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 (16th)
 

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

"Deduplication and compression are the best features of the solution, which are popular and very effective."
"It is a stable solution."
"The solution allows us to take a huge number of backups, and the footprint is quite small."
"It is secure, reliable, and has officer support."
"The hardware can operate in high temperatures, in case of any disaster."
"Short backup window has made a difference in the way my organization functions."
"The feature that I have found most useful is its data duplication."
"It is stable. I would rate the stability of the solution a nine out of ten."
"It is a very good and mature enterprise product. Once it is set up and everything is put in, you don't have to manage it. It actually runs automatically by itself."
"We've found the product to be quite stable and the performance is very good."
"The solution offers very good flexibility."
"It is pretty scalable. It will scale to anything."
"The deduplication and compression features are the most valuable features."
"It is more efficient than most traditional backup solutions."
"Instead of taking three different backups of your systems, you're taking only one. You're able to crack that open and get what you need. The incident recovery, where it creates the VM and then you're running it, technically you're running it on Spectrum Protect. But then in the background, it's doing the storage motion and moving it off the Spectrum Protect back to your VMware environment. The users don't know the difference."
"We do not lose data. That is why we are using this product and have a backup in place."
 

Cons

"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."
"Technical support needs improvement."
"The pricing could be better, but it's still not too expensive."
"We encountered data loss during the configuration process."
"We would like to see the price of this solution brought down to be comparable with similar products currently on the market."
"Dell PowerProtect DD should come out with its own system so we do not have to use Data Domain. For example, something similar to what Symantec has done."
"Improvement is needed in terms of telemetry and high availability as the high availability feature is only present in the higher models of Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain)."
"There is an inconsistency in support quality for Dell PowerProtect DD"
"The main admin console from the UI cannot do anything in the product. It just allows us to maintain, maybe, 30% to 40%. For the rest, we have to use the command line."
"It would be helpful if the solution included some sort of ransomware protection."
"This product comes up against other products available that are marketed better but the other products that it's in competition with are a single product and this is one of IBM products. If it could be marketed as more for competitors I think that's where it comes short."
"The features should be a little bit closer together."
"It could use single store. The ability to mark an archive from my backup for long-term retention."
"The GUI has long been a problem for TSM/Spectrum Protect."
"No one can fix every solution for backup and restore."
"This solution is not mature in terms of disaster recovery and could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is expensive."
"The price of Dell EMC PowerProtect DD could improve, it is expensive."
"Becoming more expensive."
"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."
"Users have to pay a capacity-based licensing fee for the solution."
"In Naira it was twenty-five or twenty-seven million (approximately $75,000 USD) for the implementation and maintenance cost for three years."
"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."
"We have been at our size for a few years. We are not really looking to battle the licensing costs, as this is our primary system."
"We have found that the pricing is high in our country."
"That's a hard estimate. It depends on the licensing, the hardware, and other stuff, but it is fairly expensive. It is generally more expensive than other solutions."
"The platform is neither highly priced nor inexpensive. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"Licensing can be either complicated or simple depending on what type of licensing you wish to use and what works best for your environment."
"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."
"The solution has a capacity based licensing, front and back-end license."
"The pricing is a little expensive for our current employer, so they want to move to a cheaper solution."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Deduplication Software solutions are best for your needs.
842,388 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
8%
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: February 2025.
842,388 professionals have used our research since 2012.