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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
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
NAS (3rd), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Deduplication Software category, the mindshare of ExaGrid EX Series is 6.4%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 4.0%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Deduplication Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NetApp FAS Series4.0%
ExaGrid EX Series6.4%
Other89.6%
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."
"ExaGrid EX Series and Veeam was easy to set up, and it worked seamlessly."
"One of the main features is the landing zone, it is a particular space where the information is not duplicated."
"The most valuable features of the solution are deduplication and landing zone."
"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 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 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 most valuable features are the NAS features and NetApp's excellent support."
"We can manage our applications from a single dashboard."
"It is very easy to expand disks and manage CIFS."
"Snapshot, deduplication, and compression features are valuable."
"I would definitely recommend NetApp FAS Series to other users because it's stable and really handy for IT personnel who manage it."
"The tool's most valuable features are ease of use, ease of access, expandability, availability, and performance. NVMe drives have improved their performance."
"It allows our Windows and Unix teams to have a centralized point to share data between the two."
"It's an easy product to use that is stable and has good performance."
 

Cons

"The product's documentation can be made more precise."
"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 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."
"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 WAFL is slow."
"It's hard to find in-person training that fits our schedule in our area. They offer a lot of online training, but we need somewhere to go because we can't really get away from the office."
"I would like to see less latency and higher IOPS."
"The solution's configuration is not flexible."
"I’ve found that I use command line more often than I thought needed. Some things should be done in the GUI, and command-line switches can be overwhelming and take up a lot of time."
"There are some technical limitations, but it would be great to have in-line deduplication and in-line compression for the FAS series as well."
"The main area for improvement for NetApp FAS Series is price. Unfortunately, in India, NetApp price clearance takes longer than EMC."
"The one aspect of the solution that's negative for us is also more unique to us due to the fact that we did a MetroCluster. The tiebreaker piece that does the monitoring of the two different locations, and determines if one is not talking to the network normally (or if it's truly down) is a little difficult. It feels like it was not designed from the beginning to fit well into the other pieces. It feels like it was thrown in at the last minute and it is not smooth."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The current agreement has 21 terabytes of free space and it cost approximately $35,000."
"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."
"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 only area that could be improved is to lower prices for their All Flash FAS."
"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."
"I've sold arrays for as little $20,000 USD and as high as $300,000 USD."
"NetApp FAS Series' pricing is competitive."
"The solution’s cost is reasonable."
"There are products available in market with comparatively lower costs."
"It is a one-time license charge for NetApp FAS Series to run and we pay annually for upgrades and support."
"I don't recall the price, but in general, pricing can always be better."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Educational Organization
6%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
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 Enterprise37
Large Enterprise57
 

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?
Everything can always be better, so I would give it a nine.
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: December 2025.
879,768 professionals have used our research since 2012.