NetApp FAS Series Reviews

EboHagan

Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Jul 31 2018

Double-parity RAID guarantees that our data stays intact

What is most valuable?

One of the most valuable features offered is double-parity RAID, which guarantees that your data will stay intact. You can experience two disk failures and still be up. Another feature is the deduplication. It saves a lot of space. We're… more»

How has it helped my organization?

We're able to keep data for a longer time because we are able to manage it well using the features that NetApp provides. It has also helped us to quickly deploy our test environment and finish all of our testing before we deploy on the… more»

What needs improvement?

I want to see the system automatically tier; we call it auto-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… more»

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

When I arrived at the company they were using NetApp, and we are still using NetApp. When selecting a vendor, I first look at how robust the solution is that they're proposing, and how available they are to answer calls if there are any… more»

What other advice do I have?

If I were to advise someone researching NetApp FAS Storage or a similar solution, I would want to understand what they really want. I would advise them to go with NetApp because it's unified storage. It supports both NAS and SAN… more»

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SenNetAd299025

Senior Network Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jul 29 2018

The scalability is good, but it's too expensive

What is most valuable?

It is good to have a unified storage where you can have block and file level protocols. It has been pretty stable, but the capacity requirements have changed overtime. Our utilization has been very… more»

How has it helped my organization?

It has been a pretty stable environment, but over time our requirements have changed. Therefore, I don't think it's an issue with the system. We have put a lot of load on a lot more than what it can… more»

What needs improvement?

* Ease of management needs to be improved. * The power consumption for the FAS is a lot more compared to the new SSD arrays. Going forward, I don't want to be using the FAS again. I want to be using… more»

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It's not a cheap system. It is very expensive. The pricing has been ridiculous every time that we had to renew the support. Initially, we have a three-year support contract when we bought the system… more»

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

We were previously using an old IBM SAN. We switched because we wanted to moved to a unified system.

What other advice do I have?

I wouldn't recommend NetApp FAS. I don't understand why anyone would go for NetApp FAS when you can get the NetApp AFF, which is an SSD array, for almost a similar price or probably even cheaper. Most… more»

See Entire NetApp FAS Series Review (557 Words) »

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Michael Tschuk

Berater with 11-50 employees

Apr 10 2018

Provides ease of use and robust Snapshot functionality, but pricing is relatively high

What is most valuable?

* Ease of use * Robust Snapshot functionality * You can use it in two datacenters with SnapMirror-ing. It has a very good implementation of the Active Directory services, so implementation into a… more»

How has it helped my organization?

What the customers, the end-users, like is they can rely on the Snapshot technology so they can do their restores themselves.

What needs improvement?

One thing that was missing for quite some time was the support for flash, of solid state disks, that has now improved. Another issue is the price which, compared to competitors, is quite high. The… more»

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

Reasons for choosing NetApp include that it's probably the most solid, robust, and easy-to-implement solution.

What other advice do I have?

My most important criteria when selecting a vendor are to see that it has good market share already established, or that it has a robust roadmap with interesting products in the future, or that I have… more»

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

For file servers, one alternative is Microsoft using standard Microsoft Windows Servers. Another solution is Huawei OceanStor; with the latest, version 5, they support mouse functionality.

See Entire NetApp FAS Series Review (527 Words) »

Ivan Silva

Storage and VMware Expert at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

Feb 28 2018

Saves space with deduplication

What is most valuable?

* Flexibility. * Saves space with deduplication. * All protocols on the same box. This means that you don't need to have a appliance to export. For example, an NFS volume on CIFs volume. * Easy integration to some cloud environments, like… more»

How has it helped my organization?

* NetApp improved our organization because their features are more friendly and create environment to tests, like dev. The FlexClone technology is easy to use. * The flexibility to create scheduling backups on the VMware platform is very… more»

What needs improvement?

NetApp for all these years has been improving their storage. The only area that could be improved is to lower prices for their All Flash FAS.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price it not low, but comparing features to other vendors, the price can be balanced.

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

We have used some solutions like Hitachi, Dell, and EMC, but NetApp has more flexibility and we decided to stay with NetApp. * My first case was migrate all solutions from Hitachi Storage to NetApp FAS on SAN with brocade. * Migrated all… more»

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Wouter Coppens

Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Jul 24 2018

It is stable and integrates well with other components

What is most valuable?

It is very stable and integrates very well with other components.

How has it helped my organization?

It is very flexible. It integrates well with the public cloud and other components, so everything can be API driven. Therefore, it is very easy to automate it.

What needs improvement?

We would like to have further integration with some backup products. They have some of them already, but there could be more. We have already seen the new roadmap and a lot of our requested features… more»

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

We have always used NetApp, so we did not switch from another vendor.

What other advice do I have?

Use NetApp, it is good. There are more specialized products in the market, but NetApp is a very good general fit. We have a lot of product knowledge, and it is not 100 percentage perfect. However, we… more»

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We have almost all vendors in our portfolio: EMC, Pure Storage, etc. As our stand up, we use NetApp because we are pleased with it. Other vendors have good ideas, but they are not yet implemented in… more»

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Harri Waltari

ICT Network Administrator at a maritime company with 501-1,000 employees

Nov 26 2017

The initial setup was quite easy and pleasing. Just enter some key values and there you go.

What is most valuable?

* Reliability * Rich features * Ease of management * Excellent support A reliable and easily managed storage system is a key performance factor. The system also has more features than we require.

What needs improvement?

Naturally, there would be room for improvement. As I see it, there could be more interfaces, more cache, etc., but those challenges are solved by just getting some other model.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

For a number of years now, purchasing a storage system has been actually purchasing software. There is no plain storage anymore, more or less intelligent software solutions. Thus, licenses are… more»

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

During the years, we have had quite a few storage solutions, none of which did give us the same level performance, reliability, and manageability as the FAS-series has.

What other advice do I have?

You really can't go wrong with NetApp products, They perform well, are rock solid, offer good space saving technologies, and the support is above par.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

No other solutions were evaluated at the time. Actually, this system was familiar to use and fulfilled the business demands.

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Ricky Santos

‎Project Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

May 08 2019

The provision of HA has improved the uptime of our entire infrastructure

What do you think of NetApp FAS Series?

What is our primary use case?

We have deployed a four-node cluster to host multiple services like NFS, CIFS, FCP, and iSCSI with SnapMirror enabled across the cluster.

How has it helped my organization?

NetApp FAS has provided an HA environment that has improved the uptime of our entire infrastructure.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature for us is the combining of HA and SnapMirror.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see an improvement in the licensing on Data Mirroring (SnapMirror) features. Currently, the newest release is not HCI friendly.

For how long have I used the solution?

More than five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In my nineteen years of being a storage administrator, I have never seen NetApp storage cause…

See Entire NetApp FAS Series Review (359 Words) »

Henry

Team Lead at Tata Consultancy Services

Dec 15 2017

FAS8040: Powerful, high availability, easy to use. But I have concerns about the company's future.

What is most valuable?

Powerful Easy to use High availability DFM OCI Data fabric FPolicy Cluster-mode Hybrid cloud solution

How has it helped my organization?

Home directory access & Innovative clinical data and IT storage solutions from NetApp to share patient data across the continuum of care. Through improved flexibility and… more»

What needs improvement?

I have found it to be expensive. It is good as a NAS, but not a good option for SAN.We use it for storing medical images.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Research fully

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

Pure Storage for SAN

What other advice do I have?

Think carefully before you jump into NetApp. There are so many competing products and you should do a proof of concept before you buy it. I'm a bit worried since NetApp is… more»

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

EMC

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What is NetApp FAS Series?

NetApp FAS Series offers powerful, affordable, flexible data storage for midsized businesses and distributed enterprises. NetApp FAS Series, named a 'Champion' and 'Best in Overall Value' by Info-Tech Research Group, is affordable, and is a more powerful storage platform than other systems in its class.

NetApp FAS Series customers

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

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