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NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs iDrive comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

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

iDrive
Ranking in Cloud Backup
23rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP
Ranking in Cloud Backup
10th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (1st), Cloud Storage (1st), Public Cloud Storage Services (5th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Cloud Backup category, the mindshare of iDrive is 0.8%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is 0.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Backup
 

Featured Reviews

Jose Francisco Rosario - PeerSpot reviewer
A reliable platform with good encryption process for data security
Setting up iDrive is straightforward and easy. The local software can be installed after setting up everything in the cloud. The deployment process can take a few hours or more depending on the complexity of the structure you want to create. Integrating iDrive into our ecosystem was not complex. I handled the deployment process by myself and did not need much workforce for deployment. Our IT technicians handle all implementations and changes. The maintenance process for iDrive is smooth, but often faces challenges in terms of sensitivity to internet bandwidth variations. If there's a large variation, it might pause the backup process. But in such cases, the notifications keep us updated as it is very swift and reliable.
Madhusudan Srinivasmurthy - PeerSpot reviewer
Saves us a lot of time, and the administration is simpler
NetApp's Integration with AWS has helped us because we had a tough time transferring data when we used an ONTAP competitor as our storage partner. They don't have integration with AWS tools, so we had to figure it out on our own. ONTAP has built-in integration and allows us to replicate a copy to our second data center. Everything is in one channel. It's possible without the technology, but it's more time-consuming. NetApp saves us a lot of time, and the administration is simpler.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"iDrive will keep up to 30 versions of a file."
"The encryption process is the most useful part of using iDrive for data security. I also use the background backup feature which helps me to clone and conduct computer backup. These features are very reliable, especially when restoring images from damaged servers. But I don't use the real-time backup feature; I always use the scheduled backup."
"We use the mirroring to mirror our volumes to our DR location. We also create snapshots for backups. Snapshots will create a specified snapshot to be able to do a DR test without disrupting our standard mirrors. That means we can create a point-in-time snapshot, then use the ability of FlexClones to make a writeable volume to test with, and then blow it away after the DR test."
"NetApp's XCP Migration Tool... was pretty awesome. It replicated the data faster than any other tool that I've seen. That was a big help."
"ONTAP is great for helping you migrate on-premise workflows to cloud environments."
"The ability to do a straight SnapMirror from our on-prem to the cloud with no other data transitions is excellent."
"One thing I have noticed is that it is very simple to move the data where we need to move it, delete it, or archive it if we need to archive it to StorageGRID."
"One of the features our customers like is that it can be used from one cloud provider to another. They can use it from Azure to AWS or vice versa. That way, they don't need to use the same provider for backups. If something goes wrong on the primary site, having the same data in another cloud service provider is important."
"Another feature which gets a lot of attention in our environment is the File Services Solutions in the cloud, because it's a completely, fully-managed service. We don't have to take care of any updates, upgrades, or configurations."
"This solution has made everything easier to do."
 

Cons

"I’ve had issues like the scheduler mysteriously erasing my settings. I have to babysit it."
"The disadvantage of using real-time backup in iDrive is that it significantly impacts server performance, causing considerable speed issues. The archiving process needs improvement along with the management of bandwidth and CPU. There should also be more options for creating conditions to manage the workload of the environment, making the system easier to balance."
"I would like to see more aggressive management of the aggregate space. On the Cloud Volumes ONTAP that we use for offsite backup copies, most of the data sits in S3. There are also the EBS volumes on the Cloud Volumes ONTAP itself. Sometimes what happens is that the aggregate size just stays the same. If it allocates 8 terabytes initially, it just stays at 8 terabytes for a long time, even though we're only using 20 percent of that 8 terabytes. NetApp could undersize that more aggressively."
"When Azure does their maintenance, they do maintenance on one node at a time. With the two nodes of the CVO, it can automatically fail over from one node to the node that is staying up. And when the first node comes back online, it will fail back to the first node. We have had issues with everything failing back 100 percent correctly."
"The encryption and deduplication features still have a lot of room for improvement."
"How it handles erasure coding. I feel it the improvement should be there. Basically, it should be seamless. You don't want to have an underlying hardware issue or something, then suddenly there's no reads or writes. Luckily, it's at a replication site, so our main production site is still working and writing to it. But, the replication site has stopped right now while we try to bring that node back. Since we implemented in bare-metal, not in appliance, we had to go back to the original vendor. They didn't send it in time, and we had a hardware memory issue. Then, we had a hard disk issue, which brought the node down physically."
"The data tiering needs improvement. E.g., moving hard data to faster disks."
"I would like to see better integration with Active IQ."
"I would like NetApp to come up with an easier setup for the solution."
"I think the challenge now is more in terms of keeping an air gap. The notion that it is in the cloud, easy to break, etc. The challenge now is mostly about the air gap and how we can protect that in the cloud."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"According to our evaluation done five to seven years ago, iDrive is cheap and it covers a lot of our needs."
"Our licensing is based on a yearly subscription. That is an additional cost, but because of the storage efficiencies that the NetApp gives, even with the additional cost of the NetApp license, you still end up saving money versus straight Azure native for storage. It's definitely worth it."
"If a customer is only using, say, less than 10 terabytes, I don't think CVO would be a good option. A customer using at least 100 or 200 terabytes should get a reasonable price from NetApp."
"In addition to the standard licensing fees, there are fees for Azure, the VMs themselves and for data transfer."
"Some flexibility around the licensing model would help. The product is licensed based on capacity. Basically, the largest capacity license that you can buy is 368 terabytes. At this point, NetApp is addressing some people's concerns around this."
"The standard pricing is online. Pricing depends. If you're using the PayGo model, then it's just the normal costs on the Microsoft page. If you're using Bring Your Own License, which is what we're doing, then you get with your sales contact at NetApp and start figuring out what price is the best, in the end, for your company."
"Once we deploy the pay as you go model, we cannot convert this product as a BYOL model. This is a concern that we have."
"They give us a good price for CVO licenses. It is one of the reasons that we went with the product."
"Our licensing costs are folded into the hardware purchases and I have never differentiated between the two."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Educational Organization
47%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iDrive?
The pricing’s really good for the amount of backup space you get. I get five terabytes. I think it’s, like, eighty bucks a year, something like that.
What needs improvement with iDrive?
I’ve had some issues with iDrive. I don’t have an updated version of Windows, so that might have something to do with it. I’m running a 2018 version of Windows 10, and I haven’t had any issues with...
What is your primary use case for iDrive?
We have a wide variation of use cases.
What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?
So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the license consumption and also the consumption of the underlying cloud storage.
 

Also Known As

No data available
ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. BMW  2. Audi  3. Mercedes-Benz  4. Volkswagen  5. Ford  6. General Motors  7. Toyota 8. Honda  9. Nissan  10. Hyundai  11. Kia  12. Volvo  13. Jaguar Land Rover  14. Porsche  15. Subaru  16. Mazda  17. Mitsubishi  18. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles  19. Tesla  20. Peugeot  21. Renault  22. Citroën  23. Skoda  24. Seat  25. Mini  26. Bentley  27. Rolls-Royce  28. Lamborghini 29. Aston Martin  30. Ferrari  31. Maserati  32. Alfa Romeo
1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. iDrive and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.