We performed a comparison between Dropbox and NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Cloud Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."
"File syncing is the most valuable feature. I use it every day to sync files across to the cloud."
"The performance is good."
"Dropbox is a very easy-to-use site that allows me to save files to the cloud for retrieval from almost any device (laptop, iPhone, iPad, etc...)."
"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward."
"The solution provides great performance."
"Dropbox allows me to organize files well. I can name files in such a way as to lead students to the right destination."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The feature which I like the most is that it has the capabilities that the traditional storage system offers. It provides all the functionality. The deduplication and compression work exactly like ONTAP's traditional storage. So people who have experience with that find it very easy to manage."
"If you have a fair amount of experience with NetApp, you can work on it very easily."
"NetApp's Cloud Manager automation capabilities are very good because it's REST-API-driven, so we can completely automate everything. It has a good overview if you want to just have a look into your environment as well."
"The Cloud Manager application that's on the NetApp cloud site is easy to use. You can set up and schedule replications from there, so you don't have to go into the ONTAP system. Another feature we've recently started using is the scheduled power off. We started with one client and have been slowly implementing it with others. We can cut costs by not having the VM run all the time. It's only on when it's doing replication, but it powers off after."
"The solution’s Snapshot copies and thin clones in terms of operational recovery are good. Snapshot copies are pretty much the write-in time data backups. Obviously, critical data is snapshotted a lot more frequently, and even clients and end users find it easier to restore whatever they need if it's file-based, statical, etc."
"CVO gives us the ability to access data as quickly as possible, which is critical because of the mission set we handle. Some things cannot wait. For example, we tried having the data in the cloud itself, but it took too long for us to retrieve it from cold or deep storage. If we have it ONTAP or on-prem, it's so much easier to pull it within minutes."
"The most valuable features are that it's reliable, simple, and performs well."
"The most valuable features are tiering to S3 and being able to turn it on and off, based on a schedule."
"There is a potential improvement regarding storage capacity and offering more than its current four gigabytes."
"The arrangement of documents can be simplified. Personally, I am used to it, but for a new user, it might be a little confusing. It can maybe have a feature to allow people to collaborate or work on the same document at the same time. I'm just using it to load and access information, and I haven't faced many challenges. However, I have seen that the whole system or laptop slows down a bit when I am synchronizing files to Dropbox. I don't know if it is because of my system. It might be good if they can enhance the synchronization process so that we can specify that synchronization should be done after 30 minutes. In addition, synchronization should only be done for the documents that have been uploaded."
"I see that if you use a mobile device that does not allow you to properly configure the email part with Dropbox, then you cannot access it."
"If someone manages a large amount of data, they will need more storage, which they must purchase."
"The price is expensive for individual users."
"I would like to see more storage included and more lessons on how to optimize it."
"Dropbox needs to increase its storage."
"The product's high price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"We've just been dealing with general pre-requisite infrastructure configuration challenges. Once those are out of the way, it is easy."
"I would like to see more information about Cloud Volumes ONTAP using Google Cloud Platform on NetApp's website."
"I'm very happy with the solution, the only thing that needs improvement is the web services API. It could be a little bit more straightforward. That's my only issue with it. It can get pretty complex."
"Multipathing for iSCSI LUNs is difficult to deal with from the client-side and I'd love to see a single entry point that can be moved around within the cluster to simplify the client configuration."
"I would like this solution to be brought to all the three major players. Right now it's supported only on AWS and Azure. They should bring it to Google as well, because we would like to have flexibility in choosing the underlying cloud storage provider."
"NetApp CVO needs to have more exposure and mature further before it will have greater acceptance."
"It would be fantastic if NetApp could offer a solution that's as user-friendly as Google Drive for seamless cloud storage integration."
"I would like to see more aggressive management of the aggregate space. On the Cloud Volumes ONTAP that we use for offsite backup copies, most of the data sits in S3. There are also the EBS volumes on the Cloud Volumes ONTAP itself. Sometimes what happens is that the aggregate size just stays the same. If it allocates 8 terabytes initially, it just stays at 8 terabytes for a long time, even though we're only using 20 percent of that 8 terabytes. NetApp could undersize that more aggressively."
Dropbox is ranked 4th in Cloud Storage with 83 reviews while NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is ranked 1st in Cloud Storage with 60 reviews. Dropbox is rated 8.2, while NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Dropbox writes "Seamless file synchronization across devices with user-friendly deployment". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP writes "Its data tiering helps keep storage costs under control". Dropbox is most compared with Microsoft OneDrive, SharePoint, Citrix ShareFile, Google Workspace and Office 365, whereas NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is most compared with Azure NetApp Files, Amazon S3, Amazon EFS (Elastic File System), Google Cloud Storage and Portworx Enterprise. See our Dropbox vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP report.
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