TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    FreeNAS

    Score5.4 out of 10
    N/AFreeNAS is an open source operating system that allows nearly any hardware serve as a network-attached storage device. It was developed by iXsystems.N/A

    Microsoft System Center

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft System Center is an enterprise-grade IT Operations Management (ITOM) suite designed for the centralized administration of data center infrastructure, virtualized environments, and hybrid cloud workloads. The platform provides unified management across heterogeneous environments, including support for Windows Server, Linux, and Azure Stack HCI. System Center is Microsoft's ITOM stack for organizations that maintain a significant on-premise footprint, vs the company's Azure-based…

    $1,323

    per month

    Pricing
    FreeNASMicrosoft System Center
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Standard Edition
    $1323
    Datacenter Edition
    $3607
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    FreeNASMicrosoft System Center
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    FreeNASMicrosoft System Center
    Considered Both Products
    iXsystems
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    91%
    Would buy again
    31 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    33 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    91%
    Happy with the feature set
    31 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    95%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    21 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    28 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    FreeNASMicrosoft System Center
    Small Businesses
    DiskStation
    Score8.8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    DiskStation
    Score8.8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    DiskStation
    Score8.8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    FreeNASMicrosoft System Center
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    9.3
    (58 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.4
    (5 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (14 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    FreeNASMicrosoft System Center
    Likelihood to Recommend
    iXsystems
    FreeNAS is well suited for most storage serving scenarios, whether it be for an office file server, backup destinations, data replication across the internet, or as backend storage for virtual machines. It can serve various types of clients via a plethora of standard protocols and can easily integrate with existing infrastructure using LDAP authentication and so on. It's pretty simple to use (it helps to have at least a basic understanding of the underlying technologies) and almost maintenance-free. One scenario that springs to mind that it may not be appropriate for (yet) is as S3 storage. However, S3 functionality was added in a recent release and may have improved greatly since then. I'm sure it will eventually work very well for this.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    For companies with more than 10 Windows devices and needing to standardize the OS, AV, access, share resources, and install software. SCCM is the way to go. This software is unnecessary if the business is all remote users and not in an office-type setting. There are cloud offerings or none to accomplish what a business needs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    iXsystems
    • The FreeNAS web interface is modern looking. It makes tasks like provisioning drives into raid volumes easy.
    • The ZFS raid option allows you to add in an SSD as a cache drive to increase performance.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Allows the grouping of devices by user.
    • Allows controlling updates being deployed to user devices.
    • Allows for the repurposing of machines by being able to load new or updated software on machines that already are in the system.
    • Allows us the ability to wipe a machine clean and restore it back to the configuration that was assigned the machine.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    iXsystems
    • Not good for beginners as it requires deep understanding of networking and storage.
    • Most of the good and required features are not available in free version.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • The product could improve in the area of having better mechanisms in place with how the SCEP client is deployed/installed from the server on the management side. We have run into this firsthand with the client not installing on an endpoint, and then having to take the time to investigate why it was not installing.
    • A second improvement that can be made is to keep trying to improve the products detection rate for finding malware/viruses. The case can be made that there are some products out there that do a better job at this and have a higher detection rate.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    iXsystems
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Microsoft System Center Operations Manager is tightly integrated to Microsoft Windows servers os monitoring with great product support.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    iXsystems
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    It is not user-friendly for the most part. With IT infrastructure, sometimes it cannot handle excess requests. Every few months, you will need an upgrade in terms of server resources to keep up with incoming alerts and requests. This does not happen all of the time, but it does happen when there are too many requests.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    iXsystems
    There were some things that can be found by other users on forums and Google and some things that were not.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    There is a fair amount of documentation out there to help you when you have questions or run into issues with this product as well as tutorials on some of the more common tasks. Between the documentation and the overall ease of use we haven't had to deal with direct Microsoft support for this product.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    iXsystems
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Easy to install with intuitive interactive interface during the installation process a and integration to MS SQL was smooth
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    iXsystems
    FreeNAS effectively uses all resources really well and it is highly recommended for in premises NAS. It has unlimited ROI as it is really free and open-source. The only payment we need to pay is when we need any support from those guys. FreeNAS helps us to effectively do our work with the legacy systems as it manages all the components really well. FreeNAS although rebranded to TrueNAS will still be there until our legacy systems run.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    We previously used a mix of FOG and Clonezilla to image machines. The biggest issues with these products is that changing one piece of the image required you to rebuild the entire image itself. These pieces of software also did not allow you to manage applications and Windows Updates, causing IT to have to constantly touch machines after they were imaged and update or manage them with a much more hands on approach.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    iXsystems
    • Low-Cost Network Attached Storage
    • Provides additional network storage to support client & business operations
    • FreeNAS secures our data using custom encryption keys
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • It has allowed the enterprise to standardize on a single platform for monitoring.
    • Easier troubleshooting of issues with Microsoft platforms.
    • Greater visibility of issues across platforms when applications are hosted in a mixed environment.
    • Additional costs for monitoring systems that are not directly supported with additional packs (iSeries, Linux on Power).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots