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CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs Retrospect Backup comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Cloud Backup
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (1st), NAS (4th), Cloud Migration (3rd), Cloud Storage (4th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (7th), Cloud Storage Gateways (1st), Content Collaboration Platforms (6th), AI Legal & Compliance (3rd)
Retrospect Backup
Ranking in Cloud Backup
69th
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (79th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Cloud Backup category, the mindshare of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is 0.9%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Retrospect Backup is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Backup Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform0.9%
Retrospect Backup0.5%
Other98.6%
Cloud Backup
 

Featured Reviews

Tim M. - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Supports global file recovery and rapid data versioning across 80 nodes
When we implemented CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform early on, and we've been on the platform for three years, we have three different cloud portals. We have an EU portal, we have an Americas portal, and we have an APAC portal. It would be nice if we could combine that into one portal just for that global single pane of glass look. We've talked with them about that and they say it's challenging just because of some of the structure, but that would be something nice if we could get that. I integrated with Varonis, and because CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform didn't have initially a working relationship with that vendor, it would have been nice had that pre-existed us saying we need this. But that wasn't totally CTERA's fault. There was a lot of challenge working with the vendor to build out that interface. A single pane of glass for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform would be beneficial. Everything else works fairly well. We've never had a point where we couldn't get to something that caused us to have a serious outage, and that to me is the mark of a good software package. It's never really caused us serious issues. We have our issues, that's true, and every software package does. However, we've always been able to meet the needs of the business, and we drive hard on security, stability, and scalability. From the scalability standpoint, that's one of the most important things to us. We're on their capacity-based licensing, so if I need to ramp up another CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform NAS, if we have an M&A, I can easily and quickly spin up another NAS and start doing that data transition fairly quickly. The biggest maintenance issue with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is firmware upgrades. We've done a lot of transition from hardware solution to virtualized infrastructure in order to minimize that hardware lifecycle portion of it. We have to upgrade the firmware and sometimes that can be challenging in the nature of business of our size with 80 CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform nodes around the globe. The issue we've had with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform happened recently in a firmware upgrade where there was a major database back-end upgrade and that took some time. For our smaller sites, it would be an hour or two, and I can build that into a fairly easy change window. But in our larger sites where we may have hundreds of terabytes of data, that database update process took maybe a day or a day and a half. That becomes more challenging, especially in a manufacturing environment where people are wanting to access configuration files. We had to pin the data locally because the data would be available on the local edge filer, but the cloud sync, while it was updating the database, the cloud files weren't available. That would be the other thing I'd like to see an improvement on: some way to do those database upgrades either in a more segmented fashion or in some type of offline environment. I understand the logistics behind that sounds easy, but I'm sure it's not.
Sujeet Rai - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Lighthouse Solutions
Can be used to back up servers and desktops, but needs to have an Oracle agent for its on-premises model
Retrospect Backup has a single console that can be used to manage and backup servers and desktops. The solution supports tape and cloud since certain customers are still on tape. The solution provides a dissimilar hardware restore feature. If you have a complete machine burnout, you can restore it on new dissimilar hardware. Retrospect Backup is used to protect file data and SQL databases. Streamlining data backup processes with Retrospect Backup is automated and does not need any human intervention. The solution doesn't take up much time and does the backups automatically. Policy creation is very easy with Retrospect Backup. Once it's done, you don't have to bother about it because it keeps working on its own. A disaster recovery (DR) solution has been built into Retrospect Backup. You can restore the whole machine on a fresh setup with ISO images. Retrospect Backup is very easy to use and not very complicated. Creating policies and adding clients is very easy in the solution. The solution doesn't take up much LAN bandwidth except for the first full backup. The solution is efficient and does the backups really fast. It takes backups in batches of 14 machines at a time.

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 Enterprise File Services Platform has positively impacted my organization in that it works as a file server, and centralizing things makes managing them in one location simpler than managing them everywhere else."
"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."
"It makes people think I have my superhero cape on because they're thinking it's all lost, they're doomed, and we're able to quickly and effectively go back and say, 'Here you go,' and it's not hours, it's minutes."
"CTERA has out-of-the-box data protection capabilities."
"The CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is a hybrid solution that supports both on-premises and cloud environments."
"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."
"CTERA's instantaneous and redundant file replication, available across multiple geographical locations, ensures easy and user-friendly recovery."
"Retrospect Backup has a single console that can be used to manage and backup servers and desktops."
 

Cons

"The issue we've had with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform happened recently in a firmware upgrade where there was a major database back-end upgrade and that took some time."
"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."
"More monitoring from the platform would be good. There is some monitoring, but it is paid. It is a chargeable service. It would be good for that to be included in the base."
"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."
"Stability-wise, we just went through one issue that they addressed. We were having cloud sync issues."
"One area for improvement is the migration tool, which at times does not work as designed, necessitating the use of alternative solutions like Robocopy."
"However, it is a bit difficult to find the files because I need to go through each and every folder step-by-step, and the search engine optimization is not that good, so I face some difficulties in finding the files."
"The issue we've had with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform happened recently in a firmware upgrade where there was a major database back-end upgrade and that took some time."
"Retrospect Backup needs to have an Oracle agent for its on-premises model."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"So far, pricing seems to be fine."
"I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards."
"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."
"Retrospect Backup is more cost-effective compared to other products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
50%
Outsourcing Company
20%
Educational Organization
4%
Construction Company
4%
Construction Company
26%
Retailer
8%
University
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise16
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
I do not know much about the pricing, setup cost, or licensing cost of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform. I believe it comes with a license. From what I heard from my seniors, a 50 TB capacit...
What needs improvement with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
I cannot think of any areas at this time that could be improved. CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is a well-rounded platform.
What is your primary use case for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
I primarily use CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform to replicate our marketing content to our regional offices. Marketing uses the Adobe application suite for creating and managing file content...
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

McDonald's, WPP, US Navy, Gore, Festo, Stryker, Bezeq, PERI
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