No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

IBM SAN24B-4 Express vs NetApp AFF comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

IBM SAN24B-4 Express
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise SAN (9th)
NetApp AFF
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
315
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM SAN24B-4 Express is designed for Enterprise SAN and holds a mindshare of 5.5%, up 2.0% compared to last year.
NetApp AFF, on the other hand, focuses on All-Flash Storage, holds 6.8% mindshare, down 9.4% since last year.
Enterprise SAN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM SAN24B-4 Express5.5%
Dell PowerStore12.4%
Dell PowerVault11.6%
Other70.5%
Enterprise SAN
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NetApp AFF6.8%
Dell PowerStore7.7%
Everpure FlashArray6.4%
Other79.1%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Alejandro Rivas Detomasi - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager | Service Delivery Coordinator at kyndryl
It has short-wave and long-wave capabilities.
In my experience, it is one of the most reliable options in SAN switches. Let´s say that the SAN24 is the perfect combination between two great brands (IBM hardware and Brocade´s software). In my experience, Brocade´s software is the best for SAN implementation; easy to use and intuitive in every aspect. Brocade is always updating its IOS (operating system), adding new functionalities to its switches and correcting minor errors. If you add all these things to IBM hardware and support, you can trust that your SAN is going to have near-zero downtime.
Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Synergy Computers
Unified storage has delivered efficient AI analytics and low latency for critical workloads
There might be some lag or response time with respect to support cases, but even then I will rate it 8.5 out of 10. All of this is the same for all product ranges, whether E-series, NetApp AFF, or FAS series, because they are very efficient to respond. The only reason I rated it 8.5 is because the warehouse for spare parts, when a problem comes, a spare is needed to replace it, for example, a disk. In Pakistan, they have only one warehouse in Karachi. This warehouse manages all the problems when a problem comes. They ship the part based on the customer use case and customer service request. That is the only reason I rate it 8.5 because they have only one warehouse in Pakistan, which is in Karachi. For example, if a problem comes in Islamabad, it will take time to deliver the spare because the part will be shipped from Karachi to Islamabad, which will take around maybe a day. Other OEMs have their warehouses in Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi also. In terms of part replacement requirements, they are very efficient in that area because they have warehouses in multiple cities of Pakistan.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In my experience, it is one of the most reliable options in SAN switches."
"NetApp was our vendor of choice who could help us to fulfill our requirements, especially for some of the challenges that we were facing."
"We are spending less time putting out fires, so there's a tangible benefit right there."
"For me it’s important that my flash system is a part of the NetApp storage system; it’s just an extension of it, so my guys can use the same comments, the same tools, the same application integration as they did before, and that’s a really good offer for us because then all the tools we can reuse all the integration."
"The most valuable features of the solution are speed, performance, and reliability."
"The most valuable feature is the support, because if we have any issues, we can call into NetApp and their support is really good."
"Lower latency means faster end products."
"Its efficiency and scalability are the most valuable features."
"I would recommend NetApp AFF to other users because it's reliable and has a lot of features."
 

Cons

"This product can improve in the out-of-the-box features; for example, licensing 16 ports instead of 8."
"In the pre-CDOT era, upgrades were a nightmare."
"They preconfigured it at the factory and that is a pain in the neck. This should stop."
"In the current atmosphere, private cloud is improving. NetApp AFF needs to provide flexibility in terms of hardware and capital expense."
"They could help with knowledge transfer. I'm working on sitting down and getting familiar with the different storage solutions and technologies that are already available and just need to keep myself abreast of what's coming up."
"I would like to see a little more flexibility in customizing some of the SnapMirror stuff."
"Inline deduplication would be great to have, but everything else is fantastic."
"I'd like to see a web-based front end in addition to the CLI."
"The full bundle is too expensive. It's needed to implement native replicas (i.e. snapmirror) and backup (i.e. snapvault) features"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It consolidates a lot of our storage into one or two chassis, which makes money savings in our data center."
"The pricing is competitive when we compare it to other products."
"Our total cost of ownership (TCO) has decreased by 40 percent."
"Other vendors may come in at a cheaper price point, but you will pay in the end with management costs and downtime."
"It's expensive. it's in the hundreds of thousands. It's beneficial, but at times, I feel compared to other vendors, we are paying a premium for the licensing that other vendors include."
"The price to performance ratio with NetApp is unmatched by any other vendor right now."
"NetApp AFF is an expensive solution."
"NetApps offers a lot of different options. Just take your time and work with the consulting teams. Lay out what your needs are to ensure you are purchasing what will help you be successful."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise SAN solutions are best for your needs.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user186357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect with 51-200 employees
Jan 28, 2015
NetApp vs. XtremIO
Is there another storage platform as feature rich as NetApp FAS? I think it is fair to say that NetApp FAS running Clustered Data ONTAP is a very feature rich platform – the move to the clustered version of ONTAP has brought many next-generation features including Scale-out and Non-disruptive…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise47
Large Enterprise242
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
Well, Is one thing NetApp Storage has vs other brand is the mix of protocol CIFS with NFS booth working together in the same volume that features is difficult to find in other Storage but the flexi...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
This question is very dependent on your requirements. Both are among the best in the field. Of course, the intended cost is decisively based on the Gartner magic quadrant storage 2020 Net app compa...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
The answer depends on your needs and budget. If you want high performance (who doesn't) or let's say the latency matters more than IOPS for your needs, Netapp AFF is the right choice. You can appro...
 

Also Known As

SAN24B-4 Express
NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ADP, McKesson Technology Solutions, Migros Zurich, Mars Incorporated, Grupo Hefame, Williams-Sonoma
DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco and others in Enterprise SAN. Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.