IBM System Storage DS5000 Series vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

IBM System Storage DS5000 Series vs. NetApp FAS Series

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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

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
Product	Market Share (%)
NetApp FAS Series	13.1%
IBM System Storage DS5000 Series	2.4%
Other	84.5%

Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

Featured Reviews

Gustavo Rosello

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.

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Srikanth Purushothaman

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"You can easily virtualize and share the storage."

"I also like all the software features you get from the IBM System Storage DS5000 Series such as the SVC (SAN volume controller). You can put the code on the controllers, and it really gives you the advantage because you'll have HyperSwap."

"The solution offers an excellent price-performance ratio, including SSDs and compression capabilities. This results in faster performance and potential space savings due to compression."

"The system would work well for the customer."

"The solution is stable. I rate its stability a nine out of ten."

"The most valuable feature is compression."

"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."

"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."

More IBM System Storage DS5000 Series pros

"Reliable storage solution with an easy setup. It has high availability and makes single file restoration easy. It also has good stability and scalability."

"It is a scalable solution."

"We can manage our applications from a single dashboard."

"The most valuable feature for us is the combining of HA and SnapMirror."

"It has integrated snapshot and backup capability."

"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."

"It offers data compression and people management."

"It's enabled us to allow admins across the IT organization to more easily manage their own subset of data within our organization."

More NetApp FAS Series pros

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."

"IBM System Storage DS5000 is expensive when compared to other vendors."

"The product should improve its support."

"The initial setup is hard."

"Improving software installation and licensing retrieval would make using IBM System Storage DS5000 series easier for customers."

"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."

"IBM is not always as agile as other competitors when it is about cloud integration and user interfaces. They're not renewing themselves very often. They have been slow to evolve from the old GUI. The user interface should be improved, especially regarding performance analysis, which has always been a little bit weak as compared to other solutions. As a global solution, it lacks the feature for containing integration object storage. Even though they have now started to offer this feature, it is quite young and not as developed as some other vendors. There are also no mass possibilities at all. They have a lot of competition in the mid-range segment. They need to have a NAS gateway or something like that. It doesn't specifically need to be integrated into the controllers that are keys to the gateway."

More IBM System Storage DS5000 Series cons

"The adoption of the cloud in Argentina is very slow. Customers do not move most of their applications to the cloud. Moving applications is a simple task, but the cost is a concern in Argentina. There is an opportunity there for NetApp with Cloud Volumes ONTAP."

"Replication should ideally be part of the ONTAP base bundle."

"Cluster mode needs to be more ubiquitous."

"The high cost of the product is an area of concern, so from an improvement perspective, the tool needs to be made cheaper."

"The plan is to go with all SSDs and use MDM, rather than sticking with traditional disk drives. The goal is to have all SSDs for better maintenance speed, which is essential for applications that need to work."

"The solution could do more than just data."

"We are not able to connect to the support of NetApp from Sudan. We have to go through many agents for support, which makes it difficult."

"Installation of the additional switches and ETP could be improved."

More NetApp FAS Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"It is a competitively priced solution. The cost can vary depending on whether it is purchased from the hardware or the software departments."

"This product is priced well. The ratio between cost and productivity is very high and we're happy with it."

"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."

"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."

"Compared to other vendors, I think it's expensive."

"The NetApp FAS series price is very competitive compared to other solutions on the market it is a good choice."

"It is a one-time license charge for NetApp FAS Series to run and we pay annually for upgrades and support."

"The licensing cost is on yearly basis."

"The solution’s cost is reasonable."

"The solution is more expensive than other vendors."

"The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is reasonable for its performance."

"The tool is expensive."

"Low-priced product, but pricing could still be made more attractive."

More NetApp FAS Series pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Manufacturing Company

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	31
Midsize Enterprise	37
Large Enterprise	57

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM System Storage DS5000 Series?

The solution is reliable.

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 do you like most about NetApp FAS Series?

Flexibility in data replication.

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...

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Product Reports

IBM System Storage DS5000 Series

Download IBM System Storage DS5000 Series product report

NetApp FAS Series

Download NetApp FAS Series product report

Also Known As

System Storage DS5000 series

No data available

Overview

DS5000 storage systems are equally adept at supporting transactional applications such as databases and online transaction processing (OLTP), throughput-intensive applications such as high-performance computing (HPC) and rich media, and concurrent workloads for consolidation and virtualization. DS5000 series storage systems can support service level agreements (SLAs) for the most common operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, UNIX, Linux and Apple Macintosh.
With drive-level encryption, DS5000 series storage systems support affordable data security with no performance penalty. The DS5000 storage system’s multiple replication options, drive-level encryption, and persistent cache backup can help ensure that any data in cache is captured and safe in the event of a power outage.

IBM

NetApp FAS series is an enterprise-level storage system that provides a wide variety of data management services, including data protection, block and file storage, and data management.

NetApp FAS is designed to be highly scalable, allowing your organization to grow storage capacity on demand. NetApp FAS also supports multiple protocols, including NFS, SMB, iSCSI, and Fibre Channel, as well as various storage architectures, including SAN (Storage Area Network) and NAS (Network-Attached Storage).

The FAS series has multiple data protection and data management features, including snapshots, cloning, replication, and deduplication, to help secure your data and manage it more efficiently. The system integrates with other NetApp products and solutions, to create a unified data management platform. The system can be deployed on-premise, on multi-cloud environments, or hybrid.

NetApp FAS Series Benefits and Features

NetApp FAS series provides its users with several key benefits and features, including:

Scalability: NetApp FAS series is easy to scale, allowing organizations to rapidly grow their storage capacity according to demand.

Security: Protect and manage your data with various data protection and data management tools, including snapshots, cloning, replication, and deduplication.

Seamless integration: Integrate with other NetApp products and solutions to ensure a unified data management platform across on-premise, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments.

Reduced costs: Consolidation of multiple storage boxes greatly reduces the data center footprint. From a management point of view, with NetApp FAS you manage a single storage box instead of multiple storage boxes.
Compatibility: Forward and backward compatibility ensures that you don’t have to trade in existing controllers. New controllers can always integrate with previously released controllers.

Multi-protocol support: Support for multiple protocols, including NFS, SMB, iSCSI, and Fibre Channel.

High performance and availability: The solution has high input and output per second performance and ensures that critical data remains accessible in the event of a hardware failure.
Intuitive interface: The FAS series has a user-friendly interface and management dashboard, making it easy to manage your storage systems. With unified management, you can quickly run a single protocol on your entire system
Data cloning and replication: Easily clone databases of any size. Clones occupy a very, very small footprint on the storage until they are severed from the main database. Replications carried out by the system are fast and require very little bandwidth.

Reviews from Real Users

NetApp FAS Series stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its speed, reliability, and a wide variety of features.

Adriano S., IT project and infrastructure service manager, writes, “The replication feature is noteworthy because it's faster than most and it uses little bandwidth. Then there's the friendly interface that the equipment offers. With this interface, it is very easy to manage.”

Temitope O., a NetApp product manager at Hiperdist Ltd, says, “I like the unified management feature because sometimes you end up running a single protocol on the entire system. You rather have a system for a particular protocol and another system for other protocols, especially in a big environment like mine.”

NetApp

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

IBM System Storage DS5000 Series vs. NetApp FAS Series