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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
7.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp FAS Series
Ranking in Deduplication Software
3rd
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 July 2025, in the Deduplication Software category, the mindshare of ExaGrid EX Series is 8.4%, down from 9.5% 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

Daan Lieshout - PeerSpot reviewer
With great features like deduplication and landing zone, the tool also provides stability and scalability
Speed-wise, ExaGrid is much faster than the other solutions in the market. When you choose between or from several different manufacturers, you need to understand a little bit about how the product exactly works and why its speed can be so high while being able to compare it to other solutions, allowing you to know of the backup window if you ever need it. You have to understand how it works and the product's preferences, even though the price may be slightly higher. Learning about the solution is not at all a problem, but when you open a console, you see so many things, and in the beginning you don't understand it all. Later on, it becomes more usable when you start understanding it. In general, ExaGrid provides you with a lot more information than any other system in the market. It is difficult to say what is additionally required in the solution because, presently, it has a lot of things like immutability, anti-hacking, and retention. The solution does put efforts towards improvement. The product's interface provides you with a proper overview of the deduplication rate and the status of how many storage systems you are left with through a visual screen, which is more than enough. When you go deeper, you can access all the enhanced consoles. The product can easily be integrated with third-party products because ExaGrid has all its best practice documents for integrating it with many other products. I rate the overall product a nine out of ten.
Arnaud Salmon - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good performance and
Once, I've been in a program, but they stopped supporting protocols like HTTP, STP, and that kind of stuff. All of the DIP supports at the beginning were kind of support when it was just Python and just five storage. And it happened a few times that the customer required the STP and HTTP protocol for storage. And I was surprised I couldn't do it anymore with NetApp. So, it would be beneficial for them to support both kinds of protocols. The only little black points that I would put on top of NetApp FAS Series. There is room for improvement in deployment and configuration processes. The thing with ONTAP is that we have a lot of layers, from the raw disks to the volumes we present to servers and configure. There are quite a lot of things to configure. Probably NetApp should ease the way to install that. In NetApp products, such as ONTAP and FAS, a solid understanding of storage is still necessary to handle configurations in larger systems. It's not the same with Pure Storage or Huawei. Even someone less familiar with storage could manage it, making it more accessible.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of the solution are deduplication and landing zone."
"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."
"The solution easily integrates with the backup targets, such as Veeam."
"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."
"One of the main features is the landing zone, it is a particular space where the information is not duplicated."
"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 replication feature protects us from data loss."
"It is very easy to expand disks and manage CIFS."
"Other products lose performance over time, but NetApp OS is speed-optimized."
"The file sharing feature is most valuable."
"The most valuable feature for us is the combining of HA and SnapMirror."
"The initial setup was so straightforward. It was well-documented."
"Snapshot, deduplication, and compression features are valuable."
"It is very flexible. It integrates well with the public cloud and other components, so everything can be API driven. Therefore, it is very easy to automate it."
 

Cons

"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 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."
"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 product's documentation can be made more precise."
"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."
"I would like for them to develop direct cloud integration with a third-party cloud. Direct integration with AWS and other cloud providers."
"NetApp needs to put its OS on a microchip rather than on disks."
"NetApp FAS Series should introduce an FTP application for the broadcast and post-production market."
"With scalability, we feel the system is limited."
"For long term partnership in Myanmar, the local warehouse should be built in Myanmar that's something I'd like to see. We have some issues with supply so there is sometimes a delay in getting the hardware."
"Dedicated storage efficiency accelerators could improve the overall performance of the system."
"I think this kind of infrastructure is mostly obsolete. To keep up with developments in this space, you need to move all these features to an All-Flash solution."
"The product should improve its user experience."
"Cost is always a factor. Some people choose EMC or Dell because they perceive NetApp as being more expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"In comparison to other solutions, it's affordable. They're all too expensive."
"I rate ExaGrid EX Series' pricing eight to nine out of ten."
"The current agreement has 21 terabytes of free space and it cost approximately $35,000."
"The tool is expensive."
"We have considered upgrading to an All-Flash solution but when we evaluated the cost-benefit we discovered that we don't have enough money to invest in it. To maintain the same technology with All-Flash would be too expensive for us."
"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with ten being expensive. We pay a one-time purchase price."
"Cost effective storage for all performance levels (including all-flash)."
"The product's pricing is reasonable."
"If we want a ransomware solution with the product or other extended features, we need to pay an extra cost."
"The price, compared to competitors, is quite high."
"The only area that could be improved is to lower prices for their All Flash FAS."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
22%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ExaGrid EX Series?
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ExaGrid EX Series?
I rate ExaGrid EX Series' pricing eight to nine out of ten.
What needs improvement with ExaGrid EX Series?
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 r...
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?
The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is not cheap, but in comparison to other vendors, NetApp FAS Series is affordable because they also have deduplication, compression, and inline compression. They fo...
 

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: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.