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Dell PowerProtect Data Manager 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
4.4
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager boosts data recovery speed, enhances automation, and streamlines backup management with an effective centralized dashboard.
Sentiment score
5.2
NetApp FAS Series offers cost-effective storage consolidation with reliable deduplication, ideal for VMware, providing significant ROI and service quality.
Previously they had somewhere around 100 TB of capacity for the backup for a few VMs on one side. Now, the overall setup is hardly 80 TB, where they use almost 240 TB of production data into that 80 TB.
DGM at Airtel Digital
I would recommend Dell PowerProtect Data Manager to other organizations because it is cost-effective and delivers good performance compared to alternative solutions.
Backup Administrator at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
I do find that with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, the ROI is good when compared to other Dell products, but when compared to others in the current market, such as Cohesity or Veeam, it is not as good.
Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
If you have the configuration well maintained and configured, you should have good efficiency and compression for the clients and for yourself.
System Engineer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager's customer service is effective and well-rated, yet response times and regional variability need improvement.
Sentiment score
7.3
NetApp FAS Series' customer service is well-regarded for knowledgeable support, though first-level responsiveness could improve; satisfaction remains high.
Dell provides reliable support for PowerProtect Data Manager, with 24/7 availability and a qualified support team.
Senior System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
My experience with the technical support team of Dell is that they are actually great.
Ops Specialist: System Engineer Backup at BCX
When we had the compliances and any of the backups were getting failed or we identified that some of the backups were frequently failing, the system would alert us.
DGM at Airtel Digital
Sometimes, the support was inadequate because the initial architecture was poorly defined.
Pre-Sales Director France, Belgium and Luxembourg at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
We are also using it ourselves for the SAN and CIFS protocol.
System Engineer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
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.
Senior Cloud System Engineer at Atos Poland
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.6
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager excels in scalable enterprise environments but requires manual input for cloud disaster recovery.
Sentiment score
7.3
NetApp FAS Series offers seamless, flexible scaling with effective data management, though it may require additional hardware and involve cost considerations.
Its capability to back up existing environments can be improved, particularly when it comes to disaster recovery in the cloud.
Senior System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
As per the documentation, that is an easy process, whether you need to scale up or scale out.
Ops Specialist: System Engineer Backup at BCX
If you are okay to purchase the license, they have the feasibility to increase the capacity as well.
DGM at Airtel Digital
We normally avoid current versions and use versions that have been running for at least two months in client usage before updating drivers.
DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems
NetApp FAS Series is scalable, and it is possible, but you need to pay.
System Engineer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The NetApp FAS Series is scalable and offers numerous solutions, but only if customers are willing to invest in the shelves.
Senior Cloud System Engineer at Atos Poland
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is stable and reliable, with minimal issues and rare downtime, praised for its modern technology.
Sentiment score
7.9
NetApp FAS Series is praised for reliable performance, minimal issues, swift support, and exceptional stability despite occasional firmware challenges.
It is extremely reliable and I have never experienced a crash.
Senior System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Making sure the system is properly understood before deployment and handling upgrades efficiently would improve stability.
System Engineer at Konvergenz
I would assess the stability and reliability of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager as quite stable; there are no issues with the workloads I am using.
Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
When panic occurs on the node, it reboots itself, and we have experienced numerous hardware-related issues.
Senior Cloud System Engineer at Atos Poland
Most things are tailor-made, and we avoid downtimes even with primitive CLI commands.
DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems
 

Room For Improvement

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager needs UI improvements, better integration, enhanced features, and cost-effective solutions for improved performance.
Users seek improved documentation, speed, cost-effectiveness, third-party integration, intuitive UI, security, and storage flexibility for NetApp FAS Series.
I would like to see improvements that include bare metal restore capabilities and enhanced data restore features in Dell PowerProtect Data Manager.
Backup Administrator at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
This is an enterprise solution and a bit costlier, but it is a solution where people should be looking into if they want to go into one single umbrella and have the centralized backup solution, which integrates with the cloud and can manage their cloud workload as well as the on-premises workload, and can be managed with one dashboard.
DGM at Airtel Digital
Faster performance for very large environments and broader cloud integration would make the platform even more effective.
Sr. Executive Engineer at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
Storage companies should create encrypted storage solutions between the OS and storage to protect against ransomware attacks.
DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems
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.
Pre-Sales Director France, Belgium and Luxembourg at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
There is an opportunity there for NetApp with Cloud Volumes ONTAP.
Technological Consultant at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
 

Setup Cost

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager offers flexible, competitive pricing with cost-efficient licensing based on environment and data needs.
NetApp FAS pricing is high but competitive due to features and discounts, offering long-term value with upgrade fees.
From a license perspective, it is a cheaper option, and there is a subscription license as well.
Pre Sales Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Overall, the pricing, setup cost, and licensing are reasonable for enterprise data protection solutions, especially considering the automation, recovery capabilities, and centralized management they provide.
Sr. Executive Engineer at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is cost-effective, as it is licensed per socket rather than by workload.
Senior System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
SSDs are more cost-friendly, yet HDDs are higher in cost.
Analyst at Sutherland Global Services
The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is not cheap, but in comparison to other vendors, NetApp FAS Series is affordable.
System Engineer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager excels in flexibility, cloud integration, fast backup, security, and user-friendly management for efficient data protection.
NetApp FAS Series users praise its reliability, high performance, efficient data protection, and seamless cloud integration with robust support.
It provides a seamless backup solution integrated with a dashboard full of capabilities, enhancing recovery point objectives and recovery time objectives.
Senior System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It satisfies my customers' scalability needs and provides interactive features, allowing efficient integration.
System Engineer at Konvergenz
Compared to other products such as Veritas, Dell offers more competitive pricing while other vendors charge significantly more.
Backup Administrator at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
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.
Senior Cloud System Engineer at Atos Poland
Our IOPS are very high, reaching somewhere about 50k to 150k or 1.150k.
DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems
With the data management features of Data ONTAP, I have not experienced data loss or unavailability as I have SnapMirror, Snapshot, and SnapVault in place.
Analyst at Sutherland Global Services
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager
Ranking in Deduplication Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (5th)
NetApp FAS Series
Ranking in Deduplication Software
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
NAS (3rd), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Deduplication Software category, the mindshare of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is 10.9%, down from 14.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 5.2%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Deduplication Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager10.9%
NetApp FAS Series5.2%
Other83.9%
Deduplication Software
 

Featured Reviews

Pranav Telang - PeerSpot reviewer
DGM at Airtel Digital
Centralized backups have simplified hybrid protection and improved ransomware recovery and compliance
The majorly needed improvement is that the product should easily simplify the upgrade and installation process. Sometimes Dell support should be more active. They take time for P1 issues. Sometimes it is not a P1 for Dell, but it is P1 for the customer, and the support needs to be very mature. That is a major drawback I see. Otherwise, the product is quite well. This is an enterprise solution and a bit costlier, but it is a solution where people should be looking into if they want to go into one single umbrella and have the centralized backup solution, which integrates with the cloud and can manage their cloud workload as well as the on-premises workload, and can be managed with one dashboard. In that way, it makes their backup management easier and they can get detected anomalies as soon as possible. This is one of the solutions I would recommend. However, if it is a very small company, they really need to think about the cost, as it is very costlier for them. But as an enterprise solution and a mid-enterprise solution, this is the solution where companies think their data is very critical, in sectors such as financial, banking, and health. This kind of sector should go with that solution because it always gives the compliances of HIPAA, GDPR, and all those things that are really required for them. From management perspectives and consolidation solution perspective, the integration is quite easy. With respect to the backup administrator and everything, it is quite straightforward. There are some layers that need to be improved and should have the internal feature instead of creating the additional VMs for the NAS backup. It should be internal and directly have the agent base or something that can communicate easily with Dell storage. If it is third-party, I would understand, but it should be able to communicate. The benefit of it is that it is easily understood and you can do knowledge transfer with a lot of documents available. The drawback of it is that when it comes to the installation, Dell always takes a lot of time for all these things with third-party involvement in between Dell and the customer. Support is the major part of it. People need to understand that when a customer raises their ticket for P1, they should treat it as a P1. Instead of by their book being P3 or P2, sometimes they only treat it as such when the complete backup server is down. However, for the customer, if it is not happening with the critical system of backup, then it is a P1 for them. From Dell support, they do not treat it as a P1, or they treat it as a P3 or P2. That kind of understanding and some agreements need to be done between the customer and Dell. It is a costlier solution. Comparatively, other backup solutions make this one of the costlier solutions. However, someone who has their enterprise data or needs protection in a good way can go for it. I could say it is a mid-enterprise or enterprise level solution. Otherwise, people do have the same solution but with differentiated features. However, it is costlier compared to the other.
Srikanth Purushothaman - PeerSpot reviewer
DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems
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
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise59
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
Regarding the price, I think it is reasonable and competitive. While it does not come to my head, the support for licensing and getting the license file for implementation is okay, but I am still n...
What needs improvement with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
About the recovery orchestration feature, sometimes we have a struggle, but we have no problem right now. We can use it, and we are using this feature. It is working correctly. Improving Dell Power...
What is your primary use case for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
In Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, we are using it for retention policies. The retention lock policy is a very important feature for us. We have also achieved a reduction policy of about sixty-five...
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?
I do not handle the pricing part of NetApp FAS Series since it is managed by the sales team.
What needs improvement with NetApp FAS Series?
There is room for improvement when it comes to response time and first-level support quality. If a new feature needs to be added, it takes some time because it is altogether a new development; othe...
 

Also Known As

PowerProtect, Dell EMC PowerProtect
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Bank of Greece, USC Australia, PCS Publishing, Dell Digital IT, Rushmore Electric, Melanson Health, Arrow Electronics
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 PowerProtect Data Manager vs. NetApp FAS Series and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
906,852 professionals have used our research since 2012.