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NetApp AFF C-Series vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

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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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
217
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
NetApp AFF C-Series
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
3.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (27th)
NetApp FAS Series
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (4th), NAS (3rd), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
Shailendra Choudhary - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Reliable flash storage has delivered strong data reduction and secured sensitive information
There is still some room for improvement when it comes to scalability, mainly in the interoperability and integration aspects. Every storage vendor has certain limitations, and this is not limited to NetApp; it applies to everyone in the industry. I do not see any other significant areas for improvement with NetApp AFF C-Series at this time. NetApp is working on their roadmap, which is solid, and they are developing certain features that are yet to be released.
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

"We've been using FlashArray's snapshot for backups. Their replication across sites and response time are also excellent."
"The tool has reduced our power consumption."
"The best features of Pure Storage FlashArray are its ease of use and user-friendly interface, and the performance allows all types of services to be visualized from a single point of interface, making it more robust and user-friendly."
"Processes that used to take 40 minutes to two hours can be completed in five minutes."
"They have really good baked in analytics to show you trends for growth history, so it does help with future planning for data growth."
"In Pure Storage FlashArray, the dedupe and compression are excellent, and performance is good too."
"We like the data reduction rates. That has been really helpful. You get 4U of Pure storage replacing something like two racks of spinning disks. One of the things that has contributed to that are the data reduction rates."
"Support has been helpful."
"NetApp offers a cost-effective solution with very robust hardware."
"NetApp AFF C-Series is a good product for entry-level flash storage, the system is competitive in terms of pricing, and the value proposition is strong."
"The solution is stable."
"NAS functions, as it's primarily used for all our file shares."
"I would advise them to go with NetApp because it's unified storage, it supports both NAS and SAN environments, so whether you're doing block storage or you're doing file storage, it is a good solution."
"Other products lose performance over time, but NetApp OS is speed-optimized."
"End-users like that they can rely on the Snapshot technology so they can do their restores themselves."
"Reliable storage solution with an easy setup. It has high availability and makes single file restoration easy. It also has good stability and scalability."
"The NetApp FAS Series has helped simplify our infrastructure."
"Has rock solid reliability and is easy to use."
 

Cons

"I would love to see a true one click upgrade solution."
"Awareness about Pure Storage needs to increase. Currently, people mostly think of Dell and NetApp when it comes to storage."
"The difference in pricing could become a problem for Pure because the commoditization of the solutions could lead to a different price being a problem."
"On a couple of occasions, the waiting time for an upgrade has been pretty substantial."
"The solution could improve by having a multi-tenant feature."
"I'd like to see a move towards individual VMs for what the performance of each VM is in a VD infrastructure. I can see the overall volume, but I would love to see things in a more granular level on the VM side."
"Once, before Pure went public, we were a member of their customer advisory board and beta tested replication. One requested enhancement yet to manifest is the scheduling of snapshot replications."
"I would like to have an easy way to determine the cost per VM so that I can present a solution to our customers."
"We faced one bug that impacted our NetApp last month, and it took some time to identify the underlying issue."
"We faced one bug that impacted our NetApp last month, and it took some time to identify the underlying issue."
"Absolutely, it’s just some compatibility variance with some of the production environment aspects, like AV, and Archiving systems which needed to be integrated with."
"The WAFL is slow."
"The one aspect of the solution that's negative for us is also more unique to us due to the fact that we did a MetroCluster. The tiebreaker piece that does the monitoring of the two different locations, and determines if one is not talking to the network normally (or if it's truly down) is a little difficult. It feels like it was not designed from the beginning to fit well into the other pieces. It feels like it was thrown in at the last minute and it is not smooth."
"The current snapshot technology in VMFS is to say the least very poor – best practice is to have no more than 2-3 snapshots in a chain (even though the maximum is 32) and to use no single snapshot for more than 24-72 hours – the reason is simple, storage performance will suffer if you create a snapshot on a VM."
"The solution can improve on the replication features."
"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."
"As I see it, there could be more interfaces, more cache, etc."
"The main area for improvement for NetApp FAS Series is price. Unfortunately, in India, NetApp price clearance takes longer than EMC."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is moderate. It is neither cheap nor expensive."
"We have a seen a reduction in TCO. It is definitely a cost-effective solution for us. We have seen ROI."
"Pure Storage is expensive. It comes with features, so you get what you pay for. It is expensive compared to our old storage systems, but from the amount of human effort that you have to pay to babysit a storage system, it reduces that. I don't know if the TCO is reduced, but it's not a concern for us."
"They have a standardized fee; it's been the same price for 10 years straight. I am happy with the price — I think it's good."
"Once you purchase Pure Storage FlashArray it is all-inclusive, you receive all the licenses needed."
"It is light years beyond anything else with the same price point."
"There should be quite a bit of reduction of TCO with just licensing (and stuff) because we run the VM environment off it."
"The price was slightly higher than others, but competitive, if you consider all the other features that you get from it."
Information not available
"The solution’s cost is reasonable."
"There are products available in market with comparatively lower costs."
"Cost effective storage for all performance levels (including all-flash)."
"When we need to implement a less expensive solution we use Huawei. NetApp FAS Series is a little bit expensive compared to the average of the market."
"NetApp FAS Series' pricing is competitive."
"It is expensive."
"Most storage vendors also have software, or licensing bundles, which may offer the required licenses considerably cheaper, but do also maybe offer licenses, which are not needed."
"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with ten being expensive. We pay a one-time purchase price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
15%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Construction Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business65
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise152
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...
What needs improvement with NetApp AFF C-Series?
There is still some room for improvement when it comes to scalability, mainly in the interoperability and integration...
What is your primary use case for NetApp AFF C-Series?
I would recommend NetApp AFF C-Series for various types of companies depending on the use case. A small company, an e...
What advice do you have for others considering NetApp AFF C-Series?
I recommend Dell PowerStore to some of my customers, but usually the differences are taken care of. I focus primarily...
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.
What needs improvement with NetApp FAS Series?
There is room for improvement when it comes to response time and first-level support quality. If a new feature needs ...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Information Not Available
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 NetApp AFF C-Series vs. NetApp FAS Series and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.