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NetApp FAS Series vs Qumulo 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

NetApp FAS Series
Ranking in NAS
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (1st)
Qumulo
Ranking in NAS
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the NAS category, the mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 11.5%, down from 12.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qumulo is 6.5%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS
 

Featured Reviews

Arnaud Salmon - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good performance and
Once, I've been in a program, but they stopped supporting protocols like HTTP, STP, and that kind of stuff. All of the DIP supports at the beginning were kind of support when it was just Python and just five storage. And it happened a few times that the customer required the STP and HTTP protocol for storage. And I was surprised I couldn't do it anymore with NetApp. So, it would be beneficial for them to support both kinds of protocols. The only little black points that I would put on top of NetApp FAS Series. There is room for improvement in deployment and configuration processes. The thing with ONTAP is that we have a lot of layers, from the raw disks to the volumes we present to servers and configure. There are quite a lot of things to configure. Probably NetApp should ease the way to install that. In NetApp products, such as ONTAP and FAS, a solid understanding of storage is still necessary to handle configurations in larger systems. It's not the same with Pure Storage or Huawei. Even someone less familiar with storage could manage it, making it more accessible.
VinceVitro - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful data sharing, simple cluster scaling, and excellent support
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 best feature is its ONTAP product line for Ransomware protection. It also has features for file storage and block storage. The solution is stable. We've had no issues with it. The tool is scalable and meets our requirements. The technical support and the supporting partner are great. The initial setup is straightforward. It is very easy to maintain the product. The feature set is excellent. I recommend the solution."
"The migration of the volume on the cluster is very useful and easy to use."
"​NAS stability"
"One important feature for customers is its ease of use and continuity, enabling seamless usage across on-premise and cloud environments."
"It is good to have a unified storage where you can have block and file level protocols."
"The storage efficiency provided a maximum savings in our storage utilization."
"It allows our Windows and Unix teams to have a centralized point to share data between the two."
"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 most valuable features of Qumulo are its rolling updates and all-day availability."
"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."
"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 feature is real-time analytics."
"It is a very stable product. I never faced any issues."
"The ratio of total operational cost to complexity versus feature set is very good."
 

Cons

"Installation of the additional switches and ETP could be improved."
"Its licensing cost can be improved."
"It could be more flexible in terms of configuration."
"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."
"When getting new hardware, always tell the account manager that you are also considering other brands. They will be forced to adjust the price lower."
"We are not able to connect to the support of NetApp from Sudan. We have to go through many agents for support, which makes it difficult."
"We have some experience with older equipment end-of-life. For example, when warranty support stops or updates stop – it can be frustrating. Not all clients can buy a new filer every year or two, and NetApp ending support a bit quickly can be a concern."
"NetApp systems are somewhat more complex, though not excessively so. If you're transitioning from a Windows server environment to NetApp, get training or education; otherwise, you might struggle with this solution."
"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."
"Qumulo should continue to expand automation and orchestration capabilities."
"In the future, I would like to see non-disruptive updates."
"In the next release, I would like to see the ability to have more control at a terminal level of the file system."
"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."
"The support for iMac and protocols should be improved, not all features are available."
"Some anti-theft permissions do not transfer well to Qumulo."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The process for going to cluster mode is expensive."
"The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is reasonable for its performance."
"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."
"Cost effective storage for all performance levels (including all-flash)."
"There are products available in market with comparatively lower costs."
"I don't recall the price, but in general, pricing can always be better."
"It's not cheap, but at the same time, it's also inexpensive. It's somewhere in between."
"The tool is expensive."
"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
Educational Organization
26%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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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Comparisons

 

Overview

 

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.
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp FAS Series vs. Qumulo and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.