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Dell Avamar 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.8
Dell Avamar offers efficient data reduction, cost savings, enhanced IT operations, and strong data security against ransomware threats.
Sentiment score
6.2
NetApp FAS Series offers efficient storage, cost savings, and satisfaction, especially in VMware environments, despite high expansion costs.
If you have the configuration well maintained and configured, you should have good efficiency and compression for the clients and for yourself.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
Dell Avamar support is knowledgeable but slow, with communication challenges and limited first-level responsiveness hindering comprehensive assistance.
Sentiment score
7.3
NetApp FAS Series customer service is responsive and knowledgeable, though regional availability and resolution streamlining can improve.
When their technical person is online, the quality of service and technical knowledge are very good.
The current technical support by Dell is very good.
Sometimes, the support was inadequate because the initial architecture was poorly defined.
We are also using it ourselves for the SAN and CIFS protocol.
They often provide basic solutions, such as suggesting a failover or a power cycle, which are not the sophisticated solutions we expect from a vendor.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
Dell Avamar offers scalability for medium to large enterprises but requires costly node additions and has infrastructure limitations.
Sentiment score
7.4
NetApp FAS Series offers seamless scalability, integrating old and new components for medium to large enterprises despite potential cost issues.
Dell Avamar offers very good scalability.
We normally avoid current versions and use versions that have been running for at least two months in client usage before updating drivers.
NetApp FAS Series is scalable, and it is possible, but you need to pay.
The NetApp FAS Series is scalable and offers numerous solutions, but only if customers are willing to invest in the shelves.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Dell Avamar is stable and reliable, praised for smooth operation and low failure rates in various infrastructures.
Sentiment score
8.0
The NetApp FAS Series is praised for stability and reliability, with users noting minimal issues and high performance.
When panic occurs on the node, it reboots itself, and we have experienced numerous hardware-related issues.
Most things are tailor-made, and we avoid downtimes even with primitive CLI commands.
 

Room For Improvement

Dell Avamar needs UI, backup speed, cloud integration, and scalability improvements, with concerns over pricing and technical support.
NetApp FAS Series needs enhancements in flexibility, pricing, integration, performance, documentation, support, virtualization, and scalability to address user concerns.
They could add more features for cyber resilience and multi-cloud options in the next release to make it even better.
There are instances where backups fail on certain applications, which is an area that could be improved.
While Dell Avamar is a good product, the pricing is very high.
Storage companies should create encrypted storage solutions between the OS and storage to protect against ransomware attacks.
Nutanix leads the business in this approach, and I feel that NetApp is missing some aspects, such as CPU, GPU, and RAM, in its AI portfolio.
There is an opportunity there for NetApp with Cloud Volumes ONTAP.
 

Setup Cost

Dell Avamar offers varying pricing experiences, with praised setup ease, but cost-effectiveness compared to competitors like Veeam is debated.
NetApp FAS Series is pricey but offers good ROI and savings through bundled licensing, with support impacting overall costs.
I don't currently have detailed knowledge about the pricing, however, it is geared towards enterprise businesses and might be on the higher side.
The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is not cheap, but in comparison to other vendors, NetApp FAS Series is affordable.
 

Valuable Features

Dell Avamar provides efficient deduplication, scalable backup, and recovery with strong integration and platform support for robust data protection.
NetApp FAS Series excels in high availability, integration, and efficient storage solutions, featuring robust disaster recovery and unified storage.
The most valuable feature is the instant recovery capability.
The software delivers flexible and efficient backup and recovery options through its cyber resiliency features.
The most valuable feature for me is the backup functionality.
While NVMe disks are expensive and require three disks for parity calculations, hard drives in NetApp FAS Series are inexpensive, making it more cost-efficient per GB, even with RAID tech implementation.
Our IOPS are very high, reaching somewhere about 50k to 150k or 1.150k.
One important feature for customers is its ease of use and continuity, enabling seamless usage across on-premise and cloud environments.
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell Avamar
Ranking in Deduplication Software
5th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (7th)
NetApp FAS Series
Ranking in Deduplication Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
NAS (3rd), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Deduplication Software category, the mindshare of Dell Avamar is 10.1%, up from 9.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 3.7%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Deduplication Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NetApp FAS Series3.7%
Dell Avamar10.1%
Other86.2%
Deduplication Software
 

Featured Reviews

SamuelThomas - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Srikanth Purushothaman - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise48
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise37
Large Enterprise57
 

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...
What do you like most about Dell Avamar?
Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup.
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?
The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is not cheap, but in comparison to other vendors, NetApp FAS Series is affordable because they also have deduplication, compression, and inline compression. They fo...
 

Also Known As

Avamar
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
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 Dell Avamar vs. NetApp FAS Series and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,202 professionals have used our research since 2012.