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NetApp ONTAP pros and cons

Vendor: NetApp
4.3 out of 5
Badge Ranked 1
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Pros & Cons summary

NetApp ONTAP offers disaster recovery with SnapMirror and SnapVault for swift data replication. Its scalability suits various environments while cost efficiency is achieved through deduplication and compression. Data security is enhanced with double-parity RAID systems. Despite high-rated support, service response time needs improvement. Setup complexity and cloud integration with object storage are areas for development. CPU limitations may affect storage performance, and block-based storage scalability presents challenges.

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

NetApp ONTAP offers significant storage cost reduction through deduplication and compression features, enabling organizations to save on capacity and financial resources.
SnapMirror and SnapVault technologies in NetApp ONTAP provide valuable disaster recovery capabilities, allowing quick and efficient data replication and failovers.
NetApp ONTAP excels in scalability, allowing users to seamlessly add nodes and expand storage capacity, enhancing performance and operational flexibility.
The high reliability and stability of NetApp ONTAP ensure continuous data availability, reducing potential downtime and enhancing business continuity.
NetApp ONTAP's powerful throughput and IOPS support enable fast data access, significantly improving data management efficiency and operational productivity.

CONS

They need to enhance cloud integration and provide better S3 integration with other vendors and platforms.
Scalability is an issue when it comes to block-based storage, lacking in comparison to file-based storage capabilities.
Technical support experiences delays, and first-level support needs improvement in understanding and resolving issues effectively.
Initial setup processes are too complex, requiring simplification for ease of installation.
There is a need for better integration with other products and more comprehensive API support.
 

NetApp ONTAP Pros review quotes

reviewer1801533 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 10, 2022
From a storage standpoint, NetApp is the number one partner and the number one equipment manufacturer.
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AT
Apr 25, 2025
The ability to do online upgrades in a clustered setup is absolutely crucial, and I extensively use new features such as replication and backups for certain cloud features in the enterprise.
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AS
Oct 23, 2018
Efficiencies such as Flash Cache and Flash Pool allow us to make better use of slower, cheaper storage and have some faster storage sitting up front taking a lot of the caching and the reading. The way that has been optimized for the NetApp platform is better than the competitors. It has reduced our cost of storage because we're buying cheaper storage for the bulk capacity, which is really effective.
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NetApp ONTAP
June 2025
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PB
Dec 19, 2018
We over-allocate our aggregates and it still works, it's great, it's fun. We dedupe everywhere, we get huge savings. We went back and deduped the whole thing again, we could get more, so that's what we do. We go back and look to see if there's an option we can set and do it from the beginning, but still 13 terabytes, that's a lot of dedupe savings. Sometimes we get 50% or more in our savings, so we love dedupe.
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HK
Apr 24, 2025
For our product requirement and our users' requirements, it is one of the perfect network storage solutions we are using. It's reliable, synchronous, and we are not losing any data when using it.
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BP
Apr 26, 2025
NetApp ONTAP has absolutely been a game changer for our organization. We support and use different storage services, but this is the first time we have a service and storage that supports multiple protocols, such as SMB, NFS.
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SystemsE2ad9 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 28, 2018
We have been using it for our entire environment, so we use it in file shares and in our VDI environment, at least for user data. That has reduced our user login times by about 50 percent.
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reviewer1223520 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 5, 2019
The product allowsfor the centralization of large environments.
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DB
Dec 19, 2018
I would rate this solution a ten because of what NetApp provides us from a quality layout. The partnership that they provide us and their assistance is very important and the work that they communicate with us on a regular basis is outstanding.
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reviewer2706069 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 15, 2025
The fact that NetApp ONTAP supports NVMe over TCP is a significant advantage.
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NetApp ONTAP Cons review quotes

reviewer1801533 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 10, 2022
They need centralized controls.
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AT
Apr 25, 2025
NetApp ONTAP has several limitations that we encounter, primarily related to large enterprise clients. They do not affect small clients that NetApp may have. While these limitations are clearly described, some issues require us to develop workarounds.
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AS
Oct 23, 2018
I would like to see more in the public cloud space around things like object storage. A bit more granularity around how that gets deployed would be nice, but other than that I think they've got it nailed.
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Buyer's Guide
NetApp ONTAP
June 2025
Free Report: NetApp ONTAP Reviews and More
Learn what your peers think about NetApp ONTAP. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
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860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.
PB
Dec 19, 2018
We're at 9.3 so when we go to 9.5 we would like the synchronous SnapMirror because our users would like that, especially the ones that do the conveyor belt of data. We'd like that.
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HK
Apr 24, 2025
In the future, we are going to migrate to Windows-based platforms. I want to see if we can achieve similar control and implementation with Windows, basically installing NetApp ONTAP onto a Windows machine and not just onto the Linux machine.
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BP
Apr 26, 2025
They could focus on making it more user-friendly. Currently, many users need a certain level of NetApp knowledge to operate it effectively, often relying on command-line interfaces that demand IT or technology skills. While there is a GUI available through Systems Manager, a lot of management still occurs at the command line, so enhancing the GUI for better usability could be a key focus area.
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SystemsE2ad9 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 28, 2018
Going forward, I want to see a simplified deployment and more straightforward recommendations on what is required for it.
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reviewer1223520 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 5, 2019
Technical support is good but they can take some time on critical problems.
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DB
Dec 19, 2018
There is a lot a lot of functional integration that we look forward to for improvements. I'm learning where they're going and I'm very interested to see those improvements and how they can help us.
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reviewer2706069 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 15, 2025
They could expand what is possible to do with automation as there are gaps in the Ansible module coverage they have.
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