No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Dell Data Protection Advisor vs Quest Rapid Recovery [EOL] comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 26, 2025

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 Data Protection Advisor
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (38th)
Quest Rapid Recovery [EOL]
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

CanBolat - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at GlassHouse
Has provided centralized monitoring for backup operations and reduced deployment times
The benefits of Dell Data Protection Advisor are that deployment and enablement are very easy. You can see everything in the backup infrastructure centrally. The real-time data gathering and monitoring process is robust. The predictive analytics feature in Dell Data Protection Advisor provides predictions about backup size and capacity for future periods.
US
Technical Manager at Optimistic Technology Solutions Pvt Ltd
Reliable and efficient for our data backup needs
I would rate the easiness of the initial setup as an eight out of ten. During our initial setup of Quest Rapid Recovery, we encountered some smaller issues, mainly related to version compatibility and system changes. Setting up Quest Rapid Recovery was quick and done within a day. We started by ensuring the required prerequisites were in place. One server was dedicated to Rapid Recovery, and another acted as a proxy for communication. After installing the Rapid Recovery client on both servers and establishing communication, we configured settings and set up a backup schedule, deciding on file-level or full backups as needed. The process was straightforward, making the deployment efficient and completed within a day. One person with the right skills is all it takes for the deployment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"DPA can provide daily report cards for our auditors, which fulfills our reporting requirements."
"The solution is easy to use, flexible and has a lot of out-of-the-box functionality. You can configure the dashboards or you can use a script. However, to fully utilize its capabilities you will want to use a lot of scripts which you will need advanced training. The reports can be customized for many things, such as chargeback billing."
"The initial setup is very straightforward. Deployment typically takes about one hour. You just need one person to handle the deployment process."
"The platform's most valuable features are data protection and retention."
"The product's ability to give predictions and advice on how to protect data is incredible."
"This solution is great for IT auditing."
"My advice to others is if you are using Dell EMC, DPA is a must."
"It has a lot of stock reports. I believe over 300 canned reports, which for the most part meet a lot of generic needs."
"Built-in encryption helps to secure our data as it travels from our on-site server to our off-site backup server."
"Probably the point-in-time recovery is most valuable. The other piece that is really nice is that you can mount a whole server at any point in time. So, you can mount the server with all the drives to a Z drive or something like that. It will just mount it all up, and your data is accessible right there on one drive, which is nice."
"The fact that it can take a snapshot of everything on a server and replicate it on another server in real-time is the most valuable feature."
"The solution is a great backup for the retail environment."
"The general backup for replication and virtual standby are the most valuable aspects; it does what it says it does and is a decent tool for not a big budget."
"Rapid Recovery is one of the most durable and rock-stable solutions."
"You can go for this solution; it is a very dependable solution, and we can be confident that this recovery software is working very well."
"Basically, half of my day is saved because of the email notification and alerts."
 

Cons

"Dell EMC Data Protection Advisor is not very scalable."
"We have encountered issues where we were unable to pull data from the database server. It should also improve the backward compatibility."
"The functionality of the Data Protection Advisor is limited and is something that is lacking in this solution. Other solutions like CloudIQ and DDMC provide a much better outlook on how data protection should be done."
"EMC, Dell as of late has dragged behind in their Java protocol, keeping up with Java and security vulnerabilities."
"From a service perspective, improvements are needed at Dell because when customers call, it takes a long time to get a response for calls or emails. Response time is the main problem that needs addressing."
"They should empower their customers with the ability to upgrade this solution as long as it's in the same major release."
"The stability of the solution needs improvement for stand alone users."
"It is difficult to manage the solution with the available tools. You need to know exactly what are you are doing."
"It's buggy. That's a big problem. We're arranging to get rid of it. We're going to switch to Veeam."
"It's very expensive which is why I want to drop it."
"In case, if there is anything, it would be the speed of the operation to be finished. Even then, I can easily work on the storing function before the operation is finished."
"It's not really Quest's fault, but the only issue that I had during the time when I was doing a lot of our restores is whenever the server reboots, it has to bring all of the repositories back in again, which takes around five to six hours to pull eight terabytes back in again."
"In terms of what needs improvement in Quest Rapid Recovery, though the solution is seamless, right now, they are just giving the software which means we'll need to arrange the hardware. If they can combine the appliance and software, that would be a great approach. In the next release of Quest Rapid Recovery, it would be great if they'd add a folder backup feature because only a snapshot backup feature is available at the moment."
"I don't really think that there is a whole lot that needs to be changed. It would be nice if you could deploy the agent without having to reboot. When I upgraded my core to the latest version, I also wanted to update all of my servers, but I had to put that off because I can't just shoot it out there. I have to make sure it is at a time when I can do a reboot right away."
"There is room for improvement in customer service and support. I would like to see faster response time."
"I think the self-paced learning and knowledge base can always be improved so that users can self-service without having to contact either a reseller or Quest. I know there are things that I would have been looking for to try and solve. And the only way I could get there was to actually open a ticket rather than go through self-service through the portal."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product pricing has been satisfactory, particularly with the economy of scale in our agreement."
"You need to make an upfront payment for three, five, or seven years and renew the licenses for support. We can do an annual maintenance contract with Dell. I would rate the product's pricing a six out of ten."
"If the customer has huge lineup of Dell Products then they receive discount on the pricing."
"It's not very expensive — I think the price is fair."
"For pricing, I would rate Dell 2 out of 5. It's affordable."
"You have to procure the license when you are ordering or quoting for Dell Data Protection Suite (DPS). DPS is bundled with the suite and comes with a license. However, if you purchase NetWorker separately then you will have to procure the license for DPS separately."
"The product is affordable."
"Its price is okay. It is reasonable in terms of the way it works."
"It's very expensive which is why I want to drop it. They charge us per core and we have a six-core server. It's expensive to pay for maintenance charges. I want to switch to something cheaper."
"The pricing is on the higher end."
"When I purchased the change to the license, it was $1,600. I think that was for changing the license. I don't believe that I had to purchase technical support in a while, so I must've bought maybe for five years, but I don't feel there was a huge cost involved in technical support. Its cost was definitely worth it because we've had a fantastic experience with them."
"It is a little expensive. However, I haven't compared it to other solutions. Being a nonprofit, it is always good to have nonprofit discounts on products."
"I'm not aware of the exact cost of Quest Rapid Recovery because I'm from the technical team, but in general, the solution is quite competitive cost-wise."
"I don't think the licensing for the product is very expensive."
"I believe the basic license comes with six terabytes, whereas a lot of the other ones are four terabytes. From the price point, it seemed a lot better than the comparative models, such as Datto, Barracuda, and some of the others. I believe Barracuda was about $15,000 for four terabytes, and Quest was around $12,000 for six terabytes. Pricing is based on the period. There is just the maintenance fee that you have to pay annually, or you can pay for a three-year or four-year contract. This includes Premier Support."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Backup and Recovery solutions are best for your needs.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
Performing Arts
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Performing Arts
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell Data Protection Advisor?
The pricing of Dell Data Protection Advisor is very competitive among other vendors, and the license model is more economical than other vendor products.
What needs improvement with Dell Data Protection Advisor?
Dell Data Protection Advisor is somewhat complicated, but this depends on the software limitations. However, you can scale it if you work on the virtualization platform. There are no limitations re...
What is your primary use case for Dell Data Protection Advisor?
We use Dell Data Protection Advisor for backup operations. Dell Data Protection Advisor is very useful for the central view of the whole backup process, monitoring success and failed backups, and t...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

DPA
Dell AppAssure
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Trek Bicycle, Cal-Israel Credit Cards
PRIME aerostructures GmbH, Tamworth Regional Council, Rhondda Housing Association, Stadtwerke Pforzheim GmbH & Co., Guangdong Aiyingdao Childrens Department Store, Nspyre, Tarrant Technology Partners, CloudRunner
Find out what your peers are saying about Veeam Software, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell Technologies and others in Backup and Recovery. Updated: October 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.