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Dell Avamar vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.0
Dell Avamar offers efficient data reduction, cost savings, enhanced IT operations, and strong data security against ransomware threats.
Sentiment score
6.2
NetApp FAS Series offers efficient storage, cost savings, and satisfaction, especially in VMware environments, despite high expansion costs.
If you have the configuration well maintained and configured, you should have good efficiency and compression for the clients and for yourself.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Dell Avamar's customer service is mixed; praised for expertise but criticized for reliability and communication issues post-acquisition.
Sentiment score
7.3
NetApp FAS Series customer service is responsive and knowledgeable, though regional availability and resolution streamlining can improve.
When their technical person is online, the quality of service and technical knowledge are very good.
If the implementation was wrong from the start, the support could not fix fundamental issues.
They also don't respond in time, even for P1 situations.
We are also using it ourselves for the SAN and CIFS protocol.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
Dell Avamar offers scalability for medium to large enterprises but requires costly node additions and has infrastructure limitations.
Sentiment score
7.4
NetApp FAS Series offers seamless scalability, integrating old and new components for medium to large enterprises despite potential cost issues.
Dell Avamar offers very good scalability.
NetApp FAS Series is scalable, and it is possible, but you need to pay.
The NetApp FAS Series is scalable and offers numerous solutions, but only if customers are willing to invest in the shelves.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.6
Dell Avamar is praised for its stability, reliability, and effective performance in virtual and physical infrastructure backup and restore.
Sentiment score
8.0
The NetApp FAS Series is praised for stability and reliability, with users noting minimal issues and high performance.
When panic occurs on the node, it reboots itself, and we have experienced numerous hardware-related issues.
 

Room For Improvement

Dell Avamar needs UI, backup speed, cloud integration, and scalability improvements, with concerns over pricing and technical support.
NetApp FAS Series needs enhancements in flexibility, pricing, integration, performance, documentation, support, virtualization, and scalability to address user concerns.
There are instances where backups fail on certain applications, which is an area that could be improved.
While Dell Avamar is a good product, the pricing is very high.
It was not possible to have a custom user inside ONTAP without the delete permission to delete the volume.
The process involves contacting NetApp support to report bugs and receiving either a bug ID or a fixed ONTAP version.
There is an opportunity there for NetApp with Cloud Volumes ONTAP.
 

Setup Cost

Dell Avamar offers varying pricing experiences, with praised setup ease, but cost-effectiveness compared to competitors like Veeam is debated.
NetApp FAS Series is pricey but offers good ROI and savings through bundled licensing, with support impacting overall costs.
I don't currently have detailed knowledge about the pricing, however, it is geared towards enterprise businesses and might be on the higher side.
The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is not cheap, but in comparison to other vendors, NetApp FAS Series is affordable.
 

Valuable Features

Dell Avamar provides efficient data protection, scalability, and seamless integration, offering user-friendly features and strong deduplication with minimal resource use.
NetApp FAS Series excels in high availability, integration, and efficient storage solutions, featuring robust disaster recovery and unified storage.
The most valuable feature is the instant recovery capability.
The most valuable feature for me is the backup functionality.
While NVMe disks are expensive and require three disks for parity calculations, hard drives in NetApp FAS Series are inexpensive, making it more cost-efficient per GB, even with RAID tech implementation.
One important feature for customers is its ease of use and continuity, enabling seamless usage across on-premise and cloud environments.
At this moment, autonomous ransomware protection is the key feature.
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell Avamar
Ranking in Deduplication Software
3rd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (10th)
NetApp FAS Series
Ranking in Deduplication Software
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
NAS (3rd), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Deduplication Software category, the mindshare of Dell Avamar is 9.4%, up from 9.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 3.5%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Deduplication Software
 

Featured Reviews

Rahul Sarangdhar - PeerSpot reviewer
Works excellently for on-prem backup but not the best for Azure backups
Avamar is not the best tool when it comes to taking Azure backups. Like Commvault, if Avamar can support VM-level backups for the cloud, that would make it a bit better. There is another Dell EMC tool called NetWorker, which is a bit centralized tool. If you deploy a storage node locally, you can use the same UI tool for central management, but in the case of Avamar, it needs to be deployed individually on a site, irrespective of whether it's small or big. So, if I have 10 sites, I have to manage 10 Avamar. That's a bit of a headache. The Dell EMC solution professionals who connect with the clients should suggest NetWorker to clients with multiple sites rather than Avamar. That's because NetWorker gives more centralized control, but they keep recommending Avamar, which isn't the best practice. There are no free or cheaper training plans. Unless your company is a partner with Dell, you don't get the student guide training, etc. Their administrator guide does not have all the information required for a new person. It doesn't cover the basics. The student guide is good, but it's not free. If you are a partner, only then it's free. Otherwise, there is a cost of $2,000 to $3,000. For people who are new to Avamar, there should be some resources to enable them to study on their own at least 50% of the basics. If I want to study Commvault, I get so many documents and resources to study, but in the case of Dell EMC products, there aren't any free resources. Only if you're a partner, the resources are available for you to learn. The user manuals and administrator guides are just for deployment. They aren't good for learning the basics for a fresher.
Paweł Jabłoński - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for VMs with replication a feature, but need upgraded SSDs
We use this solution. I configured and updated it. Of course, I was also a user of applications that store data on that storage. We already have an SSD solution. So, rather than planning to go with an SSD solution, we are focusing on expanding it. If a company wants to deploy something new, it should choose a product with SSD, and NVMe disks. Overall, I rate the solution a six out of ten.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Educational Organization
56%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What's the difference between Dell EMC Avamar and Dell EMC NetWorker?
From the very beginning, Dell EMC NetWorker considers users and those who might potentially become users. In terms of both pricing and setup, this product offers an experience that is significantly...
What do you like most about Dell Avamar?
Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup.
Which SAN product would you choose: IBM FlashSystem (FS9500) vs PureFlash Array/X NVMe vs PureFlash Array/XL NVMe?
Have you considered a NetApp FAS Storage for your NAS needs? I am sure it fits very well.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp FAS Series?
Cost is a big factor in our decision-making process. When we're buying storage, the first thing we look at is how much we're paying per gigabyte. Cost has been the driving factor when choosing this...
 

Also Known As

Avamar
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dodge County, St Laurence's College, FieldCore (a GE Company), Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Getronics, Lewisville Independent School District, EnvisionRxOptions, Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions
Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Avamar vs. NetApp FAS Series and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.