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CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs Dell RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 15, 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

CTERA Enterprise File Servi...
Ranking in Disaster Recovery (DR) Software
8th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (2nd), NAS (9th), Cloud Migration (7th), Cloud Storage (10th), Cloud Backup (12th), Cloud Storage Gateways (2nd), Content Collaboration Platforms (12th)
Dell RecoverPoint for Virtu...
Ranking in Disaster Recovery (DR) Software
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Disaster Recovery (DR) Software category, the mindshare of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines is 4.0%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Disaster Recovery (DR) Software
 

Featured Reviews

Igal Muginstein - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers flexibility, fast performance, and ransomware protection
The platform is releasing new features at a fast pace, which sometimes leads to version updates every three to six months. Although updates are generally not complex, it is challenging to stop the production environment during these updates, even if the downtime is just a few minutes. This is a common challenge across all NAS providers. From my perspective, the most important area for improvement is developing a method to perform updates without affecting customer production environments. Additionally, there are some cache size limitations that might become problematic for future use cases, though they don’t impact current applications. Collaboration for NFS and SMB protocols could also be enhanced. Although this issue isn't specific to CTERA, it is something we are working on together to improve. The quality of the versions has improved, but occasional issues still arise. All solutions face this challenge, but we hope to see a continued reduction in the number of bugs. That said, we haven't had any major production problems in the last four years, and we appreciate how responsive CTERA is to our issues. We engage in brainstorming sessions together, and we value this relationship.
ClaudioSalgado - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers replication flexibility across multiple environments, including local centers and secondary sites
It offers key features like any point-in-time recovery without needing scheduled snapshots. It allows for automated VM protection during processes like failover and testing, and it offers replication flexibility across multiple environments, including local centers and secondary sites. It also provides IP address management when network configurations differ across sites.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution provides data eviction, where unused data is evicted from the local file, freeing up space. It also allows data to be rehydrated from the cloud when needed."
"CTERA stood out due to its ease of use and superior security features."
"CTERA's instantaneous and redundant file replication, available across multiple geographical locations, ensures easy and user-friendly recovery."
"It is a three-in-one solution for us. It is a file-sharing platform, an archiving solution, and also a backup solution."
"The solution provides substantial flexibility, allowing the separation of workloads across various hardware platforms without vendor lock-in. This flexibility makes it adaptable to future infrastructure changes."
"The features I find most valuable are in the gateways themselves. They have done a great job over the years of providing insight into what is happening with our products, with the batches that come through that are scanned. I enjoy that part of it, and it is fairly easy to use from our standpoint once we get to know the product."
"I like that the glass is always half full with CTERA file services. It keeps the data hot for users on location and then tiers off older data. If you need it, the stub is still there. You can click on it, and it's back on the device."
"Our main reason for going for this solution was the uncontrollable growth of file data. It was unsustainable on our previous platform or technology. We needed something scalable like CTERA, so it was the scalability that we required."
"Continuous replication with lower RTO and RPO is the most innovative feature. Its tight integration with VMware for VMware VMs is also valuable."
"The workload can be moved directly if the disaster site is the main site."
"The installation is straightforward if the version you have is compatible with your infrastructure."
"Dell RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines offers key features like any point-in-time recovery without needing scheduled snapshots."
"It is a point-in-time restore, which is quite handy."
"The generalization of the journals allows us to go back in time and choose the snapshot suitable for us. We can grab it as needed."
"Point-in-time recovery and ease of deployment are valuable."
"The most valuable feature is that it is journal-based and you don't have to replicate a lot of data."
 

Cons

"The web portal that our users access to view data and backups could be optimized. CTERA could apply some of the improvements made to their administrative interface on the user side. The administrators are a much smaller group of people than the users, so it would be helpful if they targeted user experience resources to them."
"They fixed all the requirements that we had in the beginning. The beginning was a little bit rough, but we tuned it nicely. However, in some cases, they could improve performance."
"The new Edge filer that they have comes with a lot more features than what we purchased. It would be better if we are able to add those extra features without having to swap out the hardware. A clear upgrade path for legacy customers would be beneficial."
"However, in some cases, they could improve performance."
"It has a learning curve."
"One of the bigger things that I would like to see is additional logging. There are logs in there. They provide us with the initial logs on what is happening on our CTERA device. I appreciate that, but they do not give us any further information. I would like to have more information on the logs themselves."
"It would help to have a global single-pane-of-glass view of all my CTERA devices. We have different regions, and we must log in to each portal to see what's happening with those. It would be nice to have a single portal to see the health of the devices, versions, and firmware upgrades. Sometimes, we want to dive into something more complex, like investigating why CTERA storage usage grew from 2 terabytes to 4 terabytes in a week. That's a little challenging. It's something we would like to see on the road map."
"One suggested improvement for the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is the ability to distribute data across multiple active backend storage nodes rather than the current limitation of a single active node."
"The solution currently supports only VMware. There is increasing demand for compatibility with other hypervisors, such as Hyper V and KVM Proxmox. Additionally, licensing has become less flexible and more expensive."
"The solution is not easy to use. It's actually quite hard. If it could be simplified it might be better for the end user."
"Although we can change the IP address, it would be good to have some other sort of orchestration to make life easier to manage when we failover."
"The solution could improve by being more easier to use. However, once you have used it for a while it becomes easier. Additionally, there could be better support and compatibility with management by having a command-line interface. This would be beneficial for the customers."
"The solution currently supports only VMware."
"I would like to have the HTML 5 interface working because it is currently not functioning with the VMware environment."
"I would like to see integration with EMC NetWorker in the next release."
"The biggest challenge we faced was attempting replication between two different kinds of storage systems, like IBM on one side and Dell EMC storage systems on the other, before opting for VPLEX."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards."
"So far, pricing seems to be fine."
"It is hard to compare the costs if we want to retain the same model of a separate high-performance storage or certain things, but it is one of the cheapest solutions available in Israel."
"CTERA's pricing model is competitive compared to other companies that achieve the same thing. Their closest rival is Nasuni, and CTERA is significantly more affordable than Nasuni."
"CTERA's pricing seems to be on par with some of the other players, such as Nasuni and Azure. They all have benefits, but CTERA is competitive for its features."
"I find the pricing reasonable. They offered us deals that helped us. Especially with the upgrade to a bigger unit last year, they were helpful with the deal."
"It is fairly priced. I am not too involved in the pricing of what we used to pay, but it would have reduced the cost of ownership. I cannot give a figure, but the EMC solution was very expensive compared to CTERA."
"This is an expensive product."
"It was a part of a backup solution. So, it was free for us."
"Pricing-wise, it is pretty much fair for any customer who only has a VMware environment. Licensing is based on the number of VMs that you want to protect at any given point in time. Licensing is not based on size."
"The tool is expensive. If one means cheaply priced and ten means expensive, I rate the tool's price as a seven."
"This is not a very cheap solution and compared to others, it is expensive."
"There is a license required for this solution and the pricing depends on how many virtual machines you have."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
70%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Educational Organization
4%
University
3%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards.
What needs improvement with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
One area for improvement is the migration tool, which at times does not work as designed, necessitating the use of alternative solutions like Robocopy. AI and automation features could enhance the ...
What is your primary use case for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
We use it as a hosted cloud solution. We had initially tried Azure File Sync, but that did not work. Due to certain security concerns, I was tasked with researching alternatives. I evaluated severa...
What do you like most about Dell EMC RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines?
One of the standout features of Dell RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines is its real-time data protection capability.
What needs improvement with Dell EMC RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines?
Although we can change the IP address, it would be good to have some other sort of orchestration to make life easier to manage when we failover.
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

McDonald's, WPP, US Navy, Gore, Festo, Stryker, Bezeq, PERI
Rushmore Electric Power Cooperative, PCS Publishing, Noble Foods
Find out what your peers are saying about CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs. Dell RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.