Item: NetApp FAS Storage Arrays
Rating: 5
Author: Chris Saenz

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I've used several NetApp FAS series devices in different organizations to handle large storage requirements for various systems or entire data centers. It has been used as top-tier storage with innovative enterprise features like flash cache and deduplication. I've also used many of its backup features that are touted as a big part of the NetApp software.

Pros and Cons

Clustered storage
Multiple connectivity options (Fibre Channel, iSCSI, CIFS/SMB, etc.)
Options for mapping volumes to different connectivity types

Deduplication job runs at certain times and creates a large CPU overhead for the system
Management of a volumes, disk groups, LUNs, etc. is a burden to manage and is not efficient with storage capacity
Upgrades are complicated and not "non-disruptive"

Most Important Features

Deduplication
High-performing storage
Backup functions

Return on Investment

Large storage capacity served general data requests well
Managing the product long term incurs a large administrative overhead
NetApp FAS series did not provide high-performance storage as well as other providers

Alternatives Considered

HPE EVA P6000 (Discontinued), HPE MSA and Pure Storage FlashArray

We had chosen NetApp FAS series because of its high performance, deduplication, manageability, and backup features. Although I have been able to use these NetApp FAS series features, the implementation of them has not worked as well as with other storage providers. There was probably a time where NetApp FAS series was one of the most innovative storage platforms on the market, but it appears that time has passed.

Key Insights

Do you think NetApp FAS Storage Arrays delivers good value for the price?

Are you happy with NetApp FAS Storage Arrays's feature set?

Did NetApp FAS Storage Arrays live up to sales and marketing promises?

Did implementation of NetApp FAS Storage Arrays go as expected?

Would you buy NetApp FAS Storage Arrays again?

Other Software Used

Commvault Complete Backup & Recovery, VMware Cloud on AWS, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

Likelihood to Recommend

The NetApp FAS series has the features to be an enterprise-class storage system, however, at this point they do not perform as well as other storage systems. Management of the system is very involved and requires a lot of oversight. Having to divide up the disks into groups and volumes and LUNs or shares is a nightmare to manage in a large environment. Deduplication is another feature that is great in theory, but the CPU overhead to run the deduplication job is ridiculous. Having to decide between saving space and just having enough CPU to serve IO requests is not a user-friendly choice to have to make.

Did not live up to expectations

Overall Satisfaction with NetApp FAS series