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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)
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
108
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd), NAS (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of IBM XIV is 1.2%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 17.7%, up from 16.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
 

Featured Reviews

Ajith Kandaramage - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Arnaud Salmon - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good performance and
Once, I've been in a program, but they stopped supporting protocols like HTTP, STP, and that kind of stuff. All of the DIP supports at the beginning were kind of support when it was just Python and just five storage. And it happened a few times that the customer required the STP and HTTP protocol for storage. And I was surprised I couldn't do it anymore with NetApp. So, it would be beneficial for them to support both kinds of protocols. The only little black points that I would put on top of NetApp FAS Series. There is room for improvement in deployment and configuration processes. The thing with ONTAP is that we have a lot of layers, from the raw disks to the volumes we present to servers and configure. There are quite a lot of things to configure. Probably NetApp should ease the way to install that. In NetApp products, such as ONTAP and FAS, a solid understanding of storage is still necessary to handle configurations in larger systems. It's not the same with Pure Storage or Huawei. Even someone less familiar with storage could manage it, making it more accessible.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Hands down, this is the easiest storage platform on the market to manage."
"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."
"Installation is amazingly easy."
"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."
"I would definitely recommend NetApp FAS Series to other users because it's stable and really handy for IT personnel who manage it."
"One important feature for customers is its ease of use and continuity, enabling seamless usage across on-premise and cloud environments."
"Ability to use mirroring and SnapVault have made backup no longer necessary."
"Snapshot, deduplication, and compression features are valuable."
"End-users like that they can rely on the Snapshot technology so they can do their restores themselves."
"It offers data compression and people management."
"Fast Snapshots"
"NetApp FAS is highly stable and reliable, especially under a heavy load. That is what I like most about the NetApp."
 

Cons

"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."
"I would rather have a web GUI served directly from the unit, and a CLI accessible directly through SSH."
"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."
"NetApp FAS Series could improve by being more secure."
"Installation of the additional switches and ETP could be improved."
"Cost is always a factor. Some people choose EMC or Dell because they perceive NetApp as being more expensive."
"The high cost of the product is an area of concern, so from an improvement perspective, the tool needs to be made cheaper."
"A big problem with physical appliances is that updating them can be a bit burdensome."
"NetApp FAS Series should introduce an FTP application for the broadcast and post-production market."
"It could be more flexible in terms of configuration."
"NetApp could improve costs while making the solution more straightforward to use and deploy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"It is expensive."
"NetApp FAS Series could be less expensive."
"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."
"Most storage vendors also have software, or licensing bundles, which may offer the required licenses considerably cheaper, but do also maybe offer licenses, which are not needed."
"We are on a perpetual license."
"The solution’s cost is reasonable."
"The product is on the expensive side."
"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
Educational Organization
26%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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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: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.