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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
7.0
Number of Reviews
75
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 29.2%, down 29.9% compared to last year.
IBM Spectrum Protect, on the other hand, focuses on Backup and Recovery, holds 2.2% mindshare, down 2.5% 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

"It's deduplication and faster recovery that are the key features."
"I like Data Domain as a protocol for data backup."
"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 most valuable features of this product are its guaranteed reliability and its duplication capability."
"The most valuable feature is the inline data deduplication."
"The solution syncs immediately."
"The solution has been awesome over the last ten years, offering stability and reliability, which I recommend for stable storage."
"The tool's performance is very good. DD Boost can improve its performance and backup."
"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."
"High availability (HA): It is one of the best features."
"In the past, one of the most valuable features, and the biggest advantage, was the incremental forever feature. Not many other backup vendors provided that. In the pre-virtualization environment, it was very robust and simple technology, especially writing to tape."
"It has increased our security, scalability, and high availability."
"It is a really scalable solution. We can scale it up. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"IBM Spectrum Protect is a scalable solution."
"IBM Spectrum Protect offers stable software and products."
"Replication processes with container storage pools allow reduction of storage space and network bandwidth, using deduplication and compression."
 

Cons

"The price could be a little cheaper than it is now."
"The price is also a disadvantage. Price is a disadvantage with the PowerProtect as it needs to be cheaper."
"We have some problems with backing up on the Power Platform. PowerServer is an IBM product, and it forces us to back up over LAN, which is not suitable for us."
"EMC is very expensive for small customers."
"The size and scale of the product are limited and could be improved."
"DD doesn't have Intel's air gap technology."
"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."
"They should reduce the CPC cost to customers. The product is becoming very expensive."
"Replication services would be nice. If these could be enhanced to be always on so multiple storage backup services could be added as a cluster pool. This would provide a better availability service."
"I need to have more than two instances working together. I need a worldwide grid able to have replication between three, four, or five instances."
"Ease of use. That has got to be the one thing that I routinely hear from clients and customers, that it's a little bit more difficult than it should be. What I'm finding is that IBM has heard that and they're responding with updated interfaces and things like that."
"Ease of use."
"No one can fix every solution for backup and restore."
"We would like to see bare-metal restorers."
"The solution could be more user-friendly and provide better monitoring. The monitoring should be improved first since it is a higher priority."
"Generally, the implementation of virtualization could be improved. The workflow service and so on are not working properly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive. However, if you pay less you receive less, it is cost-effective."
"This is one of the more expensive backup solutions on the market."
"In Naira it was twenty-five or twenty-seven million (approximately $75,000 USD) for the implementation and maintenance cost for three years."
"The cost is expensive."
"The price of Dell EMC PowerProtect DD could improve, it is expensive."
"The pricing is cost-effective for the solution"
"It is expensive, but the performance and deduplication cover for the cost."
"Its price is reasonable."
"IBM Spectrum Protect has a fixed price and includes no additional costs."
"We pay for a terabyte license to support our backend usage."
"The licensing fees are on a yearly basis, which for us it is about R400,000 (approximately $27,000 USD)."
"That's no longer my department, but I have some past experience with licensing. It is not cheap. I would rate it a three out of five in terms of licensing. In terms of additional costs, there is management overhead. It is a complex solution and a lot of work goes into managing clients. It has gotten better over the years, but compared to its competitor, it is still heavy on management overhead."
"Technical support is pretty good. It is doing fine, but you pay for it."
"IBM provides an open license policy, which is more like a gentlemen's agreement."
"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."
"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."
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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%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
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)?
PowerProtect DD is mainly used for backup target for Networker Veeam and Commvault. We also use it for AS400 backups.
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)?
Pricing is sometimes reasonable depending on the discounts provided by the company.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Protect?
For my company, the tool is affordable and reasonable, but most people don't know that. People only see one major price for the tool, which runs into millions, so they would always say that it is a...
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect?
The technical team's service depends on where the support service is located. Some products are not included in IBM itself, but external companies are developing some solutions for IBM. I think the...
 

Also Known As

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

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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: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.