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FreeNAS vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 2024

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

FreeNAS
Ranking in NAS
14th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp FAS Series
Ranking in NAS
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (4th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the NAS category, the mindshare of FreeNAS is 3.9%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 10.3%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NetApp FAS Series10.3%
FreeNAS3.9%
Other85.8%
NAS
 

Featured Reviews

Vincenzo D'Aniello - PeerSpot reviewer
Software developer at TREXON S.R.L.
Open-source with great disk management and task synchronization
The system itself allows you to add any feature. The only bad thing is that this maybe depends on FreeBSD, and sometimes finding documentation is difficult. For example, we knew that previous versions automatically enabled the Linux kernel, yet with the recent version, this was no longer the case. Now, there was the possibility of being able to create Debian-based jails, and finding the documentation was not easy or fast. That said, in the end, we succeeded. If you find the documentation, it is always incomplete and fragmented.
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 ease of use of the 'jail', the management of backups, and copies to easily create test and pre-production scenarios have speeded up the development and distribution of business apps."
"The solution has been very stable so far."
"It integrates well into either Windows or Linux environments."
"The stability is quite good; our system is in production and we have not had any problems with it, and when a drive fails, we don't really have any disruption because we can easily rebuild the disk, even if it is very large."
"The fact that no data are lost when a hard drive fails is extremely reassuring, as I have had two of five drives fail at one time and no data were lost."
"What I like about it is that I can work on it from any computer or any device. The initial setup is very simple. The setup wizard is really helpful."
"It has the best storage capacity."
"After using FreeNAS I will never spend money for commercial products like Dell or 3Par."
"A customer was running legacy FAS3140's, 5+ years old, and began deploying VDI clients on their 10GbE network, their storage became a bottleneck and seamlessly migrated to FAS8020's with FlashCache and all performance concerns have been removed, and users have complimented the performance improvement of their desktops!"
"We have used some solutions like Hitachi, Dell, and EMC, but NetApp has more flexibility and we decided to stay with NetApp."
"By using the NetApp FAS series solution organizations are able to reduce the power, cooling, and space required which reduces the overall cost of operations."
"It changed the way we do Disaster Recovery (DR) around NetApp replication."
"Just do it. Chances are the functionality that comes with the ONTAP software will be better than other products at a similar price."
"For us, the greatest aspect of the solution is the fact that it just runs."
"The replication feature protects us from data loss."
"We can manage our applications from a single dashboard."
 

Cons

"Its support for Hyper-V clusters."
"FreeNAS should be better prepared for clustering."
"One of my hard drives has failed and the documentation that I've been able to find has not helped."
"The latest version of the dashboard doesn't work as good as the previous version. Sometimes we change our dashboard back to the previous version because the latest version just doesn't work as good."
"The one thing that I find difficult to do which is very time-consuming is that I like to have a backup of the important files."
"They can improve the integration with PSA systems. This functionality could be better."
"If you find the documentation, it is always incomplete and fragmented."
"They should include clustering for the solution."
"The solution could do more than just data."
"It may need more flexibility to fight with other competing arrays."
"Our major issue with FAS was not having one pane of glass with all products attached to it."
"I think this kind of infrastructure is mostly obsolete. To keep up with developments in this space, you need to move all these features to an All-Flash solution."
"NetApp could improve costs while making the solution more straightforward to use and deploy."
"I would like to see less latency and higher IOPS."
"I think that they are upgrading the performance monitoring tool, which is the main thing I think needs improvement."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We use the free version of the program."
"Its licensing cost is based on the hardware capacity."
"For our configuration, we pay a little bit less than €10,000 ($12,000 USD) per year."
"Its price is okay. It suits our needs."
"It's not cheap, but at the same time, it's also inexpensive. It's somewhere in between."
"NetApp FAS Series could be less expensive."
"The price it not low, but comparing features to other vendors, the price can be balanced."
"The only area that could be improved is to lower prices for their All Flash FAS."
"it’s not an inexpensive solution and it may not be for the cost-sensitive customer."
"If we want a ransomware solution with the product or other extended features, we need to pay an extra cost."
"NetApp FAS Series is a reasonably high-priced solution, partially because we select the configuration that duplicates the entire system."
"I've sold arrays for as little $20,000 USD and as high as $300,000 USD."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Performing Arts
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise59
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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?
Regarding its pricing, I believe it is high. I utilize both HDD and SSD, where SSDs are more cost-friendly, yet HDDs are higher in cost, making it not very affordable but still useful. For general ...
What needs improvement with NetApp FAS Series?
Regarding improvements for NetApp FAS Series, I think everything is generally good. If there is a need to improve something, they can extend their support. Previously, in my company, I only saw Net...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Morroni Technologies Inc., Creative Integrations
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 FreeNAS vs. NetApp FAS Series and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.