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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
7.0
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (4th), NAS (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of Dell EqualLogic PS series is 4.3%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 12.3%, down from 18.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NetApp FAS Series12.3%
Dell EqualLogic PS series4.3%
Other83.4%
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

"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"​It has contributed to the implementation of virtualization and all its benefits.​"
"Its high availability. It has a lot of redundancy and good management software as well as good alerting."
"I have been using Equallogic arrays for myself and my customers for over seven years now, and they continue to be my gold standard for SMB storage."
"Equallogic PS series arrays are the best suited storage platform for mid to high level enterprises."
"We were attracted by the flexibility of being able to put in a new shelf whenever we needed to, to expand."
"The technical support for EqualLogic has been universally outstanding."
"The technical support is very good."
"It fulfills the needs we have for storing data well."
"They are very satisfied with NetApp and continue to use NetApp and upgrade to new solutions."
"An advantage we've seen with NetApp FAS Series is that snapshots provide very rapid backup and fast recovery."
"It was very straightforward with OpenStack, very well-documented, and supported."
"The most valuable feature of the NetApp FAS Series is the snapshot and the FlexClone for Oracle and Microsoft SQL environments. Additionally, the integration can be done with most all on-premise and cloud providers."
"Scalability especially in SMB range has been well-received."
"Good bang for the buck."
"One of the valuable features of the solution is data consolidation and visualization and snapshots of course."
 

Cons

"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."
"The solution does not scale well at all. It's a box, so we only have so much space to work with."
"Higher price at entry level systems compared to competition."
"Dell EqualLogic PS series could improve by providing fiber channel connectivity. Fiber channel connectivity is not supported, which is a requirement of advanced applications, such as SAP HANA. SAP HANA recommends fiber channel connectivity, but the Dell EqualLogic PS series is only an ISCSI data storage."
"EqualLogic is really not going to be relevant in the marketplace too much longer."
"Dell EqualLogic PS series could improve the performance because in our hybrid configuration the read speed is faster than the write speed."
"We'd like the solution to have bigger sizing. We need more space and we can't get any."
"For long term partnership in Myanmar, the local warehouse should be built in Myanmar that's something I'd like to see. We have some issues with supply so there is sometimes a delay in getting the hardware."
"Its operating system is very cumbersome."
"The user interface could be improved to have better graphics and the performance analyzer could be better."
"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."
"It lacks automatic 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 SaaS or SSD drives."
"Needs to ​add wizards for newer, inexperienced users."
"The biggest issue we face is parts delivery. There's no local warehouse in Myanmar, so if a customer encounters a technical problem like an IMEI issue, they have to wait a long time for replacement parts."
"Some of the tools could be improved like NetApp OnCommand. This has been a lot better recently, but they could make it faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are annual maintenance costs beyond the original licensing period."
"Licensing is pretty straightforward."
"​It is a fair price."
"It seemed expensive at first, but the durability lowered the cost of ownership dramatically over time."
"Initial packages include all upgrades and services."
"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."
"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."
"All features are out of the box. The license will be in the virtual, OS, or application layer."
"The price, compared to competitors, is quite high."
"The price of the NetApp FAS Series is reasonable and it provides value for the money with the feature sets. NetApp FAS Series are competing with Huawei storage which has an office and does aggressive marketing with a discount. However, we found that if our customers do a technology refresh they are happy with the performance of the NetApp FAS Series."
"The licensing cost is on yearly basis."
"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 focus on storage only, which is really good; it works."
"NetApp FAS Series' pricing is competitive."
"The solution is more expensive than other vendors."
"We have considered upgrading to an All-Flash solution but when we evaluated the cost-benefit we discovered that we don't have enough money to invest in it. To maintain the same technology with All-Flash would be too expensive for us."
"NetApp FAS Series could be less expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
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 Enterprise58
 

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?
I do not handle the pricing part of NetApp FAS Series since it is managed by the sales team.
 

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: March 2026.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.