PowerProtect DD Series vs. Pure Storage FlashBlade

When used as a backup target PowerProtect DD models offer incredible density and can efficiently replicate to another cloud-based or offsite unit. Most complaints about these have been addressed in software over the years and they are now a intuitive and easily managed backup system. You are not buying a Swiss army knife, you are getting a machine designed for a purpose, use it for that and you will not be disappointed. While they have the ability to serve as a CIFS server, they are not a filer and lack many of the features inherent to filers and are a poor substitute.

Incentivized

Pure Storage FlashBlade is best for companies that want their data stored and secure. The big storage capacity and cloud integration secure our data and ensure no third-party access without authorization. It provides us a secure data storage services for our objects. Fast and easy to install and easy to use.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Speed. We are seeing large transactions take very little time.
• Upgrades- In-place upgrades of both hardware and software are extremely easy.
• Ease of use- I have several engineers working on this and from setup to day to day operations it is extremely easy to maintain.

Incentivized

• Depending on the model of Data Domain, there is a limit to the number of NFS/SMB threads that can run concurrently. When this limit is reached, the system is slow to respond to client requests.
• Data Domain support is very slow to turn out new features and bug fixes in their code.
• OS upgrades are very slow and disruptive.

Incentivized

• When reporting out a user has exceeded there quote, it only references the UID. It would certainly be nice it calls out the UID name that is clearly present in the Dashboard.
• The ability to determine a snapshot total size would be helpful.
• Proactive reachout to discuss new versions and assist in planning the upgrade would be a key win.

Incentivized

DD has performed flawlessly for almost 10 years as our backup/recovery storage with offsite replication. Given its track record and great support from EMC, we're unlikely to look elsewhere any time soon.

Incentivized

Good API, multi-protocol support is great.

Customer support has had some ups and downs here. We've had several issues with EMC support before and during the acquisition by Dell, but in the last 18 months support has been top notch. Quick and knowledgeable help is but a chat away, or they will call you back so you don't have to wait on hold. The team supporting us is responsive and is quick to assist with any request or issue.

Incentivized

Without exception, the contacts with support have been quick and extremely knowledgeable. I do not fear getting an underqualified engineer to assess or work on my arrays. In addition to this support structure, the sales engineers are top notch as well.

Incentivized

We already had Avamar in place, and since we have a good ecosystem of Dell Solution suite and wanted to evaluate PowerProtect DD also from that perspective, hence we thought of going ahead with it. We knew the limitations with Avamar and PowerProtect DD were right there from that side of the business.

Incentivized

Pure Storage FlashBlade is in our experience far faster, performance-wise, compared to its close competitors. However, if you factor in any packages you currently have with IBM or AWS for example, you can get more value for money for your data requirements. However, if performance is a must, the increased cost is not an issue.

Incentivized

• Positive: The high compression (58.0x) and data reduction (98.3%) have allowed us to optimize the storage for efficient usage.
• Negative: even after adding capacity, we are running out of space. Adding capacity adds to the overall TCO (e.g. lease cost).

Incentivized

• Pure has greatly narrowed the performance gap between file storage and fiber channel block storage with FlashBlade. Exotic file systems and costly FC fabrics are no longer needed to run performant storage.
• Training is not required for a storage admin who has never touched a Pure array. Everything is where you would expect to find it.

Incentivized