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IBM XIV 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 XIV
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
6
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 (4th), NAS (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of IBM XIV is 3.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 10.7%, down from 17.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NetApp FAS Series10.7%
IBM XIV3.6%
Other85.7%
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
 

Featured Reviews

Ajith Kandaramage - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Operation Engineer at HNB
Good value for money but issues with modular scaling
IBM XIV's most valuable features are NVME, especially when it comes to de-duplication, compression, and responsiveness I've been using IBM XIV for two and a half years. IBM XIV is stable. IBM XIV's scalability is adequate for our requirements, but because it's modular, you can't scale to larger…
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

"Very easy to produce reporting data (Snaps). Very easy and fast for provisioning devices and Remote mirroring."
"As it spreads, a chuck of 1MB across the board means using all available spindles on the backend."
"IBM XIV is attractive because it gives value for money in terms of features."
"XIV setup is very straightforward and easy to configure."
"Installation is amazingly easy."
"Implementing Remote mirroring and local Snaps is very easy."
"IBM XIV's most valuable features are NVME, especially when it comes to de-duplication, compression, and responsiveness."
"Hands down, this is the easiest storage platform on the market to manage."
"It's enabled us to allow admins across the IT organization to more easily manage their own subset of data within our organization."
"I would recommend it to anyone."
"For us, the greatest aspect of the solution is the fact that it just runs."
"The biggest advantage that makes NetApp FAS Series better is that we can use RAID technology on the storage."
"It is good to have a unified storage where you can have block and file level protocols."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its absolute reliability."
"Other products lose performance over time, but NetApp OS is speed-optimized."
"They have really good customer service."
 

Cons

"I encountered stability (performance) issues during enclosure or disk rebuild. Also some power supply issues due to malfunctions of ​circuits. Sometimes "internal" Snap sessions hang and consume pool capacity."
"Until the drive is replaced, the pool_resizing is locked. This has been an issue a lot of times, especially when the contract says IBM will not replace disks until three drives fail."
"Management accessibility. Both the GUI and the CLI require installation of a Java-based thick client, which is ridiculous, plus a drain on resources."
"I would rather have a web GUI served directly from the unit, and a CLI accessible directly through SSH."
"I guess we'd like to see the XIV keep pace with how storage is going in terms of speed and latency."
"This product was not a good fit for our organization as we have a ton of latency sensitive applications and XIV was not able to keep up with IO + latency demand."
"The change form synchronous mirroring to asynchronous (and vice versa) without reconfiguration from scratch would be helpful."
"IBM XIV's scalability is adequate for our requirements, but because it's modular, you can't scale to larger requirements."
"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."
"Dedicated storage efficiency accelerators could improve the overall performance of the system."
"Installation of the additional switches and ETP could be improved."
"Regarding the stability of NetApp FAS Series, I would rate it seven or seven point five because there are frequent panic messages."
"Cost is always a factor. Some people choose EMC or Dell because they perceive NetApp as being more expensive."
"I'll give technical support a "good" rating because sometimes it's slow in getting people to respond, other times it's okay."
"The performance needs to be improved."
"I would like to see an improvement in the licensing on Data Mirroring (SnapMirror) features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you are going to use the product behind an SVC, IBM will price the units lower, since you are likely not to use any of the advanced copy services."
"We have a five-year total cost of ownership where we pay an initial amount and then annually for maintenance."
"Licensing is straightforward."
"No-license-required policy, unlike others where you need a license for everything. Just pay once and forget about licenses."
"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 focus on storage only, which is really good; it works."
"It is expensive."
"I've sold arrays for as little $20,000 USD and as high as $300,000 USD."
"The solution is more expensive than other vendors."
"The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is reasonable for its performance."
"it’s not an inexpensive solution and it may not be for the cost-sensitive customer."
"The licensing cost is on yearly basis."
"The only area that could be improved is to lower prices for their All Flash FAS."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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?
I do not handle the pricing part of NetApp FAS Series since it is managed by the sales team.
What needs improvement with NetApp FAS Series?
There is room for improvement when it comes to response time and first-level support quality. If a new feature needs to be added, it takes some time because it is altogether a new development; othe...
 

Also Known As

XIV
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Celero, NaviSite, Technische Universit_t Mªnchen, Netflix Inc., Muhr und Bender KG, Pelephone Communications
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 XIV vs. NetApp FAS Series and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,495 professionals have used our research since 2012.