Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM Storage Protect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 PowerProtect DD (Data ...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (1st), Disk Based Backup Systems (1st)
IBM Storage Protect
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) and IBM Storage Protect aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is designed for Deduplication Software and holds a mindshare of 27.4%, down 29.5% compared to last year.
IBM Storage Protect, on the other hand, focuses on Backup and Recovery, holds 2.2% mindshare, up 2.1% since last year.
Deduplication Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain)27.4%
HPE StoreOnce18.6%
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager14.0%
Other40.0%
Deduplication Software
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Storage Protect2.2%
Veeam Data Platform11.9%
Commvault Cloud6.1%
Other79.8%
Backup and Recovery
 

Q&A Highlights

AaaAaa5 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 05, 2020
 

Featured Reviews

Faisal_Zia - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers efficient data management with robust features and reliable performance
Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) can be improved in terms of price. While Dell is providing a proper device, other solutions, such as Symantec, can replicate their data through any NAS storage. Although their deduplication and compression might not be as effective, they can still accomplish the task. Medium-level and SME-level businesses can easily utilize this feature, but Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is a relatively expensive solution to propose to customers.
Syed Habib - PeerSpot reviewer
Manageable and comprehensive and integrates robust backup features for core banking
It's adequate for my core banking, however, I am looking for another solution for all systems. It is not compatible with other operating systems like Windows or Linux, and lacks a consolidated dashboard from Browser Spectrum. This is why I am searching for another solution. The product also lacks any centralized graphical user interface (GUI), such as Jarek Pod, and I am limited to using a console-based text user interface, which my local partner handles completely.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution syncs immediately."
"Dell PowerProtect DD is a stable solution."
"Deduplication and compression are the best features of the solution, which are popular and very effective."
"I like the different features. We work closely with Dell on different products and features, which is why we use them all."
"Dell PowerProtect DD’s most valuable feature is data deduplication."
"The most valuable features of this product are its guaranteed reliability and its duplication capability."
"The backup is very secure. The deduplication using EMC is very good. We are able to make systems and handle random cloning. EMC is a very stable solution for making backups."
"The features that I have found most valuable with Dell EMC PowerProtect DD are its deduplication feature and its DD Boost protocol for fast transfer, which is amazing."
"The components of IBM Spectrum Protect explain how the data is protected. The administration is very easy, and the vertical migration is intuitive."
"We optimize our costs of media and storage use, thanks to the Incremental Forever backup. The TDP software provides us many ways to protect our data, so we don't need to use monstrous scripts for doing backups now."
"Reliability: It has never had a problem with backups or restores. If you store something, it is there."
"The interface is easy to use."
"A robust tool which allows us to backup pretty much any environment, virtual or physical."
"It is very stable. A plus is to use POWERAge for the SNR copy of the Spectrum Protect, then it is more reliable."
"It is a really scalable solution. We can scale it up. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"We have a very good team of administrators who know the product perfectly and are able to manage it on a day-to-day basis."
 

Cons

"The initial setup is complex."
"The Dell PowerProtect DD architecture offers several significant features. One is DD Boost, which is utilized at both the source and destination sites for application processing."
"The software from Dell that can be used to operate Data Domain needs to have enhancements made to the user interface. It is too complex."
"When you use Data Domain, you have to have at least 20% free space so it can work properly. Sometimes we struggle with that, because we wanted to use all the free space, but then Data Domain becomes really slow. I understand that 20% is needed to process all the data, and doing the duplication and compression and all that, but it would be a big improvement if they did not require that 20%, because it is just too much to have available."
"Dell PowerProtect DD does not have integration with the cloud and virtualization software."
"I would like to see integration with public cloud."
"Data Domain lacks compatibility with fiber channels and tapes. We can't use it with a tape library. That's an issue in Latin America sometimes because a lot of clients still use tapes for budget reasons. Maybe they have a lot of archives. In North America and Europe, they do a lot of archiving, but they use the cloud more than we do. Sometimes we have to put together a Frankenstein where we connect another server to the tape library and send all the data there."
"The licensing model was the biggest concern for our company, but the poor support after the initial implementation is of equal concern."
"The administration interface should implement more functionalities that exist only in the command line and needs improvement in how some reports are created."
"There needs to be a bit more automation."
"In a future release, it would be a benefit to have the ability to add an application as a storage target, as a storage pool. Additionally, they should add more functionality to the administration for the Operation Center."
"If you take Spectrum Protect into account, and you have it along with restrictions to Spectrum Archive by means of LTFS, this is also something which should be made better within the overall product's program."
"In terms of features, they've got it all covered. The features they have are quite good. The only downside to it is that it is for an enterprise or big organization. In my opinion, it is not for a small business."
"Its management part can be better and simplified. It is kind of a beast as compared to Commvault or Veeam, but they are more user-friendly. They are also easier to learn, whereas Spectrum Protect definitely takes time. They should simplify it. Our teams are pretty comfortable with it because we have been using it for a long time, but from the perspective of a new user who is evaluating or using this solution, it is definitely more complex in terms of manageability. Its monitoring could be improved so that it can even monitor the jobs that are scheduled by external schedulers. There are situations where a database team might decide to use their own schedulers, but currently, Spectrum Protect is not able to catch those jobs in the Operation Manager console."
"The software is very complicated. You have to do a lot of configurations to build a server, and you would need to backup and restore."
"We need better protection from ransomware or the ability to identify ways we can protect ourselves from ransomware. Having backups is one thing, but specifically, we need methods to recover if we have a ransomware attack."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I can't remember what the license costs are. They might be paid monthly or every two months."
"There are many options in the pricing structure which can cause some confusion and necessitate the purchase of additional licensing."
"It could be more competitively priced. Its licensing was for five years. Obviously, the support will get renewed at some stage, but that's it."
"The price may be a bit higher than other products in the market, but you will receive ten out of ten support with next-business-day delivery on parts' availability."
"If we do not move to the cloud solution and stay with our on-premise version we will miss some new features."
"This is one of the more expensive backup solutions on the market."
"The pricing is cost-effective for the solution"
"We usually buy products at the end year, and the license is included."
"When compared to the cost of other enterprise products, it seems to be in the same range. However, compared to the cost of non-enterprise products, it is really high."
"Use capacity licensing. It's easier and cheaper."
"The solution has a capacity based licensing, front and back-end license."
"You need to put it in a PoC and test it out if you can."
"Spectrum Protect is not a cheap option."
"We pay for a terabyte license to support our backend usage."
"License-wise regarding IBM, it's licensed per terabyte. And that is after compression and deduplication."
"The product is not cheap."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Deduplication Software solutions are best for your needs.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Answers from the Community

AaaAaa5 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 5, 2020
Oct 5, 2020
The biggest difference is that Data Domain is an appliance storage system (SW + HW storage) but Spectrum is a software (licenses) solution only.
2 out of 10 answers
it_user1115376 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 20, 2020
The biggest difference is that Data Domain is an appliance storage system (SW + HW storage) but Spectrum is a software (licenses) solution only.
CR
Jan 20, 2020
I would look at the way they dedup. DataDomain uses variable-length deduplication so they are very effective. I do not know anything about the IBM product, but we have dealt with IBM and in my opinion, the difference that is going to make the biggest impact is the way they sell TCO. EMC almost negatively impacts themselves by giving a more realistic and often more expensive quote, where IBM gives a seemingly cheaper solution, but later on, it works out more.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise32
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise94
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerProtect DD (Data Domain)?
The typical use case for Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is for backup purposes; it is disk-based backup, which provides fast backup capabilities. Additionally, data can be replicated from site ...
What do you like most about Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain)?
The product, a disk backup solution, improves our data application tasks. We used tape libraries with Dev drives in legacy architectures, resulting in slow backups compared to modern drives like NV...
What do you like most about IBM Storage Protect?
The best point about IBM Storage Protect is that it can use IBM tape environments, which we still use and will continue to use in the future.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Storage Protect?
IBM Storage Protect is generally an expensive tool. However, with good contracts with IBM or its partners, the cost might not be so high. New customers can expect very high prices.
What needs improvement with IBM Storage Protect?
One point for improvement for IBM Spectrum Protect is security, as IBM has not been investing as much as in the past. There is a need for additional layers of security to fill the gaps, which is wh...
 

Also Known As

DataDomain, Dell EMC Data Domain, PowerProtect Data Domain
IBM Spectrum Discover
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

The US Army, City of Houston, Lloyds TSB, TiVo, Teck, Ingram Entertainment, The New York Mets
CEMEX
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NetApp and others in Deduplication Software. Updated: August 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.