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

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM Storage 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 Storage Protect
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) and IBM Storage 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 28.1%, down 29.7% compared to last year.
IBM Storage Protect, on the other hand, focuses on Backup and Recovery, holds 2.3% mindshare, up 2.2% since last year.
Deduplication Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain)28.1%
HPE StoreOnce18.9%
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager14.1%
Other38.9%
Deduplication Software
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Storage Protect2.3%
Veeam Data Platform14.5%
Rubrik7.4%
Other75.8%
Backup and Recovery
 

Q&A Highlights

AaaAaa5 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 05, 2020
 

Featured Reviews

Faisal_Zia - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers efficient data management with robust features and reliable performance
Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) can be improved in terms of price. While Dell is providing a proper device, other solutions, such as Symantec, can replicate their data through any NAS storage. Although their deduplication and compression might not be as effective, they can still accomplish the task. Medium-level and SME-level businesses can easily utilize this feature, but Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is a relatively expensive solution to propose to customers.
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

"The stability is excellent."
"I like Data Domain as a protocol for data backup."
"The feature that I have found most useful is its data duplication."
"I find the data to be most valuable."
"It securely protects data against threats like Trojans."
"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 NVMe and SSDs. By transitioning to NVMe and SSDs, backups have become much faster. The tool's backup restoration is faster compared to other tools."
"The most valuable features of PowerProtect DD are the immutable storage and the AI scanning."
"Data Domain is an excellent repository that's compatible with a lot of different solutions. Even Veeam Backup recommends sending backup to Data Domain. Space optimization is great. Currently, it guarantees 50-to-1 compression of the application in the same device. In all these years, I never had a client who was unsatisfied with Data Domain. It is a solid appliance with VMware integration, instant access to restore and search, and analytics."
"It has to ability to backup DV2, Oracle, and Informix."
"We can freeze and start databases for consistent backups."
"The feature we have found most valuable is when you want to integrate it with a Tape Library and then do the DRM life cycle. That is when it works the best."
"Performance and recoveries are better. Our clients and customers are happier with the performance of it."
"It is pretty scalable. It will scale to anything."
"Traditional storage works perfectly with it."
"The components of IBM Spectrum Protect explain how the data is protected. The administration is very easy, and the vertical migration is intuitive."
"IBM Spectrum Protect has excellent integration capability."
 

Cons

"The only problem is that it's more expensive than any other vendors available in the market."
"They should reduce the CPC cost to customers. The product is becoming very expensive."
"DD Boost."
"EMC is very expensive for small customers."
"The downside of PowerProtect's flexibility is that you have so many options. It can be a little confusing. It's like having a car with too many buttons on the dash. You can do so much with it, but it takes some time to learn what everything does."
"There is an inconsistency in support quality for Dell PowerProtect DD"
"The firmware upgrades could be simplified. I'm in the process of struggling to upgrade right now."
"We would like faster instant recovery."
"Technical support could be improved."
"We did not see any drawbacks to IBM Spectrum Protect before assisting a customer using Windows that wanted to migrate to using UNIX. IBM Spectrum Protect does not offer an option to migrate from other operating systems."
"We have had some problems about using storage agents on the X6 environment. It is not quite stable, but it is also not supported in a virtualized environment."
"We should be talking about the capacity of the tape drives. That's the only problem."
"I would like to see a way to have "always on" implemented."
"Perhaps some better documentation, which I believe was better in the past."
"I would love to see something which allows us to do an auto restart of backup jobs."
"It can be improved for large file systems with many files. Spectrum Protect can restore large files very well, but if you're restoring millions of little files, it is not as great. At one point, we tried to implement the VMware module with it, and it was awful and terrible. I don't know if that has improved. If it hasn't, this would be one big improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is reasonable."
"On a scale where one represents high price, and ten represents low price, I rate the solution a five, which means that the solution is of medium pricing."
"Becoming more expensive."
"The price is on the high side."
"The cost is expensive."
"I can't remember what the license costs are. They might be paid monthly or every two months."
"If we do not move to the cloud solution and stay with our on-premise version we will miss some new features."
"Users have to pay a capacity-based licensing fee for the solution."
"The licensing fees are between $8,000 and $10,000 per year."
"We are paying for support and maintenance on a monthly basis."
"Use capacity licensing. It's easier and cheaper."
"IBM provides an open license policy, which is more like a gentlemen's agreement."
"The pricing of the solution is high in comparison to other products on the market. For example, IBM and Symantec have less costly options."
"Some of the new advanced features are definitely more into cost savings, e.g., dedupe compression, so doing more with less."
"Technical support is pretty good. It is doing fine, but you pay for it."
"We have found that the pricing is high in our country."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Deduplication Software solutions are best for your needs.
866,088 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
it_user1115376 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise32
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise93
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerProtect DD (Data Domain)?
The typical use case for Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is for backup purposes; it is disk-based backup, which provides fast backup capabilities. Additionally, data can be replicated from site ...
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 do you like most about IBM Storage Protect?
The best point about IBM Storage Protect is that it can use IBM tape environments, which we still use and will continue to use in the future.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Storage Protect?
IBM Storage Protect is generally an expensive tool. However, with good contracts with IBM or its partners, the cost might not be so high. New customers can expect very high prices.
What needs improvement with IBM Storage Protect?
One point for improvement for IBM Spectrum Protect is security, as IBM has not been investing as much as in the past. There is a need for additional layers of security to fill the gaps, which is wh...
 

Also Known As

DataDomain, Dell EMC Data Domain, PowerProtect Data Domain
IBM Spectrum Discover
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

The US Army, City of Houston, Lloyds TSB, TiVo, Teck, Ingram Entertainment, The New York Mets
CEMEX
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NetApp and others in Deduplication Software. Updated: August 2025.
866,088 professionals have used our research since 2012.