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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
7.0
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (4th), NAS (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of IBM XIV is 3.2%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 12.3%, down from 18.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NetApp FAS Series12.3%
IBM XIV3.2%
Other84.5%
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

"Implementing Remote mirroring and local Snaps is very easy."
"Installation is amazingly easy."
"IBM XIV is attractive because it gives value for money in terms of features."
"The product is exceptionally reliable and very easy to manage."
"XIV setup is very straightforward and easy to configure."
"For us, the XIV is pretty much set-it-and-forget-it storage."
"The XIVs here are only being used for non-production and dev systems, but still the performance and robustness of the systems are very good."
"IBM XIV's most valuable features are NVME, especially when it comes to de-duplication, compression, and responsiveness."
"By using the NetApp FAS series solution organizations are able to reduce the power, cooling, and space required which reduces the overall cost of operations."
"The product is user-friendly and helps to evaluate the performance of each node. It ensures that if one node encounters an issue, the system can immediately redistribute the workload without interruptions. This setup provides uninterrupted operation for our systems."
"The solution is stable."
"It's a stable product. No issues there."
"I would advise them to go with NetApp because it's unified storage, it supports both NAS and SAN environments, so whether you're doing block storage or you're doing file storage, it is a good solution."
"The integration with cloud environments has benefited my customers' storage strategy by providing cloud volume ONTAP."
"The performance allows me to provide backend storage for large number of VMs and databases at a competitive price point."
"The NetApp FAS Series has helped simplify our infrastructure."
 

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."
"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."
"The change form synchronous mirroring to asynchronous (and vice versa) without reconfiguration from scratch would be helpful."
"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."
"Management accessibility. Both the GUI and the CLI require installation of a Java-based thick client, which is ridiculous, plus a drain on resources."
"IBM XIV's scalability is adequate for our requirements, but because it's modular, you can't scale to larger requirements."
"I guess we'd like to see the XIV keep pace with how storage is going in terms of speed and latency."
"Its operating system is very cumbersome. However, after you set it up, it runs pretty smoothly. Its file system is not very dynamic. It is very static."
"Needs to add wizards for newer, inexperienced users."
"I get caught in the upgrade matrix quite a bit, which is an indication that it hasn’t been tested."
"The product should include an audit log feature."
"I think this kind of infrastructure is mostly obsolete. To keep up with developments in this space, you need to move all these features to an All-Flash solution."
"The main area for improvement for NetApp FAS Series is price. Unfortunately, in India, NetApp price clearance takes longer than EMC."
"Dedicated storage efficiency accelerators could improve the overall performance of the system."
"One of the issues that we have had with NetApp in upgrading over the years is that migrating data from one system to another is one-way only."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Licensing is straightforward."
"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."
"Cost effective storage for all performance levels (including all-flash)."
"The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is reasonable for its performance."
"The scalability is pretty good, but it's too expensive."
"NetApp FAS Series' pricing is competitive."
"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with ten being expensive. We pay a one-time purchase price."
"It is a moderately low-priced platform."
"In general, I find NetApp to be very expensive. That's the main issue I have with them. So it's a drawback in terms of pricing."
"There are products available in market with comparatively lower costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

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.
 

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: March 2026.
885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.