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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 October 2025, in the Deduplication Software category, the mindshare of ExaGrid EX Series is 7.3%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 3.7%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Deduplication Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NetApp FAS Series3.7%
ExaGrid EX Series7.3%
Other89.0%
Deduplication Software
 

Featured Reviews

Rastislav Maniak - PeerSpot reviewer
Improves backup and recovery time and integration with other products is good
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 was asking about the mutual appliance, which would provide the same features as the integrated client without the hardware. This would allow it to be used in the public cloud, which I heard might be available soon. However, the private cloud is not reliable.
Srikanth Purushothaman - PeerSpot reviewer
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 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 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."
"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."
"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 most valuable features of the solution are deduplication and landing zone."
"One of the main features is the landing zone, it is a particular space where the information is not duplicated."
"The most important features are SnapVault, Snapshots, and SnapMirror."
"It gives us the performance we need and the reliability we need to make sure that our systems have the uptime that our internal customers demand."
"They are very satisfied with NetApp and continue to use NetApp and upgrade to new solutions."
"The solution is very stable and reliable"
"A reliable and easily managed storage system is a key performance factor. The system also has more features than we require."
"One of the most valuable features offered is double-parity RAID, which guarantees that your data will stay intact. We're also able to provision storage and monitor which ones are really consuming storage."
"The strong point is that our clients like this are RadLV (Radiology Low-Value). They also use SnapMirror and MetroCluster."
"It has integrated snapshot and backup capability."
 

Cons

"The product's documentation can be made more precise."
"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."
"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."
"I would like for them to develop direct cloud integration with a third-party cloud. Direct integration with AWS and other cloud providers."
"I would like to see less latency and higher IOPS."
"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."
"The solution’s pricing is expensive."
"The adoption of the cloud in Argentina is very slow. Customers do not move most of their applications to the cloud. Moving applications is a simple task, but the cost is a concern in Argentina. There is an opportunity there for NetApp with Cloud Volumes ONTAP."
"If our customer needs a high-performance storage solution then we don't recommend this product."
"Regarding the stability of NetApp FAS Series, I would rate it seven or seven point five because there are frequent panic messages."
"The solution could do more than just data."
"The NetApp FAS Series is not as high-performing and is not as fast. Its speed needs improvement, but this could only be done if it's an all-flash solution."
 

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."
"I rate ExaGrid EX Series' pricing eight to nine out of ten."
"In comparison to other solutions, it's affordable. They're all too expensive."
"The current agreement has 21 terabytes of free space and it cost approximately $35,000."
"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 focus on storage only, which is really good; it works."
"The product is on the expensive side."
"When we need to implement a less expensive solution we use Huawei. NetApp FAS Series is a little bit expensive compared to the average of the market."
"I don't recall the price, but in general, pricing can always be better."
"The solution is more expensive than other vendors."
"The NetApp FAS series price is very competitive compared to other solutions on the market it is a good choice."
"The price, compared to competitors, is quite high."
"The process for going to cluster mode is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
University
6%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
6%
 

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?
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: September 2025.
871,829 professionals have used our research since 2012.