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NetApp FAS Series vs Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance 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

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)
Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appl...
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 13.1%, down from 17.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance is 5.0%, up from 3.8% 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%
Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance5.0%
Other81.9%
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
RM
IT Consultant at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
A stable unified storage system that enables quick access to data
The main thing Oracle can improve is the cost. It would be better if Oracle opened up the system to enable integration with other vendors. Whether it's the database, application server, or storage appliance, they should make it easy to integrate them. They need to open up more to ensure that it can work in any environment and IT ecosystem.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can manage our applications from a single dashboard."
"The solution is stable."
"Fast Snapshots"
"It allows our Windows and Unix teams to have a centralized point to share data between the two."
"I have found all the features useful in NetApp FAS Series."
"Other products lose performance over time, but NetApp OS is speed-optimized."
"Ability to use mirroring and SnapVault have made backup no longer necessary."
"Saves space with deduplication"
"I like its storage capacity, quick access to the data, speed, and overall storage management."
 

Cons

"The NetApp FAS Series is not as high-performing and is not as fast. Its speed needs improvement, but this could only be done if it's an all-flash solution."
"A big problem with physical appliances is that updating them can be a bit burdensome."
"It was not possible to have a custom user inside ONTAP without the delete permission to delete the volume. We wanted others to be able to create a SnapMirror and volume, but have no volume deletion permission. In the newest version, it seems to already be in place, but there was a bug enabling this one in older versions 9.11, 9.10, or earlier."
"As I see it, there could be more interfaces, more cache, etc."
"I would like to see less latency and higher IOPS."
"Replication should ideally be part of the ONTAP base bundle."
"Cluster mode needs to be more ubiquitous."
"One area that needs improvement is the hyper-converged solution. Although NetApp has a solution, compared to Nutanix, it falls short."
"The main thing Oracle can improve is the cost. It would be better if Oracle opened up the system to enable integration with other vendors. Whether it's the database, application server, or storage appliance, they should make it easy to integrate them. They need to open up more to ensure that it can work in any environment and IT ecosystem."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is on the expensive side."
"There are products available in market with comparatively lower costs."
"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."
"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."
"it’s not an inexpensive solution and it may not be for the cost-sensitive customer."
"We purchased it for four years, and it wasn't expensive. It was reasonable. Every company has a different agreement with NetApp. We got everything we wanted with all the bells and whistles and all the features and functionalities."
"NetApp FAS Series' pricing is competitive."
"It is expensive."
"The price could be better. We have many competing products now like Huawei and Dell EMC, and these are slightly cheaper."
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise57
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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Also Known As

No data available
Sun ZFS Storage Appliance
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College
Translational Genomics Research Institute, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, CyberSolutions Inc., Y-Telecom, First Alliance Bank Zambia Limited, AZ Sint-Jan Brugge-Oostende, Mutlinet Pakistan, TDC A/S, Digi-Key Corporation, Thurgau Cantonal Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp FAS Series vs. Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.