AWS Snowball vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and NetApp are both solutions in the Cloud Migration category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #15 with an average rating of 7.8, while NetApp is ranked #3 with an average rating of 9.5. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 2.1% mindshare in CM, compared to NetApp’s 5.9% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

AWS Snowball

Read 10 AWS Snowball reviews

4,690 Views
610 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Read 64 NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP reviews

10,457 Views
2,091 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

AWS Snowball

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP and AWS Snowball compete in data management and transfer solutions. ONTAP appears to have the upper hand in data reliability and management features, while Snowball excels in physical data migration capabilities.

Features: NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP includes advanced features like SnapMirror, SnapVault, and flexible data management. It is recognized for high availability, ease of management, and cost reduction through compression. AWS Snowball's key features are its physical data transfer capabilities, scalability, and robust security measures, including end-to-end encryption.

Room for Improvement: NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP can improve cloud integration, support services, and licensing flexibility. Users mention challenges with scaling and cloud deployment processes. AWS Snowball could benefit from better connectivity options, improved geographical availability, and enhanced security measures during transit.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP provides hybrid support with flexible deployment across cloud environments but receives mixed reviews on initial support levels. AWS Snowball offers efficient support during deployment but could improve its initial support interactions.

Pricing and ROI: NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is competitively priced, offering substantial cost savings through storage efficiencies and tiering, making it suitable for large-scale data needs. AWS Snowball provides affordable pricing models that cater to diverse migration needs, with both solutions presenting strong ROI through their unique advantages.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Snowball vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Snowball vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

September 2026

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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

AWS Snowball

Ranking in Cloud Migration

15th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Migration Appliances (1st)

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Ranking in Cloud Migration

3rd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Storage (8th), Cloud Backup (28th), Public Cloud Storage Services (11th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Cloud Migration category, the mindshare of AWS Snowball is 2.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is 5.9%, down from 12.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Migration Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP	5.9%
AWS Snowball	2.1%
Other	92.0%

Cloud Migration

Featured Reviews

Kevin-Davis

Global CTO AWS Business Group at Eviden

Seamless data transfer and efficient migration with customizable storage sizes

I like that I can take data and send it straight to S3 when it loads in. The interface for getting my data onto the Snowball is so streamlined. I don't know if you've ever seen it before. It's really cool. I connect them to the backplane of our existing network. I'm able to address it quickly and move the data quickly inside my customers' data centers. There's a little screen on it, which changes the UPS codes and all that stuff. The label and everything AWS electronic, so I don't have to deal with shipping issues. It makes it super simple and easy to use from end to end.

Read full review

reviewer5948293

Principal Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Offers performance control and cloud integration while supporting data management with granular flexibility

The scalability of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is interesting. We have thought about it, but we haven't used it. I think the scalability is something you scale up rather than respond to peak demand. It wouldn't help with outages either; the scaling is manual, and there are no processes we've used to automate that for unexpected scenarios. We like the scalability; it's enough for what we're planning to use, but we haven't used any advanced features. The standard platform is NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, which is their cloud service. In fact, that's probably the most experience I have with NetApp. I've experienced it on-premise, but kind of secondhand.

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

"The flexibility of AWS Snowball is valuable. Its security allows for the ability to move and secure data without concern if the device is lost and the option to trace it back to AWS data centers."

"We are a very large company with around 20 million users that include architects, developers, and admin staff, and it's a very nice service we would highly recommend."

"The solution is elastic."

"AWS offers managed services which save time and reduce administrative overhead."

"It's a nice way of shipping a lot of data without using a network."

"If you have a large amount of data, it's a perfect way to move it to the cloud."

"The most valuable features of AWS Snowball for me are its security measures and its flexibility."

"From our point of view, one of the most important features are the ability to combine, to mesh data together, and the ability to have them compute out of AWS rather than buying our own infrastructure."

More AWS Snowball pros

"I love this solution."

"So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the license consumption and also the consumption of the underlying cloud storage."

"The fast recovery time objective with the ability to bring the environment back to production in case something happens."

"The solution's high-availability features are cost-effective for us because we are able to use the cloud benefits to reduce the cost of DR."

"Cloud Volumes ONTAP is NetApp; it's the same technology which is where the efficiency really is, and it's much more efficient than using a third-party solution."

"It is much easier to control data since we can run queries across all our platforms with just one solution. Not only that, we can also monitor all the platforms with Active IQ, where we can see all the alerts, messages, and space consumption through a single application. This is regardless if the data is on-prem or AWS. It is much more efficient."

"If anything happens, their technical support will come onsite and fix it."

"NetApp CVO allows us to continue to provide service customers with access to their data, even if a physical site is going to be down for a long period of time."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pros

Cons

"It's not cheap."

"Snowball is not interesting and is a pain to deal with."

"The costs of services the customer needs also matter, such as storage requirements and whether storage is rational."

"24/7 support is more expensive on AWS compared to Azure."

"It does have room for improvement. The ability to better ingest some of the big data."

"I think AWS Snowball could improve by expanding its availability to more countries."

"If AWS Snowball is intercepted, there is a potential risk of unauthorized access to the data."

"It would be helpful if Snowball provided more kinds of connectivity. That will make it easier to add and move data."

More AWS Snowball cons

"One area for improvement is monitoring. Since we are using turn-on and turn-off, based on a schedule, it becomes a little bit difficult to monitor the instance and the replications, etc."

"The dashboard is a little bit clunky. I like to see it a little bit more on the simplistic side. I would like to be able to create my own widgets and customize what I want to see a little bit more versus what is currently there. That would be helpful so that when I log in, I go straight to my widget or my board without going to multiple places to get to what I need to find or build."

"The encryption and deduplication features still have a lot of room for improvement."

"There is room for improvement in tier one support, especially with potential language barriers and communication challenges."

"The only area for improvement would be some guidance in terms of the future products that NetApp is planning on releasing. I would like to see communication around that or advice such as, "Hey, the world is moving towards this particular trend, and NetApp can help you do that." I do get promotional emails from NetApp, but customer-specific advice would be helpful, based on our use cases."

"I think the challenge now is more in terms of keeping an air gap. The notion that it is in the cloud, easy to break, etc. The challenge now is mostly about the air gap and how we can protect that in the cloud."

"The support is good in general but the initial, frontline support could be improved."

"When Azure does their maintenance, they do maintenance on one node at a time. With the two nodes of the CVO, it can automatically fail over from one node to the node that is staying up. And when the first node comes back online, it will fail back to the first node. We have had issues with everything failing back 100 percent correctly."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's not a cheap solution, but the price is right for the product."

"The tool's pricing depends on the type of Snowball device you choose, the amount of data you need to transfer, and the service fees involved. There’s a standard price for larger data transfers and a flat job fee, which includes the first ten days of on-site usage. Typically, there are no additional data transfer fees."

"Make sure you investigate what your requirements are going to cost you using the native cloud solutions versus what NetApp is going to cost you, to make sure you have a business case to go with NetApp."

"The deal with the seller was acceptable; the pricing is reasonable."

"The pricing of this solution is definitely higher than what the typical Azure Files and AWS solutions charge, but given the features and the stability NetApp has provided, we are okay with it. We are not complaining about the pricing."

"Compared to other storage vendors, NetApp, is not always able to compete with their pricing. Yet, we acknowledge the ease of use ONTAP brings with the AWS integration."

"It is expensive. There are no costs in addition to their standard licensing fees."

"We find the pricing to be favorable due to the educational sector we belong to."

"The solution's pricing is reasonable."

"Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was good, but it was a test system, not a real purchase."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	53

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Microsoft Azure Data Box or AWS Snowball?

Microsoft Azure Databox is a 45-pound, super rugged, tamper-resistant, human-managed hardware appliance that can transfer up to 100TB of data capacity to copy, store, then send to the Azure cloud. ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Snowball?

Depending of what is your priority; UseAWS Snowball if you are heavily invested in AWS or need edge computing features Choose Azure Data Box for smooth integration with Azure and potentially lower ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with AWS Snowball?

It's difficult to make a comparison and it depends on the customer. When analyzing costs, I must see how the customer uses AWS, Azure, or Google. Google is particularly interesting, for example, fo...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is actually quite reasonable in price compared to other native cloud storage options. For example, a customer using 100 TB of AWS storage would not benefit from deduplica...

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

It would be nice to see technology supporting the Elastic Fabric Adapter on Amazon AWS, therefore getting RDMA technology for more low-latency connections.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

I use NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP mostly in customer companies.

See all answers

Comparisons

Google Transfer Appliance vs AWS Snowball

Compared 56% of the time

Microsoft Azure Data Box vs AWS Snowball

Compared 9% of the time

Cloudwick Amorphic Data Platform vs AWS Snowball

Compared 7% of the time

Palantir Foundry vs AWS Snowball

Compared 5% of the time

IBM Cloud Mass Data Migration vs AWS Snowball

Compared 5% of the time

More AWS Snowball Competitors

Amazon S3 vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 6% of the time

NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 5% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 4% of the time

Amazon FSx vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 3% of the time

CTERA Intelligent Data Platform vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 3% of the time

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS Snowball

September 2026

Download AWS Snowball product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

September 2026

Download NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP product report

Also Known As

Amazon AWS Snowball, Amazon Snowball, Snowball

ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO

Overview

AWS Snowball is an efficient tool providing high-speed data transfers, end-to-end encryption, and scalability to organizations in need of reliable data migration and integration with AWS infrastructure.

AWS Snowball offers robust data transfer capabilities, ensuring efficient management of large data volumes. It provides end-to-end encryption and tamper-evident features, enhancing data security. The interface is user-friendly and supports seamless integration within AWS. Its scalability and flexible integration options make it a valuable choice for managing complex data migrations. Despite the need for improved connectivity and broader geographical availability, continuous innovations and managed services optimize resources and time.

What are the key features of AWS Snowball?

High-Speed Data Transfer: Facilitates quick migration of large data volumes.
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies the process of data management.
End-to-End Encryption: Ensures data security during transfers.
Scalability: Easily integrates with AWS systems.
Edge Computing: Provides on-site processing capabilities.
Physical Durability: Designed for reliable data transport.

What benefits can users expect when implementing AWS Snowball?

Cost Efficiency: Reduces expenses associated with large-scale data transfers.
Time Optimization: Saves time in data migration processes.
Resource Optimization: Managed services enhance resource efficiency.
Seamless Integration: Supports on-premises to cloud migrations.
Security: Protects data with encryption during transfer.

Organizations across various industries utilize AWS Snowball for efficient cloud migrations and disaster recovery. In fields where bandwidth is limited, Snowball provides a solution for large-scale data transfers. Financial institutions use it for ETL processes and integrating analytical layers over current data warehouses. Industries with data validation requirements appreciate its secure data transfer features and the ability to reduce dependency on internet connections. Its edge computing capabilities address diverse environmental needs, ensuring data accuracy during migrations.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is an efficient storage management solution for managing and storing data in the cloud. It offers seamless integration with cloud providers, advanced data replication capabilities, and high data protection. With reliable performance, it is ideal for industries like healthcare and finance.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Wazee Digital, Craftsy, Live Nation, Essess

1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard

Buyer's Guide

AWS Snowball vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

September 2026

Free Report: AWS Snowball vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

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