Skip to main content
TrustRadius
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays

NetApp FAS Storage Arrays

Overview

What is NetApp FAS Storage Arrays?

NetApp's FAS series systems offers a storage array system for enterprises.

Read more

Learn from top reviewers

Great Performance and Reliability While Being Stable and Convenient To Manage

Rating: 9 out of 10
February 7, 2022
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
The FAS8300 is snappy and very powerful. This NetApp FAS8300 implementation supports NFS-connected storage for over 25 VMware hosts which house over 900 VMs along with direct-...
Continue reading
Adam Paradis
Administrator - Information Technology
Virtualization Administrator
University of Maine System
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays6 years of experience

NetApp FAS -High Performance Storage Solution

Rating: 9 out of 10
February 5, 2022
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
It has a robust operating system and the support is also very good. Replication and block-level snapshot backup is a very good option to mirror the data in other environments ...
Continue reading
Verified user
Professional
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays3 years of experience

NetApp [FAS} Series is the Absolute Platform for File as a Service!

Rating: 8 out of 10
November 19, 2021
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
NetApp [FAS] is being used for my BFS client; the FAS series is used as NAS devices [that] provide files as a services to many users as well as for FC and iSCSI protocol. [The...
Continue reading
Verified user
Professional
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays4 years of experience

Did not live up to expectations

Rating: 5 out of 10
April 27, 2021
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
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...
Continue reading
Chris Saenz
Engineer - Information Technology
Lead System Engineer
Azusa Pacific University
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays8 years of experience

NetApp is losing market FAS

Rating: 7 out of 10
March 15, 2021
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
Our NetApp's served file shares, VMware, and Microsoft LUN data. This was used across our organization. We went through 2 hardware refreshes. Originally we needed to start wit...
Continue reading
Verified user
Engineer
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays12 years of experience

NetApp FAS with CDOT: Jack of All Trades, Master of Unstructured CIFS/NFS Data

Rating: 8 out of 10
March 12, 2021
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
NetApp FAS controllers are being used to store critical system data for operational sites. They provide the primary storage platform for VMware-based storage at a number of lo...
Continue reading
Verified user
Professional
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays7 years of experience

Strong and Reliable storage

Rating: 10 out of 10
August 28, 2020
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
NetApp has been defined as a Global standard for NAS (CIFS, NFS) workloads in our company, so it is being actively used in several of our sites across the globe. The largest s...
Continue reading
Verified user
Administrator
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays7 years of experience

NetApp (F)ast (A)nd (S)table

Rating: 10 out of 10
March 4, 2020
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
NetApp FAS is being used in our environment as our SAN and CIFS file system. This system replaced an old (and undersized) storage array. This system is now used for a number o...
Continue reading
Verified user
Technician
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays12 years of experience

NetApp Reliability and Support is Not Quite There

Rating: 5 out of 10
August 9, 2019
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
We use a NetApp FAS3210 in our main office and a FAS2240 offsite in our colo. The FAS3210 is our primary storage for all of our VMWare environment, which includes 9 VMWare hos...
Continue reading
Verified user
Administrator
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays5 years of experience

NetApp FAS series acting as a CIFS business server

Rating: 6 out of 10
July 29, 2019
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
Two NetApp FAS series are being used as CIFS servers. They serve all the department's folders for the whole organization. So, we replaced our typical Windows servers with a Ne...
Continue reading
Albert Buendía
Manager - Information Technology
IT System Engineer
Uriach
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays5 years of experience

NetApp -- an excellent platform for virtual environments

Rating: 10 out of 10
March 14, 2019
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
We have one NetApp FAS2200 device that houses the entire backend of our virtual server network behind two Dell PowerEdge R front end servers. This device houses all of the vir...
Continue reading
Vin Campbell
Director - Information Technology
IT Director
Sahadi Fine Foods
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays7 years of experience

NetApp FAS Does it All Review

Rating: 8 out of 10
April 11, 2018
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
It is being used for the IT department or across the whole organization. It solves our IT Infrastructure growth issue. We are a small NetApp customer that uses mostly features...
Continue reading
Verified user
Director
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays5 years of experience

NetApp FAS... a universal storage problem solver!

Rating: 8 out of 10
April 26, 2016
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
We are a large NetApp customer that uses the full NetApp product portfolio. We have approximately 20PB of NetApp FAS in use today ranging from very small remote office configu...
Continue reading
Verified user
Manager
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays8 years of experience
Log in with LinkedIn to see content from your network
Return to navigation

Product Details

What is NetApp FAS Storage Arrays?

NetApp FAS Storage Arrays Video

Trusted Data Protection with NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF)

NetApp FAS Storage Arrays Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

NetApp's FAS series systems offers a storage array system for enterprises.

Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 9.9.

The most common users of NetApp FAS Storage Arrays are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
Return to navigation

Comparisons

View all alternatives
Return to navigation

Reviews and Ratings

(53)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

The NetApp FAS8300 has been widely embraced for its ability to support large-scale storage requirements across various systems and data centers. Users have praised its snappy performance and impressive power, making it a valuable asset for organizations with demanding workloads. With innovative features like flash cache and deduplication, the FAS8300 stands out as top-tier storage that delivers exceptional speed and efficiency. Additionally, the FAS8300 has been leveraged as a reliable solution for NFS-connected storage in VMware environments with multiple hosts and hundreds of guest operating systems.

NetApp's FAS series devices, including the FAS2200 and FAS3210 models, have found their place in diverse use cases. These devices have successfully housed entire virtual server networks, offering ample speed and bandwidth to run multiple servers simultaneously. They have also served as CIFS servers, replacing traditional Windows servers to enhance security protocols. Furthermore, NetApp FAS controllers have served as primary storage for critical system data at operational sites while also providing primary storage for VMware-based storage at multiple locations.

One notable use case in Brazil showcases the exceptional reliability and availability of NetApp FAS. Thousands of users have accessed over 700TB of user data without any incidents over the past seven years. This highlights the robustness of NetApp's NAS workloads in delivering high availability and resiliency. The flexibility of the FAS series is further demonstrated by its ability to function as both a SAN and CIFS file system, effectively replacing outdated and undersized storage arrays.

Overall, the NetApp FAS series has proven itself as a versatile solution for various IT infrastructure challenges. It facilitates seamless IT growth, simplifies backup and restore processes, and enables users to store databases and replicate data across different environments. Its role as a NAS device extends beyond file services to include support for FC and iSCSI protocols. With strong operating systems and reliable customer support, the NetApp FAS series remains a popular choice for organizations seeking robust and scalable storage solutions.

Reviews

(1-13 of 13)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why

Great Performance and Reliability While Being Stable and Convenient To Manage

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized
February 07, 2022
AP
Adam Paradis
Virtualization Administrator
University of Maine System (Education Management, 10,001+ employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays
6 years of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
The FAS8300 is snappy and very powerful. This NetApp FAS8300 implementation supports NFS-connected storage for over 25 VMware hosts which house over 900 VMs along with direct-Linux connections for hundreds of guest operating systems. Connected disk tiers range from an SSD flash pool to achieve faster access and to 900 GB to 8 TB in size.
Pros and Cons
  • Administration through web GUI and CLI.
  • Reliability.
  • Performance.
Likelihood to Recommend
It is very easy to use with NFS. Creating new volumes and mounting to servers such as ESXi or Linux is a breeze. It does also support CIFS but it is far less intuitive and requires much more effort. Replicated data is also very simple and robust in the form of SnapVaults or SnapMirrors. This data is either immediately or periodically replicated to a peer FAS in the cluster for retention.

NetApp FAS -High Performance Storage Solution

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized
February 05, 2022
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays
3 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
It has a robust operating system and the support is also very good. Replication and block-level snapshot backup is a very good option to mirror the data in other environments and for disaster recovery. The backup and restore process is much easier with the FAS series. We are mainly using it for storing our DB and to replicate the data to different environments.
Pros and Cons
  • Backup and restore
  • I/O Performance
  • Support
Likelihood to Recommend
We are using Netapp for years and I've been very happy with NetApp's performance and the hardware has been extremely reliable. One of the things I like most is the support and it's very responsive and knowledgeable when we need them. The only downside is the price and it's something pulling us back when we thought of implementing it in more business areas.

NetApp [FAS} Series is the Absolute Platform for File as a Service!

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized
November 19, 2021
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays
4 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
NetApp [FAS] is being used for my BFS client; the FAS series is used as NAS devices [that] provide files as a services to many users as well as for FC and iSCSI protocol. [The] FAS 8000 and 9000 Series have been used in [the] current environment.
Pros and Cons
  • File as a service
  • Faster Backup
  • Data ONTAP
  • Connectivity via FC/SMB/NFS/iSCSI
Likelihood to Recommend
This NetApp FAS series is suited for all types of environments starting from mid to large scale organizations. This can be used as [a] file as a service model as well as [an] offsite backup tool. SnapMirror feature could be used as [a] DR solution, which in our case is used from one site to another site, and as of today, we have [approximately] 35 PB of storage just in [the] FAS series.

Did not live up to expectations

Rating: 5 out of 10
Incentivized
April 27, 2021
CS
Chris Saenz
Lead System Engineer
Azusa Pacific University (Higher Education, 1001-5000 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays
8 years of experience
View profile
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
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.

NetApp is losing market FAS

Rating: 7 out of 10
Incentivized
March 15, 2021
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays
12 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Our NetApp's served file shares, VMware, and Microsoft LUN data. This was used across our organization. We went through 2 hardware refreshes. Originally we needed to start with entry-level SAN and move away from file server-based storage, but it expanded over time.
Pros and Cons
  • Hardware is flawless.
  • Support is top shelf.
  • Many in one solution.
Likelihood to Recommend
NetApp FAS is great if you need to combine CIFS and iSCSI/LUN into one box. The local node clustering worked rather well and the transition from one node to another was within reasonable time limits.

NetApp FAS with CDOT: Jack of All Trades, Master of Unstructured CIFS/NFS Data

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized
March 12, 2021
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays
7 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
NetApp FAS controllers are being used to store critical system data for operational sites. They provide the primary storage platform for VMware-based storage at a number of locations. Applications running on NetApp FAS controllers range from infrastructure-based services (VMware, Monitoring, Anti-Virus) and application servers. Deployments range from standalone FAS to MetroCluster deployments.
Pros and Cons
  • Unstructured data
  • Lifecycling of hardware (C-DOT)
  • Metro level high-availability (MetroCluster)
  • MyASUP integration
Likelihood to Recommend
NetApp FAS is well suited to environments running VMware with an IP-based fabric. Whilst I have used FC storage fabrics, other storage arrays manage FC better than NetApp. So if you have a requirement for a large number of RDM's in VMware or WSFC disks, another product might suit you better. NetApp FAS also excels in environments with Linux-based deployments that require the consumption of NFS-based volumes.

Strong and Reliable storage

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
August 28, 2020
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays
7 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
NetApp has been defined as a Global standard for NAS (CIFS, NFS) workloads in our company, so it is being actively used in several of our sites across the globe. The largest sites using it are the USA, Brazil and Norway.
One of the main reasons for it to be selected as the standard for NAS workloads is the resiliency and high availability it provides. In Brazil, we have ~5000 users accessing more than 700TB of user data (CIFS shares) on a daily basis. We didn't have a single availability incident in the last 7 years!
Pros and Cons
  • NAS Workloads (CIFS, NFS)
  • Snapshot retention/management
  • Disaster Recovery protection (SnapMirror and SnapVault)
  • Storage efficiency (compress, deduplication)
Likelihood to Recommend
In my opinion, NAS workloads and data protection are two of the strongest points that Netapp has. It sounds a kind of obvious as they created the NAS concept. A NetApp FAS cluster suits very well for scenarios/companies where the unstructured data (users CIFS shares) are one of the most important workloads. This is our scenario in many of our sites and this is why it was selected to be our standard solution. It also handles SAN workloads very well, but maybe you`d rather go with an HCI solution for block workloads.

NetApp (F)ast (A)nd (S)table

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
March 04, 2020
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays
12 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
NetApp FAS is being used in our environment as our SAN and CIFS file system. This system replaced an old (and undersized) storage array. This system is now used for a number of things including a complete disaster recovery plan and backup system. One important part of this was to speed up backup recovery times. NetApp software makes this possible.
Pros and Cons
  • Backups are a piece of cake with Snapshot technology.
  • Disaster recovery plans are made much easier with SnapMirroring to remote locations.
  • The support is incredible. Auto Support makes it incredibly easy. The Auto Support website also gives you a great view of your NetApp deployment.
  • Redundant paths make updating and maintenance much easier with no downtime.
Likelihood to Recommend
NetApp FAS systems are extremely scalable and therefore, in my opinion, they can have a place in any environment. The built-in software has some great use cases including recovery and mitigation of ransomware attacks. The speed of backups and restoration is incredible. The ability to restore a single file out of millions is also incredibly handy.

NetApp Reliability and Support is Not Quite There

Rating: 5 out of 10
Incentivized
August 09, 2019
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays
5 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use a NetApp FAS3210 in our main office and a FAS2240 offsite in our colo. The FAS3210 is our primary storage for all of our VMWare environment, which includes 9 VMWare hosts and over 220 virtual servers. The FAS2240 in the colo is used for a handful of production VMWare machines, as well as the storage of some offsite backup from our executive office.
Pros and Cons
  • It was fairly easy to implement with guided assistance from NetApp.
  • We haven't had many drive failures.
  • The pricing was right.
Likelihood to Recommend
NetApp, as far as the storage itself goes, is quite fine. It was very competitively priced when we looked at it, so it's probably good for medium to large businesses. Smaller businesses could probably get by with a much cheaper solution, possibly even just a NAS device. It would also be good for any offsite backup as well.

NetApp FAS series acting as a CIFS business server

Rating: 6 out of 10
Incentivized
July 29, 2019
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Two NetApp FAS series are being used as CIFS servers. They serve all the department's folders for the whole organization. So, we replaced our typical Windows servers with a NetApp solution. Why? Basically, for two main reasons. First, for security purposes. We make volumes snapshots every hour. In the case of a ransomware infection, we resolve the incident by managing snapshots. The second reason we switched was so fileservers don't have a typical NetBIOS name. We use NetApp for our CIFS servers in conjunction with Active Directory DFS so folders and files have no dependencies of a fileserver name. This is great.
Pros and Cons
  • Volume snapshots
  • CIFS server
  • Snapmirror between both NetApp storage instances
  • Hardware snapshots with backup software
Likelihood to Recommend
Best suited as a good alternative to typical Windows virtual file servers. It is less appropriate as a virtual machine repository.

NetApp -- an excellent platform for virtual environments

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
March 14, 2019
VC
Vin Campbell
IT Director
Sahadi Fine Foods (Retail, 11-50 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays
7 years of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We have one NetApp FAS2200 device that houses the entire backend of our virtual server network behind two Dell PowerEdge R front end servers. This device houses all of the virtual server files for all of the organization's virtual server infrastructure. This one device -- containing an array of hard drives -- pumps out enough speed and bandwidth to run about 12+ servers at the same time.
Pros and Cons
  • Support. Support. Support. It's been a welcomed surprise to have a hard drive land on my desk, and a better surprise to have a NetApp tech arrive soon after to install the drive. I didn't even know the drive failed-- now that's support.
  • AS stated, the ability of these devices to host multiple virtual servers, entire infrastructures, and work well and fast, is a definite strength.
  • The ability to stack these devices and have failover.
  • The upgrade program is great.
Likelihood to Recommend
This platform is perfectly suited for any size virtual environment. As a backend to the production servers, these devices truly excel. If you are a busy IT person, running the department, doing the work too, doing project management, etc., then you simply can't beat the support provided by this company. They monitor remotely and have an excellent SLA. I would not recommend this product to small businesses, as the entry point is very high, and you do need technical know-how to have these devices in play.

NetApp FAS Does it All Review

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized
April 11, 2018
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays
5 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
It is being used for the IT department or across the whole organization. It solves our IT Infrastructure growth issue. We are a small NetApp customer that uses mostly features such as Snapmirror and SnapStore primary of NetApp product portfolio. We have approximately 2 NetApp FAS in use today ranging from DR configurations all the way to small corporate data center installations. We are a long term customer with over 5 years of experience with NetApp in production and development at our company.

Pros and Cons
  • Replication
  • Recovery
  • Storage Provisioning
Likelihood to Recommend
It is ideal for large organizations that have a variety of different business scenarios and locations from small to large. It is flexible and can grow.

NetApp FAS... a universal storage problem solver!

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized
April 26, 2016
Verified User
Vetted Review
Verified User
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays
8 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We are a large NetApp customer that uses the full NetApp product portfolio. We have approximately 20PB of NetApp FAS in use today ranging from very small remote office configurations all the way to large corporate data center installations. We are a long term customer with over 8 years of experience with NetApp in production at our company.
Pros and Cons
  • The selling point for NetApp FAS is the application and data protection integration capabilities they provide.
  • We have been able to use NetApp FAS in a variety of use cases with a standard set of management tools.
  • NetApp FAS has evolved over the years from just NAS to also include block protocols. At this time they support almost all industry standard protocols.
Likelihood to Recommend
NetApp FAS is a great platform to solve a large variety of different problems. It is ideal for large organizations that have a variety of different business scenarios and locations. This ability allows global support organizations to have standard tools and methods even in a variety of use cases and site sizes. On the flip side, this flexibility is also sometimes the weakness of the platform. In very specialized use cases/areas such as low latency with flash this can be a detriment. We still seem to use specialty arrays to solve these point requirements.
Return to navigation