We performed a comparison between NetApp FAS Series and NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) came out ahead of NetApp FAS Series. Although both products have similar deployment difficulty and quality of support, NetApp FAS Series has fewer valuable features and should move towards adopting more all-flash capabilities.
"The initial setup is very straightforward. You simply plug it in and turn it on."
"Having an intuitive user interface to get things running is great."
"The most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray is the complete set of functions it provides."
"I like the speed, and I like the API and how programmable it is."
"I have seen a huge increase in speed and performance on our databases."
"The most valuable feature of the Pure Storage Flash Array is the blazing fast monitoring."
"The first year, we started out with one or five terabytes and it took what was 20 terabytes of storage down to less than one terabyte."
"Its array houses our entire production environment."
"It's very stable. It's always there when we need it. With the Dual Controller, if one drops out, the other one comes right online. We don't use any iSCSI so there is a little bit of a latency break but, over the NFS, we don't notice that switch-on. We can do maintenance in the middle of the day, literally rip a whole controller out of the chassis, and do what we need to do with it."
"Our architecture has historically relied on RDMs, so AFF has enabled us to easily migrate from our old EMC PowerMax to the new NetApp. It's been pretty smooth. We have a lot of SAP servers in our environment, so performance is critical for us."
"Using System Manager for green management or command line interface, we have a single point for managing the cluster. It is much easier to manage. It is very seamless. The product is robust and solid."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is data protection and snapshot technology for backup."
"AFF has opened our eyes in a different light of how storage value works. In the past, we looked at it more as just a container where we could just dump our customer dBms and let the customers use it in terms of efficiency. Today, to be able to replicate that data to a different location, use that data to recover your environment or be able to have the flexibility with the solution and data. These are things which piqued our interest. It's something that we're willing to provide as a solution to our customers."
"It impacts customer retention because of its overall ease. When you are running a business, where time is a factor, that is the biggest selling point. Things happen really rapidly, when they happen, and being able to say, "Yeah, we can get this up and running in a day, if you want," or even less time in some cases. Sometimes, that can be what makes or breaks our case."
"Its consistent stability is one of the things that I like, and the performance is also very good."
"The file-based protocol supports NFS and CIFS."
"The most valuable feature of the NetApp FAS Series is its stability."
"The storage efficiency provided a maximum savings in our storage utilization."
"The file sharing feature is most valuable."
"It is very easy to expand disks and manage CIFS."
"Good for NAS and unified solutions."
"The most valuable features are the NAS features and NetApp's excellent support."
"The strong point is that our clients like this are RadLV (Radiology Low-Value). They also use SnapMirror and MetroCluster."
"It has a very good implementation of the Active Directory services, so implementation into a Windows network is easy."
"With scalability, I have run into a little problem with our last upgrade. There were some undocumented limitations to the number of drives that our controller could run on. So, instead of putting in a new data pack as we had anticipated, we had to keep adding and removing to get up to the capacity that we needed to be. What should have been a one day process (or a few hours) turned into a month and a half process."
"The number of Filesystems is limited, which it is not on the EMC VNX."
"The data reduction that we had initially anticipated when we bought Pure and we move over, is way lower than the expected reduction. It depends on the workloads, of course. But that has been a challenge at times."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve by being more secure."
"Its price could be cheaper. It is not the cheapest one out there, but I'm not directly involved in the figures and negotiations."
"Automation could be simplified."
"It was a little costly. The price was ultimately higher than both of the other solutions that we evaluated. I'd say that's the only downside."
"We would like to see more cloud support, which we know is coming, although it's not out yet. It's going to be released in the next versions. That would be the biggest win, if additional cloud support is built into the array."
"Tech support is a place where there is room to improve the product experience. The response time when they are busy is not very good."
"On the fiber channel side, there is a limit of sixteen terabytes on each line, and we would like to see this raised because we are having to use some other products."
"It has not reduced our data center costs. NetApp charges a pretty penny for their stuff."
"Cleaning up false positives on alerts. We get a lot of those."
"Going forward, I would like more performance analytics on it, on the area itself, instead of using some other tool."
"They should make these features a little more affordable."
"In terms of improvement, the support could be a little better."
"When comparing with Pure for example, with Pure you have no maintenance anymore and with NetApp, you still need maintenance."
"The solution could do more than just data."
"NetApp needs to put its OS on a microchip rather than on disks."
"The user interface could be improved."
"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."
"Needs to add wizards for newer, inexperienced users."
"NetApp FAS Series should improve its price, which is expensive."
"They should add new features to the product."
"The product should improve its user experience."
NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 280 reviews while NetApp FAS Series is ranked 5th in Deduplication Software with 98 reviews. NetApp AFF is rated 9.0, while NetApp FAS Series is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of NetApp AFF writes "Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp FAS Series writes "Offers good performance and ". NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, VMware vSAN and VAST Data, whereas NetApp FAS Series is most compared with Dell PowerScale (Isilon), HPE StorageWorks MSA, Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain), IBM FlashSystem and HPE StoreEasy. See our NetApp AFF vs. NetApp FAS Series report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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