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ExaGrid EX Series 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

ExaGrid EX Series
Ranking in Deduplication Software
8th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp FAS Series
Ranking in Deduplication Software
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
NAS (3rd), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Deduplication Software category, the mindshare of ExaGrid EX Series is 5.6%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 4.1%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Deduplication Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NetApp FAS Series4.1%
ExaGrid EX Series5.6%
Other90.3%
Deduplication Software
 

Featured Reviews

DG
Information Technology advisor at Lotus Consulting
Improvements in data storage efficiency and customer support experience
ExaGrid EX Series and Veeam was easy to set up, and it worked seamlessly. It was very simple to use. We rarely needed to touch the ExaGrid boxes, except for upgrades. With the systems engineer from ExaGrid, and with our common knowledge of backup software, it was very easy to use. The performance was good, the interface was good, and the GUI was good. When ExaGrid introduced the air gapped feature, it was almost complete. Almost every hardware vendor has an air gapped feature, but they were significantly ahead of other vendors. The air gapped and immutable storage are very nice features. The price compared to other competitors was good with better features. It is not a cheap product, but compared to the features, it is a good competitor.
Srikanth Purushothaman - PeerSpot reviewer
DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems
Has supported long-term data protection and backup while requiring better part availability and pricing options
For monitoring purposes, we normally use flash access storage exclusively. We utilize a hybrid system because we need performance, combining NL-SAS for the volume and SAS flash to use as a fast cache system that provides more IOPS. We normally implement RAID 10, which we prefer over RAID 6's n plus 2 combinations. We utilize it for data redundancy, even with write intensity on. Regarding the unified storage architecture for NetApp FAS Series, we normally opt for exclusivity unless budget constraints exist. Our IOPS are very high, reaching somewhere about 50k to 150k or 1.150k. The high performance ensures minimal latency. An advantage we've seen with NetApp FAS Series is that snapshots provide very rapid backup and fast recovery. We basically use snapshots for data protection as first-level protection, with deduplication between the two storages serving as second-level protection.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution easily integrates with the backup targets, such as Veeam."
"The tool has improved backup and recovery times. One of the key features contributing to this improvement is the landing zone and deduplication retention zone. When data is in the landing zone, the process is fast, ensuring smooth backup and recovery operations at high speeds. However, the process becomes slower for long-term backups moved to the retention zone due to fragmentation. So, if the data is older than a few days, the speed may be limited, especially for non-deduplicated data in the landing zone."
"It is a solid and a quite simple solution, which is a good combination. The customers like the simplicity and its scale-out capacity. They like the support pricing, and even the extension capacity pricing, a fixed price, which the executive is offering in Czech market."
"The equipment is pretty solid."
"One of the most valuable aspects of the ExaGrid EX Series is the support."
"One of the main features is the landing zone, it is a particular space where the information is not duplicated."
"ExaGrid EX Series and Veeam was easy to set up, and it worked seamlessly."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use and data deduplication. It's extremely easy to use and does a very good job of data deduplication and compression."
"It changed the way we do Disaster Recovery (DR) around NetApp replication."
"The tool's most valuable features are ease of use, ease of access, expandability, availability, and performance. NVMe drives have improved their performance."
"Clone – we updated to Dynamix AX 2012, and not a week has gone by that we haven’t fired up a clone to test a user, code, etc."
"Of all storage technologies I work on, it’s the easiest to learn and one of the most powerful."
"We have used some solutions like Hitachi, Dell, and EMC, but NetApp has more flexibility and we decided to stay with NetApp."
"Better performance and lower costs."
"It changed the way we do Disaster Recovery (DR) around NetApp replication."
"Overall I think NetApp are finally in a good place with cDOT and they can now put the 7-Mode platform behind them and focus on innovating."
 

Cons

"The one place where we are sometimes losing the opportunity with ExaGrid is that a few customers still require a fiber channel connectivity, which is not always possible."
"The solution could improve by switching to a flash-type solution rather than the spinning drives that they currently use."
"The tool reduces storage footprint. However, clients are now storing data for longer durations with increasing requirements to retain backups for longer periods, particularly as a defense against ransomware attacks. As a result, the retention zone with duplicated data is experiencing more demand, leading to space constraints. This necessitates using higher-end, more expensive models to address the issue."
"The product's documentation can be made more precise."
"I would like for them to develop direct cloud integration with a third-party cloud. Direct integration with AWS and other cloud providers."
"When speaking about a scale-out, you want to have better equipment. You cannot just add a disc to the foreign equipment. You have to buy another one and put it together, like parallel."
"The solution could improve by switching to a flash-type solution rather than the spinning drives that they currently use. However, we have not had any failure with the spinning drives. The flash-type drives are more up-to-date and are something that is in their roadmap."
"The support is not that fast to deal with our concerns. It is next day support, they could improve on the speed."
"I miss their old support structure. We used to be able to call up and get an answer pretty quickly, but now it’s more arduous."
"Interfacing with the cloud environment could be better. I want to be able to move some cloud volume and integrate it seamlessly with my home on-premise storage."
"Needs to improve the adaptive storage quality of service."
"NetApp FAS Series should introduce an FTP application for the broadcast and post-production market."
"When it comes to deployment we had our share of issues. Some of these issues are to blame on the vendor's lack of experience with the new models and ONTAP versions, but sometimes the systems themselves were faulty."
"The solution's configuration is not flexible."
"Needs more SAN support."
"One of the issues that we have had with NetApp in upgrading over the years is that migrating data from one system to another is one-way only."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The current agreement has 21 terabytes of free space and it cost approximately $35,000."
"I rate ExaGrid EX Series' pricing eight to nine out of ten."
"The previous solutions I have used both included the Backup Software and the Appliance making it hard to compare to this solution. However, overall the solution is reasonably priced for the features you receive. ExaGrid EX Series is priced better than HP, Dell, and possibly Commvault which I have compared in the past."
"My company had to pay 1,60,000 EUR for the system we use, and the payment was made just once for the system and five years of full support."
"In comparison to other solutions, it's affordable. They're all too expensive."
"The price it not low, but comparing features to other vendors, the price can be balanced."
"It is expensive."
"NetApp FAS Series is a reasonably high-priced solution, partially because we select the configuration that duplicates the entire system."
"The price of the NetApp FAS Series is reasonable and it provides value for the money with the feature sets. NetApp FAS Series are competing with Huawei storage which has an office and does aggressive marketing with a discount. However, we found that if our customers do a technology refresh they are happy with the performance of the NetApp FAS Series."
"Most storage vendors also have software, or licensing bundles, which may offer the required licenses considerably cheaper, but do also maybe offer licenses, which are not needed."
"It is a moderately low-priced platform."
"The NetApp FAS series price is very competitive compared to other solutions on the market it is a good choice."
"The scalability is pretty good, but it's too expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with ExaGrid EX Series?
Everything can always be better, so I would give it a nine.
What is your primary use case for ExaGrid EX Series?
We used ExaGrid EX Series as a landing zone for Veeam software. Initially they did not have immutable storage, but when they released that feature, we implemented it. We used it with Veeam software...
What advice do you have for others considering ExaGrid EX Series?
I was a customer. My overall rating for ExaGrid EX Series is 9 out of 10.
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?
I do not handle the pricing part of NetApp FAS Series since it is managed by the sales team.
 

Also Known As

EX Series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NCI Group, North Attleborough Public School, North Kingstown School Department, NPS Pharmaceuticals, Prudential Douglas Elliman, Rathbone Brothers PLC, Rio Hondo College, Ruder Finn, Sarah Lawrence College
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 ExaGrid EX Series vs. NetApp FAS Series and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
889,855 professionals have used our research since 2012.