Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs ExaGrid EX Series comparison

DD series enables your organization to protect, manage and recover data at scale. As the next generation of Dell Data Domain appliances, DD series sets the bar for efficient data management from edge to core to cloud and includes the ecosystem support and comprehensive data protection that customers have come to appreciate from Data Domain. The DD series offers a super-fast, secure, and an efficient solution that is built for multi-cloud data protection and to keep up with future demands. The DD series consists of the DD9900, DD9400, DD6900, DD6400, DD3300, and a software-defined option, PowerProtect DD Virtual Edition (DDVE).

DD series empowers organizations to protect, manage and recover data at scale across their entire diverse ecosystems. DD series provides broad ecosystem support, efficiency, powerful data protection, cloud-enabled capabilities, and the cyber resiliency that our customers demand.

The DD Operating System (DDOS) is the brilliance that drives the DD series. DDOS contributes the agility, security, and reliability that pushes DD series to deliver high-speed, scalable, and standard-setting protection storage for backup, archive, and disaster recovery. DDOS integrates seamlessly with many existing infrastructures, permitting ease-of-use with leading backup and archiving applications, and provides superior performance in conjunction with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager and Data Protection Suite. When you decide to purchase a new DD series appliance you can easily consume DDOS as a subscription providing greater flexibility for deployment while minimizing your overall upfront costs.

DD series does a great job to minimize the threat of data loss and adds to the value of protected data while meeting ever-increasing demands of SLAs and increasing ROI. DDOS drives DD series to deliver up to 38% faster backups and up to 45% faster restores at significantly higher compression levels.

DD series supports high availability within the single rack. Additionally, DD series can greatly reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) by minimizing downtime in the unlikely event of a hardware failure. DD series delivers amazing high-speed networking connectivity with support for 25GbE and 100GbE network adapters.

Benefits of Dell PowerProtect DD

Fast, secure, efficient data protection:

• Provide 1.5PB usable capacity in a single rack
• Allow for Up to 3PB capacity for long-term retention
• Logical capacity is increased by up to 30% per TB when compared to the previous generation
• Allow for instant access and instant restore of up to 64VMs and 100k IOPS
• High-speed network connectivity – 10GbE, 25GbE and 100GbE
• Seamless fast integration and outstanding performance with PowerProtect Data Manager and Data Protection Suite
• Supports many of the leading enterprise backup and archive applications

Industry-leading multi-cloud protection:

• Provides software-defined protection storage on-premises and in-cloud with PowerProtect DD Virtual Edition (DDVE).
• DDVE scales up to 256TB in-cloud (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and others).
• Greatly improves in-cloud restore performance by as much as 10x when compared to previous versions.
• Cloud Tier delivers super simple and value-added long-term retention to public, private, or hybrid clouds
• Cost-efficient disaster recovery to the cloud

Operational simplicity:

• Enhanced DD System Manager supports a complete chassis view
• Significantly lower administrative costs
• Grants a single point of management for all DD series by PowerProtect DD Management Center
• Deploy Smart Scale for PowerProtect appliances directly from PowerProtect DD Management Center. Smart Scale helps drive down management complexities while increasing storage efficiencies. 

Reviews from Real Users

One user, who is an enterprise IT architect at a tech service company, says that “Dell PowerProtect DD is highly stable and reliable. I have not had a time when the system did not work and in an emergency this is critical.” He rates the ROI it has brought his company a five out of five.

A pre-sales and technical manager at a tech services company says that "The features that I have found most valuable with Dell PowerProtect DD are its deduplication feature and its DD Boost protocol for fast transfer, which is amazing."

Chris C., lead infrastructure architect at ThinkON, relates that Dell PowerProtect DD “allows our organization to send more data to this device compared to others. It also allows us a fast recovery of files or Virtual Machines if needed being on-premise.”

The ExaGrid EX Series hyper-converged secondary storage for backup product line consists of eight appliance models. Each appliance is sized for a full backup and for long-term retention. Any ExaGrid appliance can be mixed and matched in the same scale-out system with any other size or age appliance, allowing customers to buy what they need as they need it. This pay-as-you-grow model allows up to 25 appliances in a single scale-out system.