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NetApp FAS Series vs Qumulo comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 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

NetApp FAS Series
Ranking in NAS
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (4th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (1st)
Qumulo
Ranking in NAS
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the NAS category, the mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 11.9%, down from 12.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qumulo is 6.6%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS
 

Featured Reviews

Paweł Jabłoński - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for VMs with replication a feature, but need upgraded SSDs
We use this solution. I configured and updated it. Of course, I was also a user of applications that store data on that storage. We already have an SSD solution. So, rather than planning to go with an SSD solution, we are focusing on expanding it. If a company wants to deploy something new, it should choose a product with SSD, and NVMe disks. Overall, I rate the solution a six out of ten.
VinceVitro - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful data sharing, simple cluster scaling, and excellent support
One aspect of Qumulo that I hoped to see improved was its software upgrade process, which did see significant progress during my usage. Initially, upgrading the software resulted in several minutes of system downtime. However, by the time I departed last summer, the downtime had reduced to mere ten seconds. Although I am unsure if Qumulo has yet achieved a completely outage-free upgrade, I simply performed the upgrades early in the morning before the marketing department began its workday, so any downtime was inconsequential.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Has rock solid reliability and is easy to use."
"The storage efficiency provided a maximum savings in our storage utilization."
"The support is very good."
"The most valuable feature of the NetApp FAS Series is its stability."
"For us, the greatest aspect of the solution is the fact that it just runs. It is amazingly resilient. That's very important to us, because we are basically, with some exceptions, have a 24/7 operation."
"The best feature is its ONTAP product line for Ransomware protection. It also has features for file storage and block storage. The solution is stable. We've had no issues with it. The tool is scalable and meets our requirements. The technical support and the supporting partner are great. The initial setup is straightforward. It is very easy to maintain the product. The feature set is excellent. I recommend the solution."
"You can use different protocols at the same time. Monitoring is also very easy in NetApp FAS Series. There is a free tool for monitoring."
"The product is flexible."
"The most valuable feature of Qumulo is the ability to share files and reliability."
"The most valuable features of Qumulo are its rolling updates and all-day availability."
"The feature that I like most is the analytics part of the file system."
"The most valuable features of Qumulo are the ease of management and special permissions that are quick to enable. The overall performance of the solution is good."
"The ratio of total operational cost to complexity versus feature set is very good."
"The data protection algorithm to protect the data between the nodes has been the most valuable feature. The integration with backup platforms such as Veeam and Veritas has also been valuable."
"It is a very stable product. I never faced any issues."
"The most valuable feature is real-time analytics."
 

Cons

"The WAFL is slow."
"The one aspect of the solution that's negative for us is also more unique to us due to the fact that we did a MetroCluster. The tiebreaker piece that does the monitoring of the two different locations, and determines if one is not talking to the network normally (or if it's truly down) is a little difficult. It feels like it was not designed from the beginning to fit well into the other pieces. It feels like it was thrown in at the last minute and it is not smooth."
"NetApp FAS Series should improve its price, which is expensive."
"NetApp FAS Series could improve by being more secure."
"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."
"It could be more flexible in terms of configuration."
"We are not able to connect to the support of NetApp from Sudan. We have to go through many agents for support, which makes it difficult."
"NetApp is costly when compared to Dell."
"Qumulo should continue to expand automation and orchestration capabilities."
"The price of the software is a bit expensive, so a reduction in cost would make it more competitive."
"In the next release, I would like to see the ability to have more control at a terminal level of the file system."
"The solution could improve availability and improve data protection or data services such as compression of deduplication. In a future release, we'd like to have more cloud API integrations."
"Some anti-theft permissions do not transfer well to Qumulo."
"In the future, I would like to see non-disruptive updates."
"One aspect of Qumulo that I hoped to see improved was its software upgrade process, which did see significant progress during my usage. Initially, upgrading the software resulted in several minutes of system downtime. However, by the time I departed last summer, the downtime had reduced to mere ten seconds. Although I am unsure if Qumulo has yet achieved a completely outage-free upgrade, I simply performed the upgrades early in the morning before the marketing department began its workday, so any downtime was inconsequential."
"The support for iMac and protocols should be improved, not all features are available."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are on a perpetual license."
"The scalability is pretty good, but it's too expensive."
"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."
"I don't recall the price, but in general, pricing can always be better."
"Cost effective storage for all performance levels (including all-flash)."
"We have considered upgrading to an All-Flash solution but when we evaluated the cost-benefit we discovered that we don't have enough money to invest in it. To maintain the same technology with All-Flash would be too expensive for us."
"The NetApp FAS series price is very competitive compared to other solutions on the market it is a good choice."
"NetApp FAS Series' pricing is competitive."
"The price of the solution is in the middle range compared to others. We look at the price per terabyte."
"The price of Qumulo is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
55%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about Qumulo?
The most valuable features of Qumulo are its rolling updates and all-day availability.
What needs improvement with Qumulo?
Initially, the failover was supposed to be implemented in Qumulo itself. This failed to happen mid-case, so we had to devise a middleman solution. It was not the cleanest of solutions, but we did g...
What is your primary use case for Qumulo?
We use Qumulo for end-user storage and some application storage as well.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College
County of Riverside Sheriff Department, Hyundai Mobis Automotive North America, University of Arizona, UCSD - San Diego Supercomputer Center, Medical College of Wisconsin, Sinclair Oil, Royal Dutch Shell, Kaiser Permanente, Deluxe Creative, Vexcel Imaging, University of Florida, The Madison Square Garden Company, Arizona State University, Cinesite, San Diego Padres Baseball, Johns Hopkins University - School of Medicine, IHME, EllieMae, Washington State University.
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp FAS Series vs. Qumulo and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.