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

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM Spectrum 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
6.9
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (1st), Disk Based Backup Systems (1st)
IBM Spectrum Protect
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
149
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) and IBM Spectrum 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 28.6%, down 30.2% compared to last year.
IBM Spectrum Protect, on the other hand, focuses on Backup and Recovery, holds 2.2% mindshare, down 2.4% since last year.
Deduplication Software
Backup and Recovery
 

Q&A Highlights

AaaAaa5 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 05, 2020
 

Featured Reviews

GopalSetia - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides backups, including long-term retention with increased uptime and compatibility
I was looking for a virtual edition, and that is now available. Many customers struggle to find a solution for ransomware protection, but we can set up an enterprise recovery vault for that purpose. These features are now part of Dell's overall offering. The solution has matured, and while I don't criticize technology, most of our technical and business requirements are met with the Data Domain storage solution. We can meet customer requirements easily with Data Domain. Some feedback has been received from our operations team. There’s always room for improvement. For instance, there may be suggestions regarding enhancements to the reporting dashboard
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

"Its pricing is not overly expensive."
"The product provides good backup and compression services."
"The most valuable feature is the inline data deduplication."
"It works within backup windows and has got good deduplication."
"The most important feature is the level of data compression provided by Dell EMC. It's a leader in data compression and deduplication, and the level of compression isn't available with any other vendors in the market."
"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is its deduplication capability."
"I like the different features. We work closely with Dell on different products and features, which is why we use them all."
"This is a superior and reliable backup system that can handle large capacities with little management."
"We work very closely together with IBM using their Support Center, but we have a strong contact in their development teams, and we have dedicated people from IBM working with us."
"Once it is completed properly, it is low maintenance. Most of the functions do not require much deliberation. It is all the blueprints and technologies laid out, and it is straight forward."
"One way they have improved our organization is through the stability of the solution and the availability of the product."
"The main thing is to keep the data safe and in files, keep it on tape ready for a request from a bank, and it is working perfectly with all our hardware."
"We apply the new dedupe and compression technology, using maintenance and time to give more time for the backup window and less time for the overhead related to the daily housekeeping."
"You can do restores very quickly. You can mount a drive and restore it right from the drive."
"It's a very stable product, and we've never had any downtime with it."
"IBM Spectrum Protect offers stable software and products."
 

Cons

"EMC is very expensive for small customers."
"Dell PowerProtect DD could improve by having better integration with other backup solutions."
"The only problem is that it's more expensive than any other vendors available in the market."
"It could be more secure."
"DD Boost."
"The price could be a little cheaper than it is now."
"It can probably have integration with other OEMs. It should also have more features for ransomware protection."
"We would like faster instant recovery."
"Perhaps some better documentation, which I believe was better in the past."
"We would like to see capabilities of long-term archiving and more support for hardware platforms."
"Needs more support for non-mainstream databases, in particular PostgreSQL, SQL, and MySQL."
"There is room for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect, especially regarding its support for virtual environment backups."
"IBM Spectrum Protect is not a very user-friendly tool."
"The only thing that I would like to have a little more of is insight in reporting. I find that Spectrum Protect needs a lot of monitoring, and I have to actually log into the servers."
"It has a lot of areas for improvement. Its reporting for job completion or incompletion can be improved. It should also provide a granular recovery, ease of operation, data life cycle management, and media management. It should support a backup in such a format that in case of a disaster, one can start the virtual machine out of the backup itself. Its reliability can also be better. It is also expensive, and their support is also poor."
"Stability is very good now. It used to be rocky years ago."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing for this product could still be improved, though several years ago, its price was very high. When buying an IDPA product such as Dell EMC PowerProtect DD (Data Domain), you don't have to buy anything else, because you'll have an integrated solution: a data domain appliance plus software."
"This is one of the more expensive backup solutions on the market."
"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 product is expensive."
"The price of the backup appliance is slightly expensive. Compared to other vendors, the pricing will be slightly higher."
"The price of the solution and support for Dell PowerProtect DD is expensive. We have customers that cannot upgrade to a newer version of the solution because the support is too expensive."
"Users have to pay a capacity-based licensing fee for the solution."
"The price is really high compared to other vendors. The licensing cost is huge. Normal, mid-tier companies or small-scale companies wouldn't be able to afford it easily."
"The different license models can give good benefits to the end customer."
"We have found that the pricing is high in our country."
"Spectrum Protect is not expensive, and it is simple to use."
"IBM provides an open license policy, which is more like a gentlemen's agreement."
"We have spec'd out our build, and the cost of it can work quite easily today for our future needs."
"Regarding retro-compatibility of the product between versions, your data is always available and the ROI is unquestionable."
"It's very complicated. Licensing is a pain."
"One can go with either a PVU licensing model or a capacity based licensing model. Either solution does not block the usage, if over used."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Deduplication Software solutions are best for your needs.
844,944 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
SG
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
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerProtect DD (Data Domain)?
My use case for this solution is for protecting or backing up data to safeguard against hacking or for disaster recovery. I utilize it in more projects on the governmental side, the non-governmenta...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain)?
The price is also a disadvantage. Price is a disadvantage with the PowerProtect as it needs to be cheaper. The cheaper device costs around $70,000, which is a big sum to pay for a device like this.
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect?
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 dash...
 

Also Known As

DataDomain, Dell EMC Data Domain, PowerProtect Data Domain
IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

The US Army, City of Houston, Lloyds TSB, TiVo, Teck, Ingram Entertainment, The New York Mets
CERN, Einstein Healthcare, Nyherji, Allianz Australia, TZM, ABT Online, NCT, Kindred Healthcare Inc., Cobalt Iron, TransGrid, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Cash America, Piedmont Healthcare, RWGV, Arkansas Tech University, British Columbia Institute of Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NetApp and others in Deduplication Software. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.