NetApp FAS Series vs Qumulo comparison

NetApp and Qumulo are both solutions in the NAS category. NetApp is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.2, while Qumulo is ranked #10 with an average rating of 9.0. NetApp holds a 10.6% mindshare in N, compared to Qumulo’s 4.5% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Qumulo users who would recommend it.

NetApp FAS Series

Read 110 NetApp FAS Series reviews

10,169 Views
5,186 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Qumulo

Read 9 Qumulo reviews

4,190 Views
2,011 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NetApp FAS Series

Qumulo

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 2024

NetApp FAS Series and Qumulo compete in the enterprise storage solutions category, with Qumulo having an edge due to its advanced features and real-time analytics, which are highly appreciated by enterprises seeking immediate data insight.

Features: NetApp FAS Series is noted for its data protection, integration capabilities supporting hybrid cloud environments, and a robust set of tools for backup. Qumulo provides real-time analytics and scalability, which give organizations adaptable data insights. These features, especially real-time file system visibility, set Qumulo apart.

Room for Improvement: NetApp FAS Series could benefit from improved real-time data processing, better scalability options, and enhancements in their analytics capabilities. Qumulo may improve on reducing upfront costs, offering more competitive pricing, and enhancing protocol support for more diverse enterprise needs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetApp's deployment process is supported with extensive documentation, streamlining the setup process. Qumulo simplifies deployment through intuitive interfaces and automated updates, coupled with proactive customer service, offering an enhanced user experience.

Pricing and ROI: NetApp FAS Series is recognized for its appealing pricing with competitive setup costs and strong ROI, attracting budget-conscious enterprises. Though Qumulo carries higher upfront costs, it justifies this with considerable long-term ROI benefits through efficient data handling and scalable features, making it a worthwhile investment.

To learn more, read our detailed NetApp FAS Series vs. Qumulo Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

NetApp FAS Series vs. Qumulo

June 2026

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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 NAS

3rd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

110

Ranking in other categories

Deduplication Software (4th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (1st)

Qumulo

Ranking in NAS

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

File and Object Storage (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the NAS category, the mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 10.6%, down from 11.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qumulo is 4.5%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NAS Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
NetApp FAS Series	10.6%
Qumulo	4.5%
Other	84.9%

NAS

Featured Reviews

Srikanth Purushothaman

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.

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Esther Sultaana

Storage Consultant Storage at Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Unified file platform has delivered secure multi‑protocol access for massive data growth

The creators of Qumulo were the ones who created Isilon, and I had a conversation with them, so any of the features within Isilon may need tweaking, but I think they resolved it here. In the year that I worked with it, I did not see anything that I had an issue with. The security is great, and it works with cloud technologies, being a hands-based tool, so you can use it with AWS or Microsoft Azure. It programs very easily. There are REST APIs, and there is a cloud connection. The management and program layer is made up of three capabilities: API, the command line, and a visual interface. In the year that I worked with it and brought it in, I think it has been effective. The only thing I would like to see added to Qumulo is for the interface to improve visually, more in line with vCenter, but that is just my thought. Overall, I appreciate it.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution provides us with easy management and great vendor support."

"Flexible and reliable storage solution with multiple features such as cloning, replication, and deduplication. Data migration can be done without any performance implications on the production systems."

"The most valuable feature is SnapMirror."

"Other products lose performance over time, but NetApp OS is speed-optimized."

"The most valuable features are the snapshots, the flash pool that we’re using, and cluster mode."

"You really can't go wrong with NetApp products, They perform well, are rock solid, offer good space saving technologies, and the support is above par."

"Prices may seem to be a little bit expensive, but the features just makes you happy that you took the step, and licensing is all included except a very few features, with a high end and complex environment."

"Doing more with less. I can do multiple protocols, storage efficiency, data protection tool, everything is in one solution/ecosystems."

More NetApp FAS Series pros

"The most valuable features of Qumulo are the ease of management and special permissions that are quick to enable. The overall performance of the solution is good."

"It is a very stable product. I never faced any issues."

"The most valuable feature is real-time analytics."

"The most valuable feature of Qumulo is the ability to share files and reliability."

"The feature that I like most is the analytics part of the file system."

"The data protection algorithm to protect the data between the nodes has been the most valuable feature. The integration with backup platforms such as Veeam and Veritas has also been valuable."

"The most valuable features of Qumulo are its rolling updates and all-day availability."

"Overall, I would rate Qumulo a nine. I appreciate that it does snapshots, and you could use replication."

More Qumulo pros

Cons

"Dedicated storage efficiency accelerators could improve the overall performance of the system."

"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."

"We can’t afford Insight, and v6.2 seems like it's a purposefully inferior product to make people buy Insight, which is way too expensive."

"We no longer have OEM support in South Africa which is not helpful, it can be difficult. They should add an office back to the country because it was better."

"Technical support needs to be improved, as there are no longer partners in our country."

"Regarding the stability of NetApp FAS Series, I would rate it seven or seven point five because there are frequent panic messages."

"The solution could do more than just data."

"We’ve hit some bugs in the ONTAP code that’s caused it to crash."

More NetApp FAS Series cons

"Qumulo should continue to expand automation and orchestration capabilities."

"There is plenty of room for improvement. In the future, I would like to see non-disruptive updates."

"The only thing I would like to see added to Qumulo is for the interface to improve visually, more in line with vCenter, but that is just my thought."

"The solution could improve availability and improve data protection or data services such as compression of deduplication. In a future release, we'd like to have more cloud API integrations."

"The price of the software is a bit expensive, so a reduction in cost would make it more competitive."

"In the next release, I would like to see the ability to have more control at a terminal level of the file system."

"The support for iMac and protocols should be improved, not all features are available."

"One aspect of Qumulo that I hoped to see improved was its software upgrade process, which did see significant progress during my usage. Initially, upgrading the software resulted in several minutes of system downtime. However, by the time I departed last summer, the downtime had reduced to mere ten seconds. Although I am unsure if Qumulo has yet achieved a completely outage-free upgrade, I simply performed the upgrades early in the morning before the marketing department began its workday, so any downtime was inconsequential."

More Qumulo cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Low-priced product, but pricing could still be made more attractive."

"The solution’s cost is reasonable."

"There are products available in market with comparatively lower costs."

"The tool is expensive."

"NetApp FAS Series' pricing is competitive."

"It is a moderately low-priced platform."

"If we want a ransomware solution with the product or other extended features, we need to pay an extra cost."

"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."

More NetApp FAS Series pricing and cost advice

"The price of Qumulo is reasonable."

"The price of the solution is in the middle range compared to others. We look at the price per terabyte."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

Construction Company

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	31
Midsize Enterprise	38
Large Enterprise	58

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	7

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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 to be added, it takes some time because it is altogether a new development; othe...

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What needs improvement with Qumulo?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Qumulo?

Qumulo is a distributor system that represents names based on similar tools. We had a few petabytes of data, and certain application teams were working with it during the rollout to understand what...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Qumulo?

I have plans to increase the usage of Qumulo in the future. We have brought it in to work with specific teams or test groups and test users, seeing how they enjoy it and how they feel about it. We ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 26% of the time

HPE MSA vs NetApp FAS Series

Compared 4% of the time

HPE StoreOnce vs NetApp FAS Series

Compared 4% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs NetApp FAS Series

Compared 3% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs NetApp FAS Series

Compared 3% of the time

More NetApp FAS Series Competitors

Dell PowerScale vs Qumulo

Compared 16% of the time

VAST Data vs Qumulo

Compared 7% of the time

Everpure FlashBlade vs Qumulo

Compared 6% of the time

Nasuni vs Qumulo

Compared 6% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Qumulo

Compared 3% of the time

More Qumulo Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

NetApp FAS Series

June 2026

Download NetApp FAS Series product report

Buyer's Guide

NAS

May 2026

Download Qumulo product report

Overview

NetApp FAS Series offers high availability and seamless protocol integration. Known for its robust features such as data replication and efficient storage architecture, it finds use in challenging enterprise environments and virtualization.

NetApp FAS Series delivers valuable enterprise storage capabilities with an emphasis on unified storage architectures supporting SAN and NAS functionalities. Features like high availability, robust snapshot technology, and seamless protocol integration cater to diverse workloads. Data replication through SnapMirror and reliable performance under heavy loads are appreciated. Deduplication and compression enhance storage efficiency while scalability, resilience, and strong customer support further its appeal. Improvements are desired in flexibility, documentation, speed, and affordability. Additionally, its monitoring capabilities and cloud integration need attention. Organizations employ FAS Series for enterprise storage, SQL Server LUNs, Exchange LUNs, VMware, and corporate file sharing.

What are the most notable features of NetApp FAS Series?

High Availability: Ensures continuous access and reduces downtime.
Snapshot Technology: Offers point-in-time copies for data recovery.
SnapMirror: Provides efficient data replication for disaster recovery.
Storage Efficiency: Deduplication and compression optimize storage use.
Cloud Integration: Enhances flexibility with cloud environments.

What benefits should be examined in reviews?

Scalability: Supports expanding storage needs without performance loss.
Reliability: Maintains robust performance under heavy workloads.
Strong Support: Access to helpful customer service resources.
Cost Efficiency: Consider value in context of feature set and performance.

In industries such as finance and healthcare, NetApp FAS Series is implemented for centralized data management, supporting complex protocols like NFS, CIFS, and iSCSI. This enables efficient handling of virtualization, databases, unified storage tasks, and backup solutions crucial for maintaining unstructured data and redundancy.

NetApp

Qumulo offers an efficient and reliable file-sharing platform with real-time analytics and seamless integration with major cloud services, ensuring ease of use and high IO speed for storage needs.

With its focus on file sharing, real-time analytics, and reliability, Qumulo allows for smooth operations, ease of use, and resilience. It boasts integration with AWS and Google Cloud, providing enhanced functionality with a strong operational cost-to-complexity ratio. Despite requests for software upgrades and better support for certain protocols, it remains a competitive choice for centralized media storage and object-based storage solutions.

What are Qumulo's most important features?

File Sharing: Offers seamless file sharing capabilities.
Reliability: Ensures stable and dependable operations.
Ease of Use: Designed with user-friendly interfaces.
Real-Time Analytics: Provides immediate insights and data analysis.
No Downtime Updates: Supports upgrading without interruptions.
Failover Capability: Allows disaster recovery operations.
Cloud Integration: Compatible with AWS and Google Cloud.

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

Enhanced Performance: High IO speed in storage systems.
Cost Efficiency: Benefits from operational cost-to-complexity ratio.
Data Insights: Detailed analytics on processes and usage.
Integration Potential: Easy integration with cloud and backup platforms.

Organizations in marketing and entertainment industries rely on Qumulo for managing files, media storage, and archiving needs. On-premises deployments are common for centralized media storage, facilitating object-based storage for videos, images, and office data support. The solution appeals to solution providers and resellers seeking market presence with application versatility.

Qumulo

Sample Customers

Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College

County of Riverside Sheriff Department, Hyundai Mobis Automotive North America, University of Arizona, UCSD - San Diego Supercomputer Center, Medical College of Wisconsin, Sinclair Oil, Royal Dutch Shell, Kaiser Permanente, Deluxe Creative, Vexcel Imaging, University of Florida, The Madison Square Garden Company, Arizona State University, Cinesite, San Diego Padres Baseball, Johns Hopkins University - School of Medicine, IHME, EllieMae, Washington State University.

Buyer's Guide

NetApp FAS Series vs. Qumulo

June 2026

Free Report: NetApp FAS Series vs. Qumulo

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