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NetApp AFF pros and cons

Vendor: NetApp
4.5 out of 5
Badge Leader

Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

NetApp AFF is praised for its exceptional speed and performance, particularly with transactional workloads and databases.
The system's deduplication, compression, and thin provisioning capabilities lead to substantial storage efficiency and space savings.
High availability features, including MetroCluster, provide robust business continuity and minimal latency.
NetApp AFF's scalability is admired, with the ability to expand seamlessly and manage large-scale deployments effectively.
The support offered by NetApp is highly valued, with timely assistance and reliable technical support enhancing user experience.

CONS

Improvements in firmware issues and scalability are needed for better performance.
Compatibility matrix could be enhanced for seamless integration with other systems.
NetApp AFF pricing is considered high, impacting expansion and budget planning.
Technical support from NetApp needs significant improvements, particularly in response times and knowledge transfer.
NetApp AFF should enhance security features, including multi-factor authentication and ransomware protection.
 

NetApp AFF Pros review quotes

KennethEtsula - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales Manager at Spartec
Sep 3, 2025
With the storage efficiency from a NetApp AFF installation, users can manage substantial data running on all-flash, and the features such as compaction and compression provide storage efficiency guarantees in an all-flash environment.
Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Synergy Computers
Dec 4, 2025
Others in the market are not as reliable as NetApp FAS series because it is a built-in feature.
reviewer2711382 - PeerSpot reviewer
Analyst at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
May 27, 2025
Two important features that NetApp AFF has are the performance and the capacity to save data against attacks in general or hardware failure.
Learn what your peers think about NetApp AFF. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.
JL
Sr. storage Administrator at Nationwide Children's Hospital
Sep 24, 2024
The NetApp technology that has delivered the most value to our organization is FabricPool.
Ian Rousom - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at RTX
Sep 24, 2024
We have a comprehensive solution that could accommodate anything. We can fly it earlier and get them in the air testing and prototyping much faster than they could have with other solutions.
reviewer2560953 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Hybrid Cloud at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
Sep 25, 2024
Before, we didn't have standardized storage, so adopting the solution across our organization has allowed us the ability to provide data across all our sites and dramatically improve our backup and disaster.
SH
Senior Systems Engineer at Chevron
Sep 24, 2024
We've been able to save a lot of money with the introduction of the use of the tiering aspect and the flex groups.
Rodney Kerley - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Storage Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Sep 25, 2024
Having it separate and having a dedicated storage area network or a dedicated network attached storage, for us, just worked better. It's been faster.
Raviteja Koti - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Sep 24, 2024
We have a unified storage to access the file and NAS. We can do all the things in the same solution. We do not need any other product or storage mix.
Vladan Djurdjevic - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Jan 23, 2025
From my standpoint, NetApp AFF is the most powerful enterprise solution. I find it to be highly flexible, allowing me to do whatever I want.
 

NetApp AFF Cons review quotes

KennethEtsula - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales Manager at Spartec
Sep 3, 2025
The licensing cost of the product is expensive, and when combined with support, it becomes quite costly.
Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Synergy Computers
Dec 4, 2025
In the performance world, I rate NetApp AFF series a nine because it is very costly with respect to the other options.
reviewer2711382 - PeerSpot reviewer
Analyst at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
May 27, 2025
Our backup system, Commvault, has an amazing capacity to do compression and deduplication better than NetApp AFF by itself. If they can spend some time improving deduplication and compression, it would be great because it has been proven that some commercial features can do it.
Learn what your peers think about NetApp AFF. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.
JL
Sr. storage Administrator at Nationwide Children's Hospital
Sep 24, 2024
One of the challenges we face with NetApp is identifying bottlenecks in the systems they integrate with.
Ian Rousom - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at RTX
Sep 24, 2024
We have to work with technology that we can deploy ourselves, run where we decide, and not necessarily anywhere, and that can survive for long periods of time disconnected from a cloud. For us, that's probably been one of the bigger cybersecurity challenges: how do we maintain security, maintain updates, patches, profiles, policies, and all that stuff without subscribing to a service from your friendly neighbourhood cloud provider? This product does a better-than-average job of that.
reviewer2560953 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Hybrid Cloud at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
Sep 25, 2024
We'd like to see them implement more subscription services into the base support model.
SH
Senior Systems Engineer at Chevron
Sep 24, 2024
To get the performance in Azure has been a challenge. We're moving everything to Azure.
Rodney Kerley - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Storage Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Sep 25, 2024
In terms of improvements, they could have a couple more things that are usually done through the command line.
Raviteja Koti - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Sep 24, 2024
Their customer support can be better. When we have an outage, we need to wait until it is escalated to L3 which takes a lot of time.
Vladan Djurdjevic - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Jan 23, 2025
I do not like the NetApp GUI. For example, the GUI of ONTAP Command Manager could be better, but the CLI is perfect.