PowerProtect DD Series vs. Arcserve ShadowProtect

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

If we have a scenario where we need very fast backup/ a lot of backups per hour we tend to go towards ShadowProtect , we have several customers with important servers that we backup each 15 minutes with a VSS consistent snapshot. The continuous incremental option also allows us to create one "full backup" and never again afterwards. This gives us the possibility to give longer retention periods to our customers.

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

• Shadowprotect has a relatively simple interface so it's easy to set up.
• Due to the simple UI, it is easy to restore files.
• Imagemanage works fairly well once it's set up and doesn't need much babysitting.

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

• The replication offsite can have issues over time. It takes manual involvement to keep it working right.
• SPX remote management isn't easy out of the box.

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

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

We don’t need support often, but when we do, the support has been strong. Sometimes it is hard to determine how to access support for the exact issue we are having. There are a decent forum and online ticketing system. Support for the cloud center seems to be provided only by phone, though.

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

ShadowProtect is less expensive than some and more robust than others, and for us, provided a fine medium on which to build our support platform. The MSP interface for SPX makes licenses easy to track and deploy, as well as to retire. Overall, have been satisfied with this choice.

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

• It had a positive ROI due to the ability to offer better backup technology to our clients.
• There is a large up-front fee you need to pay, though, as you need a minimum number of licenses to resell as MSP.

Incentivized