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Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.6
Dell PowerProtect DD offers cost-effective, reliable backup solutions with data compression, deduplication, and improved backup speed and recovery time.
Sentiment score
6.2
NetApp FAS Series offers efficient storage, cost savings, and satisfaction, especially in VMware environments, despite high expansion costs.
If you have the configuration well maintained and configured, you should have good efficiency and compression for the clients and for yourself.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
Dell PowerProtect DD's customer service is praised for knowledgeable support and timely assistance, despite occasional regional quality variations.
Sentiment score
7.3
NetApp FAS Series customer service is responsive and knowledgeable, though regional availability and resolution streamlining can improve.
I have encountered an issue before with other brands that would not have occurred with Dell.
I have dedicated support from Dell for Vietnam, and they are responsive.
They respond within 24 hours of case submission, which is crucial for maintaining the solution.
Sometimes, the support was inadequate because the initial architecture was poorly defined.
They also don't respond in time, even for P1 situations.
We are also using it ourselves for the SAN and CIFS protocol.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.8
Dell PowerProtect DD scales effectively, supports petabyte storage, integrates with cloud, and suits various business sizes with minimal maintenance.
Sentiment score
7.4
NetApp FAS Series offers seamless scalability, integrating old and new components for medium to large enterprises despite potential cost issues.
The scalability depends on the IT department's strategy.
By keeping the increasing data in mind, we decided to go for Data Domain.
NetApp FAS Series is scalable, and it is possible, but you need to pay.
The NetApp FAS Series is scalable and offers numerous solutions, but only if customers are willing to invest in the shelves.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Dell PowerProtect DD is highly stable and reliable, outperforming competitors, with minor software update issues occasionally reported.
Sentiment score
8.0
The NetApp FAS Series is praised for stability and reliability, with users noting minimal issues and high performance.
Dell is especially more stable in the enterprise product.
Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is stable in terms of software performance.
When panic occurs on the node, it reboots itself, and we have experienced numerous hardware-related issues.
 

Room For Improvement

Dell PowerProtect DD needs improved security, integration, deduplication, licensing, and support, with enhanced features for backup and pricing.
NetApp FAS Series needs enhancements in flexibility, pricing, integration, performance, documentation, support, virtualization, and scalability to address user concerns.
It is suitable for more customers since it is small, cost-effective, and a good start for any customer to know about Data Domain and DBS solutions.
The high availability feature is only present in the higher models of Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain).
If I were a manager for this infrastructure, I would look into load balancing for cost, maintenance after sale, and improving Dell PowerProtect DD.
It was not possible to have a custom user inside ONTAP without the delete permission to delete the volume.
There is an opportunity there for NetApp with Cloud Volumes ONTAP.
When we discover new bugs, we open a case with NetApp, discuss the problem, and typically receive fixes in the next ONTAP release.
 

Setup Cost

Dell PowerProtect DD is expensive, but valued for performance and reliability, with discounts often available for enterprise customers.
NetApp FAS Series is pricey but offers good ROI and savings through bundled licensing, with support impacting overall costs.
The pricing has become higher since July, and the license costs are more expensive compared to the past.
The price for PowerProtect DD is not suitable for my customers. It is very high.
Pricing is sometimes reasonable depending on the discounts provided by the company.
The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is not cheap, but in comparison to other vendors, NetApp FAS Series is affordable.
 

Valuable Features

Dell PowerProtect DD offers powerful deduplication, efficient storage, and seamless cloud integration for reliable, scalable data protection.
NetApp FAS Series excels in high availability, integration, and efficient storage solutions, featuring robust disaster recovery and unified storage.
The most valuable feature of Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is its deduplication capability.
By using Data Domain, we get the advantage of data deduplication, reducing data size.
Retention for data, deduplication, and replication between sites are valuable features.
While NVMe disks are expensive and require three disks for parity calculations, hard drives in NetApp FAS Series are inexpensive, making it more cost-efficient per GB, even with RAID tech implementation.
One important feature for customers is its ease of use and continuity, enabling seamless usage across on-premise and cloud environments.
At this moment, autonomous ransomware protection is the key feature.
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data ...
Ranking in Deduplication Software
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
Disk Based Backup Systems (1st)
NetApp FAS Series
Ranking in Deduplication Software
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
NAS (3rd), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Deduplication Software category, the mindshare of Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is 28.2%, down from 30.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 3.5%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Deduplication Software
 

Q&A Highlights

DR
Jun 01, 2022
 

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
Paweł Jabłoński - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for VMs with replication a feature, but need upgraded SSDs
We use this solution. I configured and updated it. Of course, I was also a user of applications that store data on that storage. We already have an SSD solution. So, rather than planning to go with an SSD solution, we are focusing on expanding it. If a company wants to deploy something new, it should choose a product with SSD, and NVMe disks. Overall, I rate the solution a six out of ten.
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Answers from the Community

DR
Jun 1, 2022
Jun 1, 2022
I think they are different types of storage for different purposes. If you are looking for a storage where to put backups data you can think Data Domain is the perfect choice because it is its main use (most or all the backup softwares have plugins in ordere to manage data domains). If you are looking for a primary storage (where to put your servers' data) then you can look to Netapp FAS and Pu...
2 out of 3 answers
GL
May 31, 2022
I think they are different types of storage for different purposes. If you are looking for a storage where to put backups data you can think Data Domain is the perfect choice because it is its main use (most or all the backup softwares have plugins in ordere to manage data domains). If you are looking for a primary storage (where to put your servers' data) then you can look to Netapp FAS and Purestorage. The latter are flash natives so it's simpler to manage and configure. If you look at the Netapp FAS you can also choose storages with HDDs with less performance (and a cheaper price). 
MS
May 31, 2022
@Dhruba Roy, your question conflates very different kinds of storage.  PowerProtect DD is Dell's latest version of Data Domain. It is ONLY useful as target storage for backups. Nothing else, not even archiving. If that is what you want, it does what it's supposed to do. Albeit, it's a bit pricey and underperforming.  There are much faster, cheaper, and more advanced backup target storage. Especially when measuring restore performance. I would suggest you take a hard look at a variety of backup target storage vendors including, Infinidat InfiniGuard, ExaGrid, Quantum, StorONE, iXsystems, and many more. Most backup target storage is all HDD although some are hybrid SSD and HDD. NetApp FAS is a general-purpose storage system for blocks and files. It can be all HDD, hybrid HDD and SSD, or all SSD (all-flash FAS or AFF). It's a solid all around storage system with NetApp pioneered capabilities, but expensive as a backup storage target.  Pure Storage FlashArray//X or //C are block all-flash storage arrays. Their FlashBlades are all flash file and object storage systems. Good performers but overkill and way too expensive for backup target storage. I think you need to define what it is you really need. Of the 3 vendors you asked about, I am going to repeat myself, PowerProtect DD is ONLY useful as a target storage for backups. The other two can do so, but are really not priced nor designed specifically for backup target storage.  If general purpose storage is what you need NetApp and PureStorage are good possibilities among many others.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
55%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

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.
Which SAN product would you choose: IBM FlashSystem (FS9500) vs PureFlash Array/X NVMe vs PureFlash Array/XL NVMe?
Have you considered a NetApp FAS Storage for your NAS needs? I am sure it fits very well.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp FAS Series?
The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is not cheap, but in comparison to other vendors, NetApp FAS Series is affordable because they also have deduplication, compression, and inline compression. They fo...
 

Also Known As

DataDomain, Dell EMC Data Domain, PowerProtect Data Domain
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

The US Army, City of Houston, Lloyds TSB, TiVo, Teck, Ingram Entertainment, The New York Mets
Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs. NetApp FAS Series and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.