Dell Avamar vs ExaGrid EX Series comparison

Dell Technologies and ExaGrid are both solutions in the Deduplication Software category. Dell Technologies is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.3, while ExaGrid is ranked #8 with an average rating of 9.0. Dell Technologies holds a 9.8% mindshare in DS, compared to ExaGrid’s 7.4% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of ExaGrid users who would recommend it.

Dell Avamar

Read 89 Dell Avamar reviews

5,583 Views
2,066 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

ExaGrid EX Series

Read 6 ExaGrid EX Series reviews

1,951 Views
1,912 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Dell Avamar

ExaGrid EX Series

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

Dell Avamar and ExaGrid EX Series compete in the data backup and recovery market. Dell Avamar often holds an edge in pricing and support, while ExaGrid EX Series stands out for its advanced features and rapid recovery capabilities, appealing to businesses with significant data volume needs.

Features: Dell Avamar offers source-side deduplication, integration with VMware, and efficient data protection, reducing network bandwidth requirements. ExaGrid's features include a landing zone technology for faster backups, an adaptive deduplication for optimal storage use, and scalability that grows with the organization.

Room for Improvement: Dell Avamar can improve by expanding its plugin support, enhancing performance in non-VM environments, and refining its user interface for more intuitive navigation. ExaGrid could enhance its dashboard functionality, improve data deduplication for long-term storage, and streamline processes for even faster initial deployments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell Avamar is praised for its smooth integration into existing environments and responsive customer support. ExaGrid boasts a straightforward deployment process, facilitated by pre-configured appliances, with customer service noted for its proactive and hands-on approach, ensuring efficient implementation and support.

Pricing and ROI: Dell Avamar is attractive for its lower initial costs, appealing to budget-conscious buyers, with ROI enhanced by storage efficiency and deduplication. Conversely, ExaGrid, with a higher initial investment, justifies its ROI through significantly reduced backup times and enhanced scalability, suitable for businesses focused on long-term growth and performance optimization.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell Avamar vs. ExaGrid EX Series Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell Avamar vs. ExaGrid EX Series

September 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 867,370 peers since 2012

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

Dell Avamar

Ranking in Deduplication Software

5th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Backup and Recovery (7th)

ExaGrid EX Series

Ranking in Deduplication Software

8th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Deduplication Software category, the mindshare of Dell Avamar is 9.8%, up from 9.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ExaGrid EX Series is 7.4%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Deduplication Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell Avamar	9.8%
ExaGrid EX Series	7.4%
Other	82.8%

Deduplication Software

Featured Reviews

Ayodeji Oyewole

Managing Director at Atlantic factorial

Reliable with good backups but has occasional failures

I use Dell Avamar primarily for backup and recovery The most valuable feature for me is the backup functionality. It gives large enterprises the comfort of knowing their workloads are being backed up. There are instances where backups fail on certain applications, which is an area that could be…

Read full review

Rastislav Maniak

Partial Owner at Storage One

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution scales well."

"The product has a proven track record of good backups without much of a failure ratio. It also has a good backup in terms of the compression ratio."

"The most valuable features are image backups and file backups."

"Client deduplication."

"We love the instant recovery functionality. It's very useful."

"Duplication and the speed of backup are great."

"Scheduling is valuable. It does a good job of backing up, and it does a good job of restoring. Nobody has got a problem with that. The agents are well supported."

"Dell Avamar has a push upgrade feature that lets you simultaneously push updates to thousands of clients. I also found the self-service part of Dell Avamar helpful."

More Dell Avamar 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 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."

"The solution easily integrates with the backup targets, such as Veeam."

"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."

Cons

"It is very scalable, and that's its claim to fame, but that also makes it hard to make changes. Anytime there is a large piece of software, changing that piece of software is harder. You've got a larger install base, so you can't just rapidly change. We also use another product called Veeam, and it has this new feature called Continuous Data Protection, which basically lets you get very close to the way the system was in time. We have a system or two up there on which we have set 10 minutes Continuous Data Protection. So, we can roll it back to whatever it was 10 minutes ago, 20 minutes ago, or 30 minutes ago. This feature doesn't exist in Avamar Data Domain. That's the one feature I'd like to see first."

"I want to see a more user-friendly and administrator-friendly Dell Avamar. The solution also needs a better UI and dashboard."

"The screen design is a bit back-dated."

"The bare-metal restores could be improved."

"Avamar is dependent on the hardware. It can't be implemented with ordinary storage. It can only be implemented with an EMC product. We want to have a backup solution that allows us to use independent storage and other hardware. It would be good if they can simplify its technology and make it possible to implement it with another storage. This is probably not possible because Avamar is an EMC product, and EMC would like to sell its own products."

"If there is a need to move the data from one backup solution to another, it might be difficult since there is no option for a straightforward migration."

"Some integrations are not in place, such as the email alerts, which are not compatible with Office 365 SMTP gateway."

"I think they could also move more towards cloud solutions. It already has some cloud tiering, but I think that could be more extensive. They should work with all cloud providers and I think in the future they will be on all cloud platforms."

More Dell Avamar cons

"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 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."

"The product's documentation can be made more precise."

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I'm not sure, but perhaps the pricing could be done better at the moment."

"The price is the main thing I'd like to see them change. If they can come down in price, that would be a good thing. It's very cost competitive in the entry level range, because Veeam pricing is much cheaper than Avamar."

"It was very expensive before, but after integrating it with Dell EMC Avamar Data Protection suite licensing, we are getting better discounts."

"This solution is less expensive than Veeam for us, although it depends on the customer because we get a great discount."

"There is a license required for this solution."

"Avamar's pricing is quite competitive compared to other vendors."

"Its price should be reduced. It would be good if you could pay as per usage, and there is a subscription model like VMware. There should be some flexibility because sometimes, the customer only uses the backup for one month or three months. Currently, I have to pay whether I use it or not. Its licensing should be flexible and based on consumption."

"The current pricing is generally satisfactory."

More Dell Avamar pricing and cost advice

"I rate ExaGrid EX Series' pricing eight to nine out of ten."

"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."

"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."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Deduplication Software solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

10%

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	17
Large Enterprise	48

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	2

Questions from the Community

What's the difference between Dell EMC Avamar and Dell EMC NetWorker?

From the very beginning, Dell EMC NetWorker considers users and those who might potentially become users. In terms of both pricing and setup, this product offers an experience that is significantly...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC Avamar?

The cost is very significant, and it could be lower.

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell Avamar?

Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ExaGrid EX Series?

I rate ExaGrid EX Series' pricing eight to nine out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ExaGrid EX Series?

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs Dell Avamar

Compared 38% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs Dell Avamar

Compared 13% of the time

Dell NetWorker vs Dell Avamar

Compared 8% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs Dell Avamar

Compared 7% of the time

Rubrik vs Dell Avamar

Compared 6% of the time

More Dell Avamar Competitors

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs ExaGrid EX Series

Compared 48% of the time

HPE StoreOnce vs ExaGrid EX Series

Compared 21% of the time

Quantum DXi Series vs ExaGrid EX Series

Compared 16% of the time

NetApp FAS Series vs ExaGrid EX Series

Compared 6% of the time

Veritas NetBackup Appliance vs ExaGrid EX Series

Compared 6% of the time

More ExaGrid EX Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell Avamar

September 2025

Download Dell Avamar product report

Buyer's Guide

ExaGrid EX Series

September 2025

Download ExaGrid EX Series product report

Also Known As

Avamar

EX Series

Overview

Dell Avamar data protection software delivers flexible and efficient backup and recovery operations that can scale from daily backup protection for endpoints to high-performance protection for large enterprises with diverse applications and workloads. With application consistent recovery, automation and fast backup and restores, Avamar can help you meet your SLAs and optimize your backup and recovery processes

If you are deploying all or part of your backup environment to the cloud, Avamar enables you to make the most of your cloud investment, enabling replication, disaster recovery and long-term retention for customers using AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud.

Avamar is available as part of Dell Data Protection Suite, which offers comprehensive data protection software applications and tools. Avamar is delivered as software and as a virtual edition.

Dell Technologies

The ExaGrid EX Series hyper-converged secondary storage for backup product line consists of eight appliance models. Each appliance is sized for a full backup and for long-term retention. Any ExaGrid appliance can be mixed and matched in the same scale-out system with any other size or age appliance, allowing customers to buy what they need as they need it. This pay-as-you-grow model allows up to 25 appliances in a single scale-out system.

ExaGrid

Sample Customers

Dodge County, St Laurence's College, FieldCore (a GE Company), Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Getronics, Lewisville Independent School District, EnvisionRxOptions, Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions

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

Buyer's Guide

Dell Avamar vs. ExaGrid EX Series

September 2025

Free Report: Dell Avamar vs. ExaGrid EX Series

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Avamar vs. ExaGrid EX Series and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Dell Avamar vs. ExaGrid EX Series report.

See our list of best Deduplication Software vendors.

We monitor all Deduplication Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.