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NEC D3 series vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

NEC D3 series
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
20th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp FAS Series
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (6th), NAS (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of NEC D3 series is 1.8%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 10.5%, down from 14.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NetApp FAS Series10.5%
NEC D3 series1.8%
Other87.7%
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1369971 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of IT at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
Stable, performs well, and the technical support is good
We use this storage solution to host our ERP, CRM, file server, databases, and lots of other things The performance is better than with our previous version. We are not satisfied with the cost of licensing and would like to have a better price to performance ratio. We have had contract-related…
GM
Analyst at Sutherland Global Services
Unified storage has protected critical data and supports smooth admin work for diverse workloads
In my experience with NetApp FAS Series, I found the CLI commands to be very valuable and easy to understand, unlike other storage products. I can use just the show command to see something, and it helps me narrow down issues quickly, which makes CLI easy for me. I use snapshot technology in NetApp FAS Series. The snapshot technology has helped me in data protection. For example, during an upgrade of our ONTAP version at my workplace, it did not reflect properly despite the upgrade being completed. I had a VMware snapshot from another team, and that was helpful for me to retrieve the data right after the failed upgrade. I use snapshots frequently, maintaining a snapshot policy of 28 days which allows me to help users retrieve files they are unable to access. In maintaining data integrity in my operations with RAID DP, I see that it helps me significantly. If two or more disks fail, it gives me time to work on replacements. If only one disk fails without RAID DP, I would lose data and connection, but with RAID DP, I have that time to act without losing or making data unavailable to users. The data management features of Data ONTAP are highly valuable for my organization in terms of data security and compliance. I have not experienced data loss or unavailability as I have SnapMirror, Snapshot, and SnapVault in place. This helped prevent escalations. While I faced some access issues or slowness, severe data loss has not been an issue, and I resolve issues within one to two hours with the data integrity these tools provide.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support from NEC is very good."
"The performance is better than with our previous version."
"I sleep well at night because of its redundancy."
"It has been pretty stable, and when we have issues, the support has been great as well."
"Fast Snapshots"
"I like that the NetApp FAS Series can use both SAN and NAS at the same time, and that's what most customers are looking for."
"NetApp FAS has provided an HA environment that has improved the up time of our entire infrastructure."
"NetApp's cloud-based PaaS has been a massive help for unstructured data."
"Good solution architects and deployment guys are available."
"The solution is very stable and reliable"
 

Cons

"We are not satisfied with the cost of licensing and would like to have a better price to performance ratio."
"There should be a separate admin web management for each SVM. We are currently managing all SVMs from a single admin interface, it is a problem."
"It lacks automatic tiering, When you use data, some of it goes cold. It is not hot data, so the system should automatically move that data to the SATA, while the hot data is kept on tier-one, the SaaS or SSD drives."
"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."
"Regarding the stability of NetApp FAS Series, I would rate it seven or seven point five because there are frequent panic messages."
"The user interface could be improved."
"One area that needs improvement is the hyper-converged solution. Although NetApp has a solution, compared to Nutanix, it falls short."
"The AutoSupport could be improved to be more proactive in certain cases."
"There is room for improvement in deployment and configuration processes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with ten being expensive. We pay a one-time purchase price."
"NetApp FAS Series' pricing is competitive."
"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 solution’s cost is reasonable."
"We purchased it for four years, and it wasn't expensive. It was reasonable. Every company has a different agreement with NetApp. We got everything we wanted with all the bells and whistles and all the features and functionalities."
"If we want a ransomware solution with the product or other extended features, we need to pay an extra cost."
"Cost effective storage for all performance levels (including all-flash)."
"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
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise59
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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?
Regarding its pricing, I believe it is high. I utilize both HDD and SSD, where SSDs are more cost-friendly, yet HDDs are higher in cost, making it not very affordable but still useful. For general ...
What needs improvement with NetApp FAS Series?
Regarding improvements for NetApp FAS Series, I think everything is generally good. If there is a need to improve something, they can extend their support. Previously, in my company, I only saw Net...
 

Also Known As

D3 series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tsukuba Science City, Hokkaido Telecommunication Network Co. Inc, PHP Institute
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 Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NetApp, IBM and others in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network). Updated: November 2026.
921,148 professionals have used our research since 2012.