Dell PowerVault Disk Backup and Discovery (DL, TL & ML Series) vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library

For small to medium sided environments, it's great, or for low demand but being able to hit higher IOPS on demand. It's still entry-level compared to EqualLogic hardware but a great contender in the field.

Incentivized

Starwind VTL is a great solution for customers that want the benefits of a physical tape library without the hefty price tag and the manual intervention required when changing tapes as it is automated. In addition, Starwind VTL virtual tapes are "air-gapped" as they are in LTO format.

• Tape Solution
• Small Business Solution
• Good for direct attached storage purposes like video security.

Incentivized

• Allows you to use Veeam and other software that uses Virtual Tape Libraries while getting rid of actual tape drives and tapes
• Backblaze B2 implementation is great - keeps storage costs low while automating backups to the cloud storage
• Low cost and great support by the Starwind technical team
• Feature-rich and in constant development

• Maintenance is tough. Dell recommends bringing the unit down for any kind of maintenance of upgrades.
• Internal IOPS monitoring could be greatly improved.
• Arrays are locked down to Dell licensed disks.

Incentivized

• Set-up is confusing.

Their support is great and the interface is not as user friendly

The initial setup took some time, however, with the help of the Starwind technical team, we were able to set it up from start to finish including seamlessly adding it to our existing backup solution. After that, there was no need for any additional setup or troubleshooting.

Great and reliable product with little need for support

couple vendors but nothing to write home about....

Incentivized

We've looked at physical tape backups, however, the infrastructure is too costly compared to Starwind VTL and it also requires manual changing of tapes that users will not want to do or forget to do. With VTL, it works exactly like a physical tape library with the same benefits and full automation.

• If you need a lot of disks attached to a system, PowerVault is the way to go.
• The cost of the unit is reasonable, and you can extend the life of the unit pretty far.

Incentivized

• ROI was immediate as we got rid of expensive sneakernet backups with hard drives in a Pelican case
• One-time cost of the product is very cost-effective
• Support contracts are reasonable and we received excellent support throughout
• We have much better peace-of-mind with our data being protected better