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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
7.1
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd), NAS (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of IBM System Storage DS5000 Series is 2.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 13.1%, down from 17.8% 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 Series13.1%
IBM System Storage DS5000 Series2.4%
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 system would work well for the customer."
"The solution is reliable."
"The most valuable feature is compression."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"We use it for applications, databases, media, files, etc."
"I like that it's stable, and I am satisfied with it. We have had some issues, but that is normal in IT. IBM System Storage DS5000 works fine most of the time."
"The solution is stable. I rate its stability a nine out of ten."
"You can easily virtualize and share the storage."
"This solution provides us with easy management and great vendor support."
"The support is very good."
"I like the unified management feature because sometimes you end up running a single protocol on the entire system."
"It changed the way we do Disaster Recovery (DR) around NetApp replication."
"It offers data compression and people management."
"It has a very good implementation of the Active Directory services, so implementation into a Windows network is easy."
"The most valuable feature of the NetApp FAS Series is the snapshot and the FlexClone for Oracle and Microsoft SQL environments. Additionally, the integration can be done with most all on-premise and cloud providers."
"I would definitely recommend NetApp FAS Series to other users because it's stable and really handy for IT personnel who manage it."
 

Cons

"The solution's integration with other tools could be improved."
"IBM System Storage DS5000 is expensive when compared to other vendors."
"Regarding improvements, there's a common perception, primarily during pre-sales, that IBM storage solutions are expensive, though studies often prove otherwise. As for additional functionality, supporting two to three sites for applications might be a potential enhancement."
"The stability could be improved."
"The product is very costly. Very few can afford it."
"The product should improve its support."
"The initial setup is hard."
"The solution is not flexible enough."
"The user interface could be improved to have better graphics and the performance analyzer could be better."
"The high cost of the product is an area of concern, so from an improvement perspective, the tool needs to be made cheaper."
"It's not a cheap system. It is very expensive. The pricing has been ridiculous every time that we had to renew the support."
"For long term partnership in Myanmar, the local warehouse should be built in Myanmar that's something I'd like to see. We have some issues with supply so there is sometimes a delay in getting the hardware."
"Cluster mode needs to be more ubiquitous."
"NetApp systems are somewhat more complex, though not excessively so. If you're transitioning from a Windows server environment to NetApp, get training or education; otherwise, you might struggle with this solution."
"No other area for improvement comes to mind other than its price. Making the price more attractive will help this solution have a bigger market share."
"There is room for improvement in deployment and configuration processes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This product is priced well. The ratio between cost and productivity is very high and we're happy with it."
"Compared to other vendors, I think it's expensive."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It's an expensive solution."
"The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is reasonable for its performance."
"The only area that could be improved is to lower prices for their All Flash FAS."
"There are products available in market with comparatively lower costs."
"If we want a ransomware solution with the product or other extended features, we need to pay an extra cost."
"It is a one-time license charge for NetApp FAS Series to run and we pay annually for upgrades and support."
"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with ten being expensive. We pay a one-time purchase price."
"NetApp FAS Series is a reasonably high-priced solution, partially because we select the configuration that duplicates the entire system."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
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 Enterprise37
Large Enterprise57
 

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: December 2025.
880,315 professionals have used our research since 2012.