Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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)
10th
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
7.1
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 XIV is 2.6%, up from 1.2% 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 XIV2.6%
Other84.3%
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

"As it spreads, a chuck of 1MB across the board means using all available spindles on the backend."
"Installation is amazingly easy."
"Hands down, this is the easiest storage platform on the market to manage."
"Very easy to produce reporting data (Snaps). Very easy and fast for provisioning devices and Remote mirroring."
"IBM XIV's most valuable features are NVME, especially when it comes to de-duplication, compression, and responsiveness."
"The performance and robustness of the systems are very good."
"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."
"A reliable and easily managed storage system is a key performance factor. The system also has more features than we require."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its absolute reliability."
"The tool's most valuable features are ease of use, ease of access, expandability, availability, and performance. NVMe drives have improved their performance."
"Compression of the backup Oracle by RMAN on NFS saves space 5:1."
"It's enabled us to allow admins across the IT organization to more easily manage their own subset of data within our organization."
"The migration of the volume on the cluster is very useful and easy to use."
"The replication feature protects us from data loss."
 

Cons

"IBM XIV's scalability is adequate for our requirements, but because it's modular, you can't scale to larger requirements."
"Until the drive is replaced, the pool_resizing is locked."
"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."
"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."
"I would rather have a web GUI served directly from the unit, and a CLI accessible directly through SSH."
"When we were going through all the MFA hardening and the anti-ransomware setup, I gave some feedback to our executive. The MFA process for getting that set up on the AFF systems was cumbersome compared to some of our other systems."
"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."
"The high cost of the product is an area of concern, so from an improvement perspective, the tool needs to be made cheaper."
"We no longer have OEM support in South Africa which is not helpful, it can be difficult. They should add an office back to the country because it was better."
"A big problem with physical appliances is that updating them can be a bit burdensome."
"It's hard to find in-person training that fits our schedule in our area. They offer a lot of online training, but we need somewhere to go because we can't really get away from the office."
"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."
"Regarding the stability of NetApp FAS Series, I would rate it seven or seven point five because there are frequent panic messages."
 

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."
"Licensing is straightforward."
"We have a five-year total cost of ownership where we pay an initial amount and then annually for maintenance."
"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."
"The product's pricing is reasonable."
"it’s not an inexpensive solution and it may not be for the cost-sensitive customer."
"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."
"When we need to implement a less expensive solution we use Huawei. NetApp FAS Series is a little bit expensive compared to the average of the market."
"The licensing cost is on yearly basis."
"I don't recall the price, but in general, pricing can always be better."
"Cost effective storage for all performance levels (including all-flash)."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) solutions are best for your needs.
880,490 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise37
Large Enterprise57
 

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?
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

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: December 2025.
880,490 professionals have used our research since 2012.