be able to create a SnapMirror and volume, but have no volume deletion permission. In the newest version, it seems to already be in place, but there was a bug enabling this one in older versions 9.11, 9.10, or earlier."
"The NetApp FAS Series is not as high-performing and is not as fast. Its speed needs improvement, but this could only be done if it's an all-flash solution."
"NetApp FAS Series could improve by being more secure."
"The solution's configuration is not flexible."
"The solution can improve on the replication features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a competitively priced solution. The cost can vary depending on whether it is purchased from the hardware or the software departments."
"We mounted all the virtualization with less than 1,50,000 USD. We are negotiating to get the tool for 800,000,000 Argentine Pesos. The tool is expensive, but it is worth the money."
"Compared to other vendors, I think it's expensive."
"It's an expensive solution."
"Its price is fair. IBM is quite fair in price when you compare it with others. We also use Hitachi internally, and Hitachi is always a little bit more expensive. NetApp is also a bit more expensive. So, IBM has good positioning in terms of price."
"This product is priced well. The ratio between cost and productivity is very high and we're happy with it."
"The basic functionalities of the product are provided within the normal license, but users can opt for some optional features from IBM's licensing model."
"The process for going to cluster mode is expensive."
"The tool is expensive."
"If we want a ransomware solution with the product or other extended features, we need to pay an extra cost."
"It’s difficult for us to get money, so make sure you get everything in order, because there’s no going back and saying “oh, I missed this or that”, so make sure you plan well and well in advance."
"It is a one-time license charge for NetApp FAS Series to run and we pay annually for upgrades and support."
"The price it not low, but comparing features to other vendors, the price can be balanced."
"The price of the NetApp FAS Series is reasonable and it provides value for the money with the feature sets. NetApp FAS Series are competing with Huawei storage which has an office and does aggressive marketing with a discount. However, we found that if our customers do a technology refresh they are happy with the performance of the NetApp FAS Series."
"I've sold arrays for as little $20,000 USD and as high as $300,000 USD."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM System Storage DS5000 Series?
The price fits well with the proposal of this equipment. Although IBM is not cheap, the cost fits well with the propose.
What needs improvement with IBM System Storage DS5000 Series?
There are some functions that can only be used in prompt mode. If these functions could be shown in the graphical interface, it could be better.
Which SAN product would you choose: IBM FlashSystem (FS9500) vs PureFlash Array/X NVMe vs PureFlash Array/XL NVMe?
Have you considered a NetApp FAS Storage for your NAS needs? I am sure it fits very well.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp FAS Series?
The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is not cheap, but in comparison to other vendors, NetApp FAS Series is affordable because they also have deduplication, compression, and inline compression. They fo...
 

Also Known As

System Storage DS5000 series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Engine Informštica
Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM System Storage DS5000 Series vs. NetApp FAS Series and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
882,410 professionals have used our research since 2012.