2025-26 DCIG TOP 5 Midmarket SDS File Backup Targets Report

DCIG (Data Center Intelligence Group LLC) announced the availability of the 2025-26 DCIG TOP 5 Midmarket SDS File Backup Targets Report.

This DCIG TOP 5 report provides midsized organizations with guidance on the best SDS file backup targets for deployment in today’s production backup environments.

Three corporate priorities driving SDS file backup target adoption
Twenty years ago, organizations started adopting disk in lieu of tape as their primary backup target. Now organizations have started to make another change in how they want to deploy their backup targets. Organizations still want backup targets to use disk as the underlying storage media. However, they want storage providers to deliver their backup targets as software-defined storage (SDS) with a file interface.

Three corporate operational priorities currently drive organizations to seek out SDS file backup targets.

First, all size organizations now embrace hybrid cloud strategy.
While hybrid cloud usage among organizations varies, adoption rate estimates generally range from 80 to over 90%. When pursuing this strategy, organizations often continue to perform backups and recovery. Indeed, backup and recovery may represent the primary way that organizations implement their hybrid cloud strategy.

However, few if any cloud providers make provisions for organizations to host physical backup targets in their cloud environments. Instead, to obtain backup functionality like they obtain on-premises, organizations must deploy a backup target in the cloud. This requirement has prompted organizations to seek out SDS backup targets.

Second, every enterprise backup software supports using file storage networking protocols to perform backups.
All enterprise backup software can perform backups and restores using file storage networking protocols such as CIFS/SMB and/ or NFS. Deploying SDS file backup targets either in the cloud or on-premises provides organizations with assurance that they will work anywhere.

Third, every organization must deal with threat of ransomware.
SDS file backup targets help position organizations to deal with ransomware threats. Each one offers cyber security features that can withstand various ransomware attacks.

For instance, ransomware often begins its attack by seeking out backup targets and attempting to delete or encrypt backups. SDS file backup targets help guard against these attacks by storing backups in an immutable format. Further, organizations can often more easily and quickly perform data restores and recoveries using an SDS file backup target. Organizations may even find they can temporarily use the SDS file backup target to host production workloads during recoveries.

SDS file backup targets also put organizations in control of how much they spend on achieving these three corporate priorities.

Using SDS file backup targets, they can potentially re-use storage hardware they already own. Further, SDS file backup targets can virtualize and manage multiple storage types. These types range from high-performance SSDs to cost-effective, high-capacity HDDs or even cloud object storage.

In so doing, organizations may implement SDS file backup targets to achieve these competing corporate priorities and meet their budget constraints.

Midmarket SDS file backup target hybrid cloud support
Midmarket organizations will currently find fifteen SDS file backup targets from 13 storage providers. Across these SDS backup targets optimized for midmarket organizations, their support of a Level 1 or Level 2 hybrid cloud implementation merits attention.

Each SDS file backup target supports hybrid cloud implementation at 1 or both following levels:

• Level 1: Tier data to general-purpose cloud storage; purpose-built storage cloud; or private storage cloud.
• Level 2: A deployment option that permits the SDS file backup target being hosted as a virtual appliance or as software installable on a virtual machine. They may install it on premises on a hypervisor and with a general-purpose cloud provider.

Level 1
For Level 1 hybrid cloud support, a SDS file backup target can tier data to object storage in other clouds. Cloud storage tiering gets utilized for purposes such as staging for DR and creating air-gapped backup copies. The differences between the SDS file backup targets emerge in the clouds they support and how they implement cloud tiering.

Thirteen SDS file backup targets support tiering to other cloud storage. Among these, no product supports tiering to all available cloud providers. Further, they may differ in the options they offer organizations to tier backups to other cloud storage.

For example, some may only offer options to tier data that satisfies certain policies or reach a certain age. Others may offer sophisticated algorithms or use artificial intelligence that tracks all data access and usage. It then only moves data that meets specific criteria or, when moving data, places it more intelligently in the cloud.

Level 2
All midmarket SDS file backup target providers support Level 2 hybrid cloud functionality. This gives them flexibility to deploy the solution both on premises and with a general-purpose cloud provider. Delivered this way, organizations may use the same SDS backup target in both environments.

However, organizations will find each provider implements Level 2 hybrid cloud functionality in their respective products differently. They each:

1. Support different hypervisors on-premises.
2. Support different general-purpose clouds.
3. License their software differently.
4. May support different software features when deployed on-premises versus the cloud.

2025-26 DCIG top 5 midmarket SDS file backup targets
In preparing this report, DCIG formally evaluated over 20 different SDS file-based backup targets of which 15 met DCIG’s criteria for a midmarket SDS file backup target. The general categories under which the features of these SDS file backup targets fell included:

• API/Network Protocol Support.
• Cyber Security and Data Protection.
• Management.
• Software Architecture.
• Technical Support.

Based on these criteria, DCIG awarded following midmarket SDS file backup targets a DCIG TOP 5 ranking:

• Nutanix Unified Storage
• Quest QoreStor
• Qumulo Scale Anywhere
• StoneFly StoneFusion NAS Storage
• Veritas Netbackup Access Appliance

Report availability
The full 2025-26 DCIG TOP 5 Midmarket SDS File Backup Targets Report is available for download on DCIG’s site with registration by following this link. The full report contains additional details such as:

• A list of the 15 midmarket SDS file backup targets evaluated.
• Available cyber security features on SDS file backup targets.
• Common features across all midmarket SDS file backup targets.
• 6 distinguishing features of the DCIG TOP 5 Midmarket SDS File Backup Targets.
• Differences between the DCIG TOP 5 Midmarket SDS File Backup Targets.
• A profile of each DCIG TOP 5 Midmarket SDS File Backup Target that lists at least 3 ways each one distinguishes itself from the other solutions.