NetApp FAS Series Reviews

My use case for the NetApp FAS Series is that it's a repository for the VM (virtual machine) and CIFS (common internet file system) share, or network share.

The NetApp FAS Series has helped simplify our infrastructure. There were times it also helped simplify our operations. 

The NetApp FAS Series is useful, because it makes restoring a single file easy, but after that, nothing more. It's just a repository of the virtual machine, so I could use it or another solution, but it's reliable, e.g. it has two nodes with high availability, so this is the reason we choose to use this solution.

This solution also accelerates virtualization, but not so much, because it's not an all-flash solution. The FAS2620 is a traditional solution with some cache, so it's not so fast, but it's enough for my company. AFF is all-flash, but this solution: FAS, is not all-flash, but people like it.

The NetApp FAS Series is not as high-performing for our business critical applications, because it's not an all-flash solution. It's also not as fast, so its speed needs improvement, but this could only be done if it's an all-flash solution.

I've been using the NetApp FAS Series for eight years: four years for the first installation, then another four years for the second installation.

The NetApp FAS Series has good stability. I never had any issues with it, so I chose it for the second time.

My impression on the scalability of the NetApp FAS Series is that it's good, but my usage is just below 50%, so scalability is not an issue for me.

I've used a different NetApp solution, but I cannot remember the exact type of storage. The reasons I switched to the NetApp FAS Series is because I already knew the product. Another reason for choosing this solution is its reliability. I never had an issue with it in the eight years I've been using it.

The initial setup for this solution was easy. Planning took one day and the setup took two hours.

We don't use the cloud backup solution of the NetApp FAS Series. We just use it in a very basic way, and nothing more than a repository for the VM and CIFS.

I do the tuning and the troubleshooting for this solution myself.  I'm the only one managing it, e.g. the other members of the IT team are not involved in it, so it's hard to say if it does reduce IT support costs.

We have not used the NetApp FAS Series in supporting data analytics, AI, machine learning, SAP, and Oracle workloads, nor did we use it to support any asynchronous replication for disaster recovery with MetroCluster.

I never had an issue with this solution, so I never used their technical support.

I'm rating the NetApp FAS Series a nine out of ten for availability and reliability.

Most of my customers utilize this solution in the banking sector. They use it for their banking applications. They use it as their main storage.

One of the features that are so nice and which the bank loves so much about the NetApp FAS Series is its cloning feature. You can clone a database of any size, and when you clone it, the clone itself at the time it is created only occupies a very, very small footprint on the storage. It is when you sever the clone from the main database that you'll have a larger footprint.

For example: You have a database of one terabyte, then you clone that, and it will occupy just a few gigabytes. This means you now have a clone which you can use for a number of things: reporting, backup, or anything you like. You can even use it to test a new product you are trying to bring into the market. However, the moment you sever the clone from the main database, then it becomes WORM-free terabytes on its own, so that's one advantage.

The other advantage is that when you want to do a backup no matter the size of the database, you can do a snapshot. The snapshot takes up a very tiny space on the disc. From that snapshot, you can then take your data and migrate it to a backup storage. The backup storage could be via disc storage. It could be cheap and you can migrate it without any performance implications on the production systems, and that's very, very good.

You can also do replication. You can do one-to-one replication when you have a multi storage and replicate it to under storage, which is located long distance from where you are running your production system. You can do one too many replications and that is okay. You can replicate the data, not just to another data storage, but to multiple data storages, so there's flexibility.

This solution also has deduplication capabilities, so you can compress the data and deduplicate it so that the space to occupy, or the footprint becomes smaller. 

There is a lot of data management tools today, and in the past you have to buy your data management tools separately. At present, when you buy NetApp storage, all the software tools are made available to you as a bundle, so that's another thing I like about the NetApp FAS Series.

The only improvement to this solution that I can propose is for NetApp to make the price more attractive. If the price is more attractive, then it will have a bigger market share. I can't think of any other area for improvement because the price is the only one that really comes to mind.

I've been dealing with the NetApp FAS Series since 2003.

This solution is very, very, very, very stable. Notice how I mentioned "very" a few times. You can rely on this solution because of its stability.

The NetApp FAS Series is scalable.

Technical support from NetApp is excellent.

In general, the setup for this solution is straightforward.

If the customer is migrating from a non NetApp storage to a NetApp storage, what we have to do is to map all the data from the non NetApp storage to the NetApp storage, after we have done the initial setup and configuration. Once we've completed that, from there, the customer can use the NetApp FAS Series straight away. We've done quite a lot of that.

An example is the case of Novacom: a telecommunications company. They were using EMC at that time, so we migrated that data from EMC to another platform, and it went very well. Now, if you're migrating from a NetApp storage to another NetApp storage, e.g. your current NetApp solution is already obsolete, then you want to do a technical refresh and you bought the latest version of the solution, so migration from NetApp to NetApp is the easiest. It will be the easiest data migration because all the tools are there.

Pricing for this solution is not very high, but could still be improved and made more attractive.

I've been a NetApp reseller for more than 10 years. I've supplied NetApp storage solutions to quite a number of customers in Nigeria, particularly in Lagos, so I have familiarity with the NetApp products, but that doesn't mean that I've sold all the various types. I've not sold all the various types, but I've sold quite a lot of backup storages, even when they were still producing virtual tape libraries.

My customers have been using NetApp for more than 10 years. In Nigeria, the most popular NetApp product is the FAS series. My customers always start with FAS. I've just placed an order for a NetApp Storage Acceleration Appliance (SA300) for Unity Bank of Nigeria. The NetApp FAS products: these ones are the most popular products in Nigeria, but there also other variants here.

Scalability and reliability are what my customers like about the NetApp FAS Series.

How long the full deployment for this solution takes depends on the complexity of the environment. It also depends on data volume. In some cases, you can get it done within two days, and in some cases you can get it done within one week to two weeks maximum. It could take up to two weeks when migrating from a non NetApp storage to NetApp storage. Otherwise, deployment can go very, very fast.

My customers love NetApp a lot.

The number of users of this solution, particularly those in the commercial banks, depends on the size of the customer base of those banks. The customers of the commercial banks are the ones interfacing with the commercial banking application, and there are usually millions of customers, but all of them cannot be on the application at the same time.

There are also internal users of NetApp within the bank itself: the bank staff who are making use of it for their normal day to day work, e.g. when closing at the end of the day, at the end of the month, or at the end of the year, etc. When you take into consideration the customers of the banks, the number of users of this solution would be millions.

I'm giving the NetApp FAS Series a rating of nine out of ten.

The input and output per second performance are satisfactory.

The solution can improve on the replication features.

I have used NetApp FAS Series within the past 12 months.

The technical support is satisfactory. They need to invest more into the service.

We work with Dell EMC and Huawei.

I recommend NetApp on top of the Dell EMC since it's less complex.

The initial setup is not that complex compared to the other vendor. It's in the same level of complexity.

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.

I rate NetApp FAS Series a seven out of ten.

The NetApp FAS series is unified storage and can be used for the NAS or SAN environments. We had a customer that needed multiple protocols.

The solution has allowed the consolidation of multiple storage boxes inside the organization. This has reduced the footprint on the data center. From a management point of view, the organizations do not need to manage multiple boxes, they only need to manage one.

The solution has tiers inside which means we do not only need to use SSDs.

The user interface could be improved.

I have been using the NetApp FAS series for approximately one year.

The solution is stable and has good performance.

The solution is scalable and can be added on to easily if needed.

The technical support is very good and supportive. Their technical support is very helpful and they are engaged from the beginning with the customer and until the project is finished.

I have used other solutions in the past.

The implementation of the solution was not that difficult.

We used our internal team with the help of the NetApp professional service team to complete the implementation.

By using the NetApp FAS series solution organizations are able to reduce the power, cooling, and space required which reduces the overall cost of operations.

The NetApp FAS series price is very competitive compared to other solutions on the market it is a good choice.

NetApp FAS series solutions have advantages over their competitors because they support multi-protocol, all the levels of the software, such as duplication, compression, and replication. It is an all-in-one solution, the customer does not require to have multiple solutions to get SAN and NAS environments.

I rate the NetApp FAS series an eight out of ten.

We are a solution provider and NetApp FAS is one of the infrastructure-related products that we implement for our clients. Our customers' use cases vary, where some of them use it as a backup target and others use it for the general workload. The primary use case is probably for general workload.

The most valuable feature is SnapMirror.

If our customer needs a high-performance storage solution then we don't recommend this product.

Some of our customers complain about not liking the UI, whereas others say that they love it. Also, some say that the FAS is too slow and some say that it performs fine. It's all relative and depends on the customer as well as the use case.

We have been working with the FAS series for about 10 years.

The FAS series is very stable.

The product scales really well.

The group that supports FAS supports all of the various NetApp products. I have found their support is responsive and thorough.

I regularly work with solutions from NetApp, Dell, and HPE.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The price depends on the size and features. I've sold arrays for as little $20,000 USD and as high as $300,000 USD. It would be very difficult to give an average cost.

In some cases, there are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

The suitability of this product depends on the use cases and the environment. For places where we sell it, it fits well. In places where it doesn't fit well, we would typically go with another solution like NetApp All-Flash storage, or something from another vendor.

My advice for anybody who is implementing the NetApp FAS series is to make sure that it's the proper fit. Perform a detailed sizing analysis prior to making the purchase.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The product is used for multitenancy and backups. We use it for different solutions.

Having multiple applications with different protocols running on the same system benefits our organization. The direction is unified. We can manage our applications from a single dashboard.

The product has a unified technology. We can use different protocols from the same controller. It is a unified solution that allows users to run multiple applications on a single storage.

The product must support more drives.

I have been working with the product for more than nine years.

The product is very stable.

The tool is scalable. It depends on the models, though. The entry-level models have limited scalability.

The technical support is very good. It can be better, though.

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward. We have to make the connection if we have some external drives to connect to the shells. Then, we power the shells and connect them to the controller. Once the system is up, we must create the aggregate and the volumes and mark them to the server. The deployment doesn’t take time, but the connectivity and the layout of the network take time. The whole process can be completed within an hour.

The resources needed depend on the scale of deployment. If I have many shells to configure, I will need people’s help. Otherwise, I can do everything myself. It is not difficult to maintain the tool.

The product provides a good value for money.

Pricing is very relative. It depends on the customers' budgets. NetApp has a good discount structure that finds a way to accommodate the customer's budget.

I worked with the solution about three weeks ago. We are partners. Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

We use it for storing our database data and for our virtual machines.

The best feature is its ONTAP product line for Ransomware protection. Another benefit is the hybrid and unified model. It also has features for file storage and block storage.

I was a little skeptical about the model. I wonder why the replication is included in the ONTAP One bundle when some customers may not require additional features. It should ideally be part of the ONTAP base bundle, even if there's a slight price increase.

I have been working with this solution for approximately two years now.

The solution is stable. We've had no issues with it.

The tool is scalable and meets our requirements for TVs. It handles beta bytes well. We are happy with its scalability.

The technical support and the supporting partner are great.

Positive

I work with HPE and Huawei OceanStor, too. HPE is great, but I'm not satisfied with Huawei OceanStor. I'm comfortable with HPE and NetApp FAS Series.

The initial setup is straightforward. It is a SaaS solution. and very easy to maintain. It’s not a high-maintenance device. It runs smoothly. We use it within our university and have up to a hundred concurrent user sessions. 

The deployment was handled by the partner from whom we made the purchase.

The product is on the expensive side, but the feature set is excellent.

I recommend the solution. Overall, I rate it a perfect ten because I haven’t encountered any issues since I’ve started using it.

NetApp FAS Series provides all the essential capabilities of E-Series. It is a complete package and even more reliable than E-Series.

They should add all features from Flash Pool, Flash Cache, and other new features into the product.

I rate the product’s stability a ten out of ten.

I rate the product’s scalability an eight out of ten.

NetApp FAS Series is simple to set up.

We deployed the product with the help of our in-house team.

It is a moderately low-priced platform.

If you are looking for a solution with good scalability options, go for NetApp FAS Series. I rate it an eight out of ten.

The product is flexible. 

Everythink is ok. 

I have been working with the product for four to five years. 

The product is stable. 

The solution is scalable. It is recommended for medium companies. 

The product's setup is easy and takes one working day to complete. One person is enough to implement the solution. 

The product's pricing is reasonable. 

I would rate the product a nine out of ten. The tool is the best one in the market in terms of pricing and features. 

I use NetApp FAS Series for servers. I have a lot of virtual servers connected through it using a Brocade switch.

I have found all the features useful in NetApp FAS Series.

I have been using NetApp FAS Series for approximately eight years.

The solution is highly stable.

NetApp FAS Series is stable in production storage and for the high-density volume services.

NetApp FAS Series is scalable.

We have approximately 500 users that use this solution in my organization.

We use NetApp FAS Series extensively in our organization and plan to upgrade it for SSD to be faster. We are running our production server on this storage and we use it every second of the day.

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 previously used NAS storage and it was not stable.

NetApp FAS Series is very expensive for us here in Sudan because we cannot purchase it from the vendor directly.

We have three or four people that do maintenance and support of NetApp FAS Series.

It is a one-time license charge for NetApp FAS Series to run and we pay annually for upgrades and support.

I rate NetApp FAS Series a ten out of ten.