Tried and True
October 28, 2019

Tried and True

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with PowerProtect DD (formerly Dell EMC Data Domain)

DD is used as an on-premise backup storage target in coordination with a Veeam backup environment. It is used to backup VM's running Microsoft OS primarily in a VMWare environment. DD does a good job of compressing and deduplicating data to save space on the backup storage. We also replicate the primary DD to a secondary DD in another datacenter for redundancy purposes. That works well.
  • It writes backups quickly. DDBoost add-on is very useful as well for improving backup speeds.
  • DD is very efficient in its use of capacity. It dedupes and compresses very well.
  • It spans to large capacity amounts.
  • It is very slow to restore from. Backup times are great, restores can be terribly slow.
  • It doesn't offload to cloud storage natively. You need to purchase an expensive license to enable this feature.
  • The management interface is very basic, but it works fine.
  • The new air gap solution seems to be just replication an on/off switch. I'd prefer to see them leverage AI on the existing device instead of requiring
  • A second device is purchased and securing by toggling the connectivity off.
  • It has provided us the ability to easily store and replicate our backup data in multiple datacenters.
We have started moving away from our Veeam + Data Domain backup environment and are moving into the Rubrik backup system. This is due to the need to quickly live to mount our database backups and to be able to improve our automation of those activities. Also, the native archival to Azure/AWS BLOB cloud storage by Rubrik is a major factor. I have nothing that negative to say about DataDomain, but it doesn't really fit into our new Rubrik solution; Although the DD can be repurposed as extra storage target for Rubrik as well if desired. All in all, DataDomain itself is a great product and is a great choice as a backup target for many backup platforms. If you are cloud heavy or looking for cloud offloading it may not be the best choice for you. If that is not your goal, then it is a good choice that is a very mature product.
I am not happy with EMC's support in general of any storage product. They are not very responsive, nor very personable to work with. It is the one area EMC (and now Dell) really need to focus on improving. That said, ultimately you will get the support you need, even if it leaves you with a sour taste in your mouth.

Do you think PowerProtect DD Series delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with PowerProtect DD Series's feature set?

Yes

Did PowerProtect DD Series live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of PowerProtect DD Series go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy PowerProtect DD Series again?

Yes

It fits well into most backup solutions that don't require frequent restorations. If you need to be able to offload to cloud and can't afford extra licensing costs, this may not be for you.

PowerProtect DD Series Feature Ratings

Universal recovery
10
Instant recovery
3
Business application protection
8
Multiple backup destinations
8
Incremental backup identification
8
Backup to the cloud
8
Deduplication and file compression
10
Snapshots
8
Flexible deployment
8
Management dashboard
8
Platform support
10
Retention options
10
Encryption
10