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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 equipment is pretty solid."
"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."
"One of the main features is the landing zone, it is a particular space where the information is not duplicated."
"The solution easily integrates with the backup targets, such as Veeam."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable features are the NAS features and NetApp's excellent support."
"It saves a lot of time and minimizes downtime, which is important because we're a hospital and we can’t afford much downtime."
"The new FAS series is a good fit for some customers. We have good performance and capacity, even though it is full flash."
"This solution is very, very, very, very stable."
"Our business has grown two and half times in size over six years, and we’ve added more disks and shelves, as well as upgrading controllers, and we’ve done it without any down time."
"The integration with cloud environments has benefited my customers' storage strategy by providing cloud volume ONTAP."
"The FAS series is very stable."
"The solution is stable."
 

Cons

"The support is not that fast to deal with our concerns. It is next day support, they could improve on the speed."
"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."
"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 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."
"The solution could improve by switching to a flash-type solution rather than the spinning drives that they currently use."
"The product's documentation can be made more precise."
"I have found it to be expensive."
"They need to improve the go-to-market for all-flash and converged infrastructure."
"NetApp needs to put its OS on a microchip rather than on disks."
"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."
"Cluster mode needs to be more ubiquitous."
"Upgrades are always hold-our-breath situations."
"Needs to ​add wizards for newer, inexperienced users."
"It could improve by better integrating with other technologies like VMware, as there are some version conflicts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"The only area that could be improved is to lower prices for their All Flash FAS."
"The process for going to cluster mode is expensive."
"We are on a perpetual license."
"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."
"In general, I find NetApp to be very expensive. That's the main issue I have with them. So it's a drawback in terms of pricing."
"Low-priced product, but pricing could still be made more attractive."
"It’s difficult for us to get money, so make sure you get everything in order, because there’s no going back and saying “oh, I missed this or that”, so make sure you plan well and well in advance."
"It is 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.
890,071 professionals have used our research since 2012.