Dell Avamar vs IBM ProtectTIER comparison

Dell Technologies and IBM are both solutions in the Deduplication Software category. Dell Technologies is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.0, while IBM is ranked #13. Dell Technologies holds a 10.3% mindshare in DS, compared to IBM’s 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 60% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Dell Avamar

Read 90 Dell Avamar reviews

5,396 Views
1,943 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

IBM ProtectTIER

Read 7 IBM ProtectTIER reviews

878 Views
255 Comparison Views

60% willing to recommend

Dell Avamar

IBM ProtectTIER

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

IBM ProtectTIER and Dell Avamar compete in the data protection market. Dell Avamar has a slight edge in features due to its versatility and ease of integration.

Features: IBM ProtectTIER offers high deduplication efficiency, strong storage space reduction, and robust data protection. Dell Avamar provides multi-platform support, ease of integration, and efficient performance. Dell Avamar's versatility is a key advantage.

Room For Improvement: IBM ProtectTIER needs enhanced reporting tools, simpler configuration, and improved user interface. Dell Avamar requires better support for newer applications, a more intuitive management console, and enhanced automation features. Each product has areas to refine.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM ProtectTIER deployment is resource-intensive but has positive customer service feedback. Dell Avamar is known for straightforward deployment and comprehensive support from Dell, making it a standout option.

Pricing and ROI: IBM ProtectTIER has higher setup costs but offers significant ROI through storage reduction. Dell Avamar features competitive setup costs and consistent ROI with efficient data protection capabilities. Users feel Dell Avamar provides tangible ROI benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell Avamar vs. IBM ProtectTIER Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell Avamar vs. IBM ProtectTIER

December 2025

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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 Backup and Recovery

9th

Ranking in Deduplication Software

5th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM ProtectTIER

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

75th

Ranking in Deduplication Software

13th

Average Rating

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Deduplication Software category, the mindshare of Dell Avamar is 10.3%, up from 8.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM ProtectTIER is 1.7%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Deduplication Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell Avamar	10.3%
IBM ProtectTIER	1.7%
Other	88.0%

Deduplication Software

Featured Reviews

SamuelThomas

Consultant at Key Information Technology L.L.C.

Have supported critical environments despite room for improvement in legacy backup options

It is very efficient in cyber resilience. Deduplication, automation, and everything is very efficient. It is multi-cloud enabled and has broad protections. The software delivers flexible and efficient backup and recovery options through its cyber resiliency features. Dell PowerProtect Manager provides insights in managing backup processes. Its encryption mechanisms are very efficient, helping to secure sensitive data. Its integration with Dell EMC Data Domain is very good. It is easy to integrate with Data Domain. Multi-cloud options are enabled, and backup in cloud options exist in Dell Avamar.

Read full review

Avdhesh Garg

Technical Lead at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Provides a short-term backup, archive, and cataloging for 20,000 people in our organization

The backup for a large amount of data is slow. When there's a large amount of data, sometimes the backup isn't completed in time. I have a 24 hour cycle, so it doesn't get completed in 24 hours with the large amount of data. With Veritas NetBackup, I can take 20 terabytes of backup in a day.

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 most valuable feature of Avamar would have to be the way it works over needing very little bandwidth to move data across a WAN or LAN."

"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."

"Stable and scalable backup and recovery software, with good technical support."

"I always recommend Dell Avamar to our enterprise customers because the product is costly, and enterprise customers can afford it."

"The function I find most valuable in Dell Avamar is its ability to take differential backups for users. This feature is very effective for both backup and restore operations. We've had multiple cases where we needed to restore files directly from Avamar, and it worked perfectly. The Delta feature, which captures changes in user files, is particularly useful."

"I found the most valuable features of Dell Avamar are the user-friendly interface and ease to use. Our clients have administrated this software and there is no additional training required."

"Quick incremental backups and product replication are the two highlights of the product. Once you capture a full backup, incrementals are pretty quick. It is fairly efficient from that perspective."

"Avamar's source side deduplication is very strong, it can easily back up remote sites' data, and not much bandwidth is required on the Avamar side."

More Dell Avamar pros

"In terms of stability, I've found it to be very stable. I've walked into the server room when it was at 60 degrees Celcius, and it was still running fine."

"The cataloging is the best feature. It takes millions of frames for the backup. It's incremental, so it takes less time to complete."

"The most valuable features are the Self-Service, and the ability to search the data."

"The solution is highly stable."

"Overall IBM ProtectTIER is a great solution. It is easy to use."

"The command-line interface is good."

Cons

"The recovery is a bit slow."

"If you need to pull data out of it to offload to tapes, that's messy. You have a mechanism for it, but it is painful."

"Setting up Avamar wasn't so easy, and we had a partner doing the installation for us. Though it was hard at first, it's getting better. The main difficulty was finding plugins for Oracle Database. It took some time to open a ticket with Dell, but everything was fine after that."

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

"I have found the support from Dell EMC Avamar to be not as good as Veeam. The time it takes to receive support could be improved. However, once we have the support the agents are knowledgeable and helpful."

"The only concern is the cost."

"The user interface needs to be improved. It's not as good as it could be."

"The interface has room for improvement. It's not ideal right now."

More Dell Avamar cons

"The configuration wizards are still complex and hard to navigate. These should be easier to manage."

"Setting up the system to work with legacy equipment is a bit complex at times."

"I would like the possibility to back up the infrastructure and then replicate it upon on restart, without having to orchestrate the starting of the VM."

"IBM ProtectTIER could improve by being more user-friendly."

"The backup for a large amount of data is slow."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is very expensive. It's a trust based licensing. So that's an ethical challenge."

"I rate the tool's price as a three out of ten if one means expensive and ten means it is a cheaply priced tool."

"Dell Avamar is free when we deploy the data protection. When we order data protection, this software is included in the hardware."

"Dell's pricing structure is not overly expensive."

"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."

"It was approximately $70-80,000 when it was under support, but right now EMC has not been supporting this product for two years."

"Dell Avamar is a moderately priced solution."

More Dell Avamar pricing and cost advice

"The customer can decide how they want to purchase a license. However, the price of the solution is expensive."

"IBM ProtectTIER is an expensive solution."

"We have a capacity-based license, which is managed centrally for all the sites of my company."

"This solution is very expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

10%

Computer Software Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	18
Large Enterprise	48

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	3

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...

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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

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Comparisons

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs Dell Avamar

Compared 37% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs Dell Avamar

Compared 8% of the time

Rubrik vs Dell Avamar

Compared 7% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs Dell Avamar

Compared 5% of the time

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain vs Dell Avamar

Compared 5% of the time

More Dell Avamar Competitors

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain vs IBM ProtectTIER

Compared 29% of the time

HPE StoreOnce vs IBM ProtectTIER

Compared 18% of the time

Rubrik vs IBM ProtectTIER

Compared 11% of the time

DD Boost vs IBM ProtectTIER

Compared 9% of the time

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs IBM ProtectTIER

Compared 9% of the time

More IBM ProtectTIER Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell Avamar

January 2026

Download Dell Avamar product report

Buyer's Guide

Deduplication Software

January 2026

Download IBM ProtectTIER product report

Also Known As

Avamar

No data available

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

IBM TS7650G ProtecTIER Deduplication Gateway is designed to meet the disk-based data protection needs of the enterprise data center while enabling significant infrastructure cost reductions. The solution offers industry-leading inline deduplication performance and scalability up to 1 petabyte (PB) of physical storage capacity per system, and can provide up to 25 PB or more backup storage capacity. Combined with IBM or third-party storage, TS7650G ProtecTIER Deduplication Gateway provides a powerful disk-based repository to improve the performance, retention and availability of backup and archive data in a small footprint for energy and cost efficiency.

IBM

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

Durham Police Department, Re-Store LLC, CenterGrid, pixx.io GmbH, Australian Government Department of Defence, QD, Refresco Gerber

Buyer's Guide

Dell Avamar vs. IBM ProtectTIER

December 2025

Free Report: Dell Avamar vs. IBM ProtectTIER

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