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Dell EqualLogic PS series vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

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

Dell EqualLogic PS series
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp FAS Series
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd), NAS (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of Dell EqualLogic PS series is 3.4%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 13.1%, down from 17.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NetApp FAS Series13.1%
Dell EqualLogic PS series3.4%
Other83.5%
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
 

Featured Reviews

Khuram Ayyaz - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Executive at Virtual University
Has enabled uninterrupted access to educational platforms and simplified storage management
Dell EqualLogic PS series is easily scalable, and we can add extra boxes and storage. It was easy to deploy during COVID. Deploying Dell EqualLogic PS series is straightforward, with no complexity involved. Dell EqualLogic PS series is a good product. We did not experience any failures in the last six to seven years, and it is still running as our storage for offline data. There are snapshot capabilities in data protection available, but we did not use that feature because it consumes much space. We have only 150 terabytes of space and simply use it to create volumes without utilizing it for snapshots. We use thin provisioning in Dell EqualLogic PS series, but I did not explore that feature further.
Srikanth Purushothaman - PeerSpot reviewer
DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems
Has supported long-term data protection and backup while requiring better part availability and pricing options
For monitoring purposes, we normally use flash access storage exclusively. We utilize a hybrid system because we need performance, combining NL-SAS for the volume and SAS flash to use as a fast cache system that provides more IOPS. We normally implement RAID 10, which we prefer over RAID 6's n plus 2 combinations. We utilize it for data redundancy, even with write intensity on. Regarding the unified storage architecture for NetApp FAS Series, we normally opt for exclusivity unless budget constraints exist. Our IOPS are very high, reaching somewhere about 50k to 150k or 1.150k. The high performance ensures minimal latency. An advantage we've seen with NetApp FAS Series is that snapshots provide very rapid backup and fast recovery. We basically use snapshots for data protection as first-level protection, with deduplication between the two storages serving as second-level protection.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The technical support for EqualLogic has been universally outstanding."
"The solution has been working well overall."
"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Technical support is great; we have four-hour support from Dell for storage."
"You can always trust it. It is stable."
"Dell's technical support is very good."
"​It has contributed to the implementation of virtualization and all its benefits.​"
"Dell EqualLogic PS series is a highly stable solution."
"The storage efficiency provided a maximum savings in our storage utilization."
"NetApp's cloud-based PaaS has been a massive help for unstructured data."
"The most important features are SnapVault, Snapshots, and SnapMirror."
"The solution is very stable and reliable"
"We can manage our applications from a single dashboard."
"Better performance and lower costs."
"It has a very good implementation of the Active Directory services, so implementation into a Windows network is easy."
"Saves space with deduplication"
 

Cons

"The performance isn't as good as, for example, Nimble."
"Individual file recovery would be a nice additional feature."
"I can't buy any more solutions provided by EqualLogic...Since I can't buy it anymore, I don't receive any updates on the solution. Also, this is the last year in which one can buy support for the solution."
"We need more space and we can't get any."
"There is no option for mixing RAID types in one device."
"The solution is out of date and the new version has a lot of advanced features."
"There is no inline deduplication capability."
"The only challenging part in the tool was related to some site recovery area. In order to exploit the site recovery area, my company had to purchase additional VMware products."
"We are not able to connect to the support of NetApp from Sudan. We have to go through many agents for support, which makes it difficult."
"The adoption of flash by NetApp has also been lagging behind the trendsetters, like TMS, Nimble, and others."
"Needs to improve the adaptive storage quality of service."
"Cost is always a factor. Some people choose EMC or Dell because they perceive NetApp as being more expensive."
"It's hard to find in-person training that fits our schedule in our area. They offer a lot of online training, but we need somewhere to go because we can't really get away from the office."
"NetApp is costly when compared to Dell."
"The plan is to go with all SSDs and use MDM, rather than sticking with traditional disk drives. The goal is to have all SSDs for better maintenance speed, which is essential for applications that need to work."
"Regarding the stability of NetApp FAS Series, I would rate it seven or seven point five because there are frequent panic messages."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It seemed expensive at first, but the durability lowered the cost of ownership dramatically over time."
"Dell EqualLogic PS series can improve its scale-out feature. Sometimes the customer has a limited budget for storage expansion. When they want to expand their capacity, they need to buy a complete controller plus storage capacity, which sometimes is out of their budget. If Dell EqualLogic PS series support could scale up the environment in which only hard drive extension controllers should be supported, then customers can expand within a lower budget."
"Price-wise, the solution is cheap. I rate it a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is very cheap, and ten is very expensive."
"Licensing is pretty straightforward."
"All features are out of the box. The license will be in the virtual, OS, or application layer."
"I don't think I would say that the product is less expensive...The product's price is not an issue for our company, considering the relationship we have with Dell and the customer support we receive."
"Initial packages include all upgrades and services."
"I didn't buy it. It was another person seven years ago. So, I don't really know, but all storage platforms cost a lot of money. It is probably in the mid-range, but you get what you pay for."
"NetApp FAS Series could be less expensive."
"The product is on the expensive side."
"We are on a perpetual license."
"There are products available in market with comparatively lower costs."
"It’s difficult for us to get money, so make sure you get everything in order, because there’s no going back and saying “oh, I missed this or that”, so make sure you plan well and well in advance."
"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."
"it’s not an inexpensive solution and it may not be for the cost-sensitive customer."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise57
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell EqualLogic PS series?
The technical support for the solution was really good.
What needs improvement with Dell EqualLogic PS series?
I do not have anything in mind regarding new capabilities for Dell products at this time.
What is your primary use case for Dell EqualLogic PS series?
We are essentially a university, and we have deployed Dell EqualLogic PS series in our data centers to run our production sites, student portals, websites, our on-premises portal, and campus manage...
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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp FAS Series?
The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is not cheap, but in comparison to other vendors, NetApp FAS Series is affordable because they also have deduplication, compression, and inline compression. They fo...
 

Also Known As

EqualLogic PS series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

FAW Foundry, AW Engineering, Unimat, eLongNet Information Technology, BDO Brasil, Odyssey Space Research
Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell EqualLogic PS series vs. NetApp FAS Series and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.