ExaGrid's 16 Nods Signal a New Standard in Cyber-Resilient Storage

MARLBOROUGH, MA – April 22, 2026 – In a powerful affirmation of its market standing and technological prowess, backup storage vendor ExaGrid has been named a finalist in an impressive 16 categories for the 23rd annual Storage Awards. The extensive list of nominations, for an event often dubbed 'The Storries,' highlights the company's significant impact across the data storage landscape, particularly in the critical areas of cybersecurity, innovation, and enterprise data protection.

The sheer breadth of the nominations—spanning from 'Ransomware Product of the Year' and 'Cyber Resilient Storage Company of the Year' to 'AI Data Storage Innovator' and 'Storage Company of the Year'—suggests that ExaGrid’s specialized approach is resonating deeply within an industry grappling with unprecedented challenges. As businesses face escalating cyber threats and exponential data growth, the recognition validates a strategy built on architectural innovation rather than incremental updates.

A New Blueprint for Ransomware Defense

Among the most notable nominations are those directly related to cybersecurity, a top concern for IT leaders worldwide. Ransomware attacks have evolved, often targeting backup repositories to neutralize an organization's last line of defense. ExaGrid's finalist status in categories like 'Cyber Resilient Storage Company of the Year' and 'Immutable Storage Company of the Year' stems from its unique Tiered Backup Storage architecture, designed specifically to counter these modern threats.

Unlike traditional storage solutions that use inline deduplication and present a single, flat network target, ExaGrid employs a two-tiered system. The first tier, a disk-cache Landing Zone, ingests backups directly for maximum speed, ensuring short backup windows. More importantly, it keeps the most recent backups in their native, undeduplicated format, enabling lightning-fast restores and instant VM recoveries in minutes.

The second tier, the Repository Tier, is where the system’s core security features reside. This tier is non-network-facing, creating what ExaGrid calls a 'tiered air gap.' This logical isolation prevents ransomware that may have compromised the primary network from accessing and encrypting the long-term retention data. Within this protected tier, data is stored as immutable objects, meaning they cannot be altered or deleted. This is coupled with a 'Delayed Deletes' feature, which holds delete commands for a configurable period, providing a crucial window to undo malicious or accidental deletions before they become permanent.

This multi-layered defense is a direct answer to the sophisticated tactics used by cybercriminals. While many vendors offer immutability, ExaGrid’s combination of a non-network-facing tier, delayed deletes, and immutable objects creates a robust, recovery-focused solution that has clearly captured the industry's attention.

The Independent Innovator's Advantage

ExaGrid's success, underscored by its 21 consecutive quarters of positive financials and a milestone of over 5,000 enterprise customers, is also a story of strategic focus. The company proudly identifies as the 'world's largest independent backup storage vendor,' a position that allows it to innovate without the constraints of a sprawling product portfolio that larger conglomerates must manage. This focus is evident in its scale-out GRID architecture.

Instead of forcing customers into costly and disruptive 'forklift upgrades' when they outgrow a system, ExaGrid’s architecture allows organizations to add full appliances—containing processor, memory, and bandwidth, not just disk—as their data grows. This 'pay-as-you-grow' model ensures that the backup window remains fixed over time, a key pain point that its scale-out approach solves. This design directly challenges the model of competitors who often sell primary storage arrays or single-controller deduplication appliances that can become bottlenecks.

The strategy appears to be paying off in customer satisfaction, with the company boasting a +81 Net Promoter Score (NPS) and high ratings on peer review sites like Gartner Peer Insights. Customers frequently praise the system's stability, performance, and the proactive support that alerts them to unusual activity, reinforcing the value of a vendor dedicated exclusively to solving the backup storage problem.

“We are honored to be nominated in so many categories that highlight our unique position as the industry’s largest independent backup storage vendor, with a product that ‘just works,’ and a team that values channel partnerships,” said Bill Andrews, President and CEO of ExaGrid, in a recent statement.

Charting the Future with AI and Efficiency

Beyond resilience and market strategy, ExaGrid’s nominations for 'AI Data Storage Innovator of the Year' and 'Storage Optimisation Company of the Year' position it as a forward-looking player. The integration of artificial intelligence into storage is no longer a futuristic concept but a practical necessity for managing complex environments and anticipating threats.

ExaGrid's 'AI-Powered Retention Time-Lock' includes a feature called 'AutoDetect & Guard,' which learns the normal patterns of daily delete operations. If a sudden, anomalous spike in deletes occurs—a common signature of a ransomware attack—the system can automatically trigger an alert and extend the delayed delete policy, providing an intelligent, automated safeguard for the backup data. This practical application of AI moves beyond marketing buzzwords to deliver tangible security value.

Similarly, the recognition for storage optimization speaks to the economic realities of managing massive data volumes. By achieving high deduplication ratios (averaging 20:1) in its Repository Tier, ExaGrid offers a cost-effective solution for long-term data retention without sacrificing the performance needed for rapid recovery. This balance of performance, security, and cost-efficiency is central to its value proposition.

As the industry awaits the results, the 16 nominations serve as a comprehensive endorsement of ExaGrid's vision. Voting for the Storage Awards is currently underway and will conclude on June 4, 2026. The winners will be revealed at the 'The Storries XXIII' awards ceremony in London on June 18, 2026, an event that will now be watched with even greater interest to see if this independent innovator can convert its numerous nominations into a sweep of the industry's most coveted honors.