NetApp FAS Series vs VNX [EOL] comparison

Why PeerSpot?

NetApp and Dell Technologies are both solutions in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category. Additionally, 96% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Dell Technologies users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between NetApp FAS Series and VNX [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM and others in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network).

To learn more, read our detailed Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Report (Updated: October 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

October 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 916,197 peers since 2012

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

Everpure FlashArray

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV

Technical Lead at Wipro Limited

Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades

The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.

Read full review

Geetha Mai A G

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.

Read full review

Alireza Zabihi

Works at AIT

The Nimble CS-Series has proven to be reliable with 100% uptime

When we started the process of looking for a SAN vendor I had four primary criteria: reliability, performance, cost, and simplicity. We were really looking for a unicorn and were fully expected to have to make compromises in one of those areas. The Nimble CS-Series was recommended by our solutions provider, and we were blown away. Not only was it the most affordable option, but it was the easiest to deploy, had the best performance, and has proven to be reliable with 100% uptime.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If I want a product which has reliability and high speed, and Pure Storage is the first name that comes out of my mouth."

"This solution has improved our organization. In the past, we had reports that were taking up to two hours and after switching to SSD storage the overall processing power dropped to half an hour. The end users saw an immediate performance gain."

"It gives us capacity planning."

"It does efficient work of storing data while still delivering the performance that you would normally expect from a higher priced solution."

"The dashboard is nice. It is easy to manage compared to other storage solutions such as Dell EMC."

"The predictive performance analytics is a very good feature, as our system is performing better than before."

"It helps simplify storage. When you're running Pure all-flash, you don't have to do a lot of the old Oracle best practices. You don't have to worry about putting log files on a different disk channel than the data files, and those types of issues... That has made it vastly easier to do large volumes, rapid provisioning in databases, without taking a performance hit."

"NVMe data storage platform that's easy to set up and easy to use. It's stable, with a lower response time, and quick technical support."

More Everpure FlashArray pros

"The replication feature protects us from data loss."

"Reliability performance level, great history with it, and over the last two and a half years, it's been better than others."

"NetApp FAS is highly stable and reliable, especially under a heavy load. That is what I like most about the NetApp."

"My advice for anyone who is considering NetApp FAS is that it is a good product and our only real complaint is the lack of technical support."

"It is very easy to expand disks and manage CIFS."

"Doing more with less. I can do multiple protocols, storage efficiency, data protection tool, everything is in one solution/ecosystems."

"The most valuable features are compression and dedupe."

"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."

More NetApp FAS Series pros

"Technical support is fast and always fixes the issues."

"Customer service is top-notch with a dedicated sales and technical resource who are familiar with your environment and spend a lot of time understanding your business needs."

"It is very stable even during multiple power failures."

"EMC storage has the best performance and functions."

"FAST auto-tiering is a great feature."

"The replication feature provides another functionality to protect your data."

"Customer Service: It's great. Technical Support: It's great."

"It is a great product: scalable, reliable, and robust."

More VNX [EOL] pros

Cons

"I have been primarily working with storage and have not fully explored other areas, but there is some room for improvement when it comes to performance reporting."

"There are many features which need to be added, particularly on the replication side."

"We would like to see more development on their Copy Automation Tool (CAT) for Oracle, as well as better integration for our customers running Oracle VM."

"The internal garbage collection process has been fixed recently in some OS updates so it is more efficient but that could be just a little better."

"We ran into some issues with the program at first and we had to work around those issues to fix our problems."

"We've had it in place for about a year and a half and have had zero complaints, other than that box-to-box replication is not encrypted."

"The system has dual controllers but does not have a high level of resiliency built-in."

"We do have an issue with the vCenter integration. Pure Storage says it has a lot of free space, but vCenter says its completely full. This is because their dedupes are saved as space, but Vcenter still detects the disk as completely full. So, we do have an issue with that."

More Everpure FlashArray cons

"The solution can improve on the replication features."

"Between NetApp and HP, we chose HP because the NetApp support is not very good."

"The product must support more drives."

"It could be more flexible in terms of configuration."

"Our major issue with FAS was not having one pane of glass with all products attached to it."

"Its licensing cost can be improved."

"A big problem with physical appliances is that updating them can be a bit burdensome."

"Sometimes there are bugs with firmware upgrades."

More NetApp FAS Series cons

"There were scalability issues, the scalability options are limited due to supported SSD."

"We actually had data loss from too many simultaneous drive failures on the 7500."

"EMC pricing is too expensive, like the Apple brand iPhone in the cellphone market."

"Yes, we have had issues. The system is limited by the number of enclosures."

"The administrative console (Navisphere/Unisphere) needs some improvement, especially on their Java-based GUI. The updated version of Java is not compatible."

"EMC wasn't able to fix the issue, so they had to stop using snapshots."

"HP EVA and once NetApp, but they both had slow performance and a lack of features so we switched."

"Customer Service: I don't like the way EMC's Powerlink support is behind a wall."

More VNX [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cost-effective because after buying a subscription, they provide a service to upgrade hardware for free. They are providing so many features. When you consider the features provided, it is cost-effective."

"While more expensive than NetApp, Pure Storage FlashArray offers superior performance that often justifies the higher cost and adds value overall."

"Pure Storage has not helped to reduce our HANA licensing costs."

"For us, as the customer, it reduced the price of the management."

"We consume it as a service, and that's actually something we really like, or at least I really like from the technical perspective. That's because it means there is no hassle when we need to upgrade arrays to add capacity. We just interact directly with technical counterparts, and we say, "Hey, we're filling up," and they say, "All right, here's another data pack." They ship it in, and we install it. So, the as-a-service model has worked very well. Given the outstanding data reduction rates, it has improved our profitability because we're selling allocated volumes as part of the cloud service or recovering those costs from our tenants. It is very efficient, but that has offset the premium price. It started out that way, but over time, as we've added capacity, the price per gig has gone down a lot because we have a lot of it."

"The price, in general, is around $100,000, however, I know it costs more."

"When we bought the unit, we bought per capacity. So, the licensing is per capacity, and the only thing that we have to buy every year or every three years is maintenance. Included in that maintenance is the upgrade of the controllers every three years at no cost to us."

"We lost a lot of customers because we couldn't compete on price with other vendors."

More Everpure FlashArray pricing and cost advice

"NetApp FAS Series is a reasonably high-priced solution, partially because we select the configuration that duplicates the entire system."

"The product's pricing is reasonable."

"The licensing cost is on yearly basis."

"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've sold arrays for as little $20,000 USD and as high as $300,000 USD."

"It is a one-time license charge for NetApp FAS Series to run and we pay annually for upgrades and support."

"The NetApp FAS series price is very competitive compared to other solutions on the market it is a good choice."

"The scalability is pretty good, but it's too expensive."

More NetApp FAS Series pricing and cost advice

"Pricing is somewhat higher, especially in Zambia, perhaps due to the low sales volume."

"While EMC tends to be on the expensive side, the stability and support of their products are top-notch and I feel are worth the cost."

"Reducing dependency on JavaServer Pages (JSP) could improve the administrative overhead."

"The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable. Yearly EMC is more expensive."

"Over time, VNX has become pricier than its competitors, and we have turned enthusiastically to Unity."

"Make sure you understand how the licensing works and that you are getting the right set of licenses if you need array-to-array replication."

"The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable, the yearly EMC is more expensive"

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

916,197 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Outsourcing Company

Construction Company

17%

Outsourcing Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	73
Midsize Enterprise	38
Large Enterprise	160

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	31
Midsize Enterprise	38
Large Enterprise	59

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	23

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?

Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?

I find the pricing of Everpure FlashArray to be quite high compared to other storage solutions; however, the reliabil...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?

I believe we have covered the most important features; the architecture of Pure Storage is essential, and features su...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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 som...

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

NetApp AFF vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 10% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 10% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 7% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 6% of the time

VAST Data vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 6% of the time

More Everpure FlashArray Competitors

Dell PowerScale vs NetApp FAS Series

Compared 21% of the time

Qumulo vs NetApp FAS Series

Compared 4% of the time

HPE MSA vs NetApp FAS Series

Compared 4% of the time

HPE StoreOnce vs NetApp FAS Series

Compared 4% of the time

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain vs NetApp FAS Series

Compared 3% of the time

More NetApp FAS Series Competitors

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs VNX [EOL]

Compared 23% of the time

HPE MSA vs VNX [EOL]

Compared 23% of the time

Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance vs VNX [EOL]

Compared 21% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs VNX [EOL]

Compared 17% of the time

More VNX [EOL] Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Everpure FlashArray

October 2026

Download Everpure FlashArray product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp FAS Series

September 2026

Download NetApp FAS Series product report

Buyer's Guide

VNX [EOL]

September 2026

Download VNX [EOL] product report

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray

No data available

VNX

Overview

The FlashArray family delivers consistent, high-performance data services across block, file, and object workloads. As part of the Everpure Platform, it provides the foundation for a unified data plane, enabling applications to reliably access, protect, and manage data across environments with simplicity and predictability. With built-in capabilities such as inline data reduction, snapshots, replication, and ransomware resilience, FlashArray ensures efficient operations, protected data, and consistent application uptime.

As the foundation of the (unified) data plane, FlashArray enables policy-driven automation, monitoring, and centralized management while integrating across cloud and on-premises environments. Built on an Evergreen architecture, it supports non-disruptive upgrades and continuous performance improvements over time while simplifying operations at scale.

What Key Features Does FlashArray Offer?

Simplicity and Speed: Easy management and rapid performance enhancements.
Data Reduction: Effective deduplication and compression.
Flash Architecture: Seamless upgrades and outstanding resilience.
VMware Integration: Excellent compatibility with virtualization platforms.
Predictive Analytics: Strong insights for proactive management.

What Benefits Should Users Consider?

Reliability: Proactive support with minimal downtime.
Efficiency: Reduced storage footprint and enhanced data management.
Performance: Faster processing speeds and low latency.
User Experience: Simplified management with Evergreen model.

In industries like finance, banking, and healthcare, FlashArray supports high-performance storage needs focusing on virtualization and database environments. Employed for VMware workloads, disaster recovery, and storage provisioning, it ensures application performance in private or hybrid cloud setups while enhancing management of virtualized environments.

Everpure (formerly Pure Storage)

NetApp FAS Series offers high availability and seamless protocol integration. Known for its robust features such as data replication and efficient storage architecture, it finds use in challenging enterprise environments and virtualization.

NetApp FAS Series delivers valuable enterprise storage capabilities with an emphasis on unified storage architectures supporting SAN and NAS functionalities. Features like high availability, robust snapshot technology, and seamless protocol integration cater to diverse workloads. Data replication through SnapMirror and reliable performance under heavy loads are appreciated. Deduplication and compression enhance storage efficiency while scalability, resilience, and strong customer support further its appeal. Improvements are desired in flexibility, documentation, speed, and affordability. Additionally, its monitoring capabilities and cloud integration need attention. Organizations employ FAS Series for enterprise storage, SQL Server LUNs, Exchange LUNs, VMware, and corporate file sharing.

What are the most notable features of NetApp FAS Series?

High Availability: Ensures continuous access and reduces downtime.
Snapshot Technology: Offers point-in-time copies for data recovery.
SnapMirror: Provides efficient data replication for disaster recovery.
Storage Efficiency: Deduplication and compression optimize storage use.
Cloud Integration: Enhances flexibility with cloud environments.

What benefits should be examined in reviews?

Scalability: Supports expanding storage needs without performance loss.
Reliability: Maintains robust performance under heavy workloads.
Strong Support: Access to helpful customer service resources.
Cost Efficiency: Consider value in context of feature set and performance.

In industries such as finance and healthcare, NetApp FAS Series is implemented for centralized data management, supporting complex protocols like NFS, CIFS, and iSCSI. This enables efficient handling of virtualization, databases, unified storage tasks, and backup solutions crucial for maintaining unstructured data and redundancy.

NetApp

With EMC VNX you'll have the right blend of flash, capacity, and application-aware software. Scale up storage for midrange workloads, optimized for virtual applications and cloud environments.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas

Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College

Samsonite, Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Kindred Healthcare

Buyer's Guide

Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

October 2026

Download Free Report

Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM and others in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network). Updated: October 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

916,197 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our list of best Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) vendors and best All-Flash Storage vendors.

We monitor all Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.