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NetApp AFF pros and cons

Vendor: NetApp

4.5 out of 5

314 reviews
98% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

NetApp AFF offers exceptional speed and performance for transactional workloads with efficient deduplication and compression. Its high availability and scalability allow seamless expansion, though improvements in firmware and compatibility are needed. Pricing considerations may impact budgets, while technical support requires enhancement in response times. Security features such as multi-factor authentication and ransomware protection need strengthening. Despite these challenges, NetApp’s support enhances user experience by providing reliable assistance.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

NetApp AFF is praised for its exceptional speed and performance, particularly with transactional workloads and databases.

The system's deduplication, compression, and thin provisioning capabilities lead to substantial storage efficiency and space savings.

High availability features, including MetroCluster, provide robust business continuity and minimal latency.

NetApp AFF's scalability is admired, with the ability to expand seamlessly and manage large-scale deployments effectively.

The support offered by NetApp is highly valued, with timely assistance and reliable technical support enhancing user experience.

CONS

Improvements in firmware issues and scalability are needed for better performance.

Compatibility matrix could be enhanced for seamless integration with other systems.

NetApp AFF pricing is considered high, impacting expansion and budget planning.

Technical support from NetApp needs significant improvements, particularly in response times and knowledge transfer.

NetApp AFF should enhance security features, including multi-factor authentication and ransomware protection.

NetApp AFF Pros review quotes

Service Design Engineering at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Nov 1, 2016

The most valuable features are the speed and performance for our transactional workloads for our databases.

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Senior Architect at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees

Oct 4, 2017

Deduplication

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Lead Storage Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Oct 4, 2017

The in-line dedupe, and the compaction saves us a lot of space because most of our AFFs house VMware VMDK files.

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Data Analyst at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 8, 2017

Performance. Mostly with our default settings it's good. All of the factory settings are fine. We don't have to tune it.

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Systems Administrator at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 8, 2017

I would say the consistency with the ONTAP versions and the speed and performance from the flash.

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Senior Storage Administrator at a leisure / travel company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Oct 8, 2017

It supports our virtualization, our VMware environment.

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Infrastructure Admin 3 at Grant Ham University

Oct 8, 2017

The most valuable feature is the support. If we have any issues, we can call into NetApp and their support is really good.

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Storage Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

Oct 8, 2017

Easier to manage with the clustered system and everything with the newest ONTAP 9.

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System Engineering Engineer at Cleveland Clinic

Oct 8, 2017

Performance is excellent. In fact, it's so fast that we're not really even taxing it all that much.

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Systems Administrator at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 8, 2017

The scale up version of it is the most valuable feature. You can go to 24 nodes, which is very cool.

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NetApp AFF Cons review quotes

Service Design Engineering at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Nov 1, 2016

I think for us, improvement would probably be the changes in how the flash is actually used inside the system and how we manage the actual disk and stripes within the system.

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Senior Architect at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees

Oct 4, 2017

It would be helpful if the compatibility matrix was a bit better.

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Lead Storage Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Oct 4, 2017

It would be much better if you had it more like the way they do Metro Clusters, where they have a switch, and the storage is all attached to a switch.

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Free Report: NetApp AFF Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about NetApp AFF. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.

879,711 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Data Analyst at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 8, 2017

When you look at the competitors, they have some features available, for example on the deduplication side.

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Systems Administrator at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 8, 2017

With some of the larger clusters being able to do a patch upgrade is helping. They still take three, four hours by the time you get the night started, finish things up, do the upgrade.

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Senior Storage Administrator at a leisure / travel company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Oct 8, 2017

Better stability, not releasing features until they are fully functional, or at least giving us a software train that doesn't add them until they are fully functional and proven.

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Infrastructure Admin 3 at Grant Ham University

Oct 8, 2017

It would be nice to have better integration between SRM and VMware, as I've had some issues with that.

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Storage Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

Oct 8, 2017

Higher communication: I love the professional services and I love everything that everyone's able to offer us, but I find sometimes we're not aware of all the things that NetApp can do.

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System Engineering Engineer at Cleveland Clinic

Oct 8, 2017

A lot of the tools that are built into the stock, ONTAP operating system, instead of having to buy the add-ons and things.

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Systems Administrator at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 8, 2017

Going forward, I would like more performance analytics on it, on the area itself, instead of using some other tool.

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Product Categories

Product Categories

All-Flash Storage

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

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Product Categories

Product Categories

All-Flash Storage

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

Popular Comparisons

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Dell PowerStore vs NetApp AFF

Pure FlashArray X NVMe vs NetApp AFF

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