We performed a comparison between Dell EMC PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) and Rubrik based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Rubrik’s users report that, in addition to being a powerful solution, it is simple to deploy and work with and therefore it comes out on top in this comparison. According to reviewers, PowerProtect’s deployment process can be difficult.
"The most valuable features of this product are its guaranteed reliability and its duplication capability."
"We have never had any issues with Data Domain. It has been stable."
"The solution is very scalable."
"Deduplication and compression are the best features of the solution, which are popular and very effective."
"The compression aspect of the solution is great."
"When utilizing Dell PowerProtect DD for backup systems, Data Domain offers fast performance with low latency, providing high throughput for quicker backups compared to other vendors."
"PowerProtect is a flexible solution that you can cover various cloud and on-premise environments."
"Data Domain is an excellent repository that's compatible with a lot of different solutions. Even Veeam Backup recommends sending backup to Data Domain. Space optimization is great. Currently, it guarantees 50-to-1 compression of the application in the same device. In all these years, I never had a client who was unsatisfied with Data Domain. It is a solid appliance with VMware integration, instant access to restore and search, and analytics."
"I don't know if it is the best or the worst but it's very easy to install and very easy to balance. Sometimes that it's a problem because the installer of these data gets extremely scared because it's so easy. The product is easy to install, easy to balance, and easy to work with. Another really good point is the instant recovery."
"The initial setup is easy."
"There is a live-restore feature, their Live Mount, and the way it works we can instantly recover a VM, a past backup, to be directly attached to our VMware environment. Rubrik will act as a disk for it. It's like an instant restore. Within a few minutes our VM is up and running. And then, if we want to restore it, we can just migrate it to our actual storage."
"The solution's technical support team is very responsive and proactive."
"Features we have requested are typically added to the next product release."
"The feature that I found most valuable is Live Mount. You can either mount a virtual machine from a snapshot, or you can mount a volume from the snapshot. You can mount one disk to the server to retrieve data, or you can mount the whole VM, rename it, and use it as a test VM. If your VM gets corrupted, you just mount one from the snapshot, and you have your production VM's backup. So, Live Mount is definitely the best feature for me as an end-user."
"Rubrik has made the process to manage backup and recovery painless. This frees up more time to work on other projects."
"Rubrik is a faster unit from a hardware perspective. Things, like Live Mount, mean we can bring services back straightaway, then have them transition back into the live storage in the background. Because we can use Live Mount to do instant restores, a restore is now a five-minute job. Then, the rest of it is done in the background, rather than doing something for an hour before you actually get the restore back."
"It can probably have integration with other OEMs. It should also have more features for ransomware protection."
"I would like to see some kind of integration with the ransomware in the next release."
"Dell PowerProtect DD should come out with its own system so we do not have to use Data Domain. For example, something similar to what Symantec has done."
"Technical support needs improvement."
"Its management can be improved."
"The usage of this solution is a bit difficult to develop processes, and it takes a long time to market permits."
"It helps if you have in-depth knowledge in order to use it correctly."
"EMC is very expensive for small customers."
"Pricing is something that needs to be considered for improvement."
"The open source database needs to be supported."
"I hope to see enhancements in areas like data governance and the incorporation of new features in future updates."
"Capacity reports could definitely be improved. It's hard to determine what is using the space and why. For instance, you can see that some host is using 2 TB on the Rubrik node and the disk space on that host is 400 GBs. It's hard to explain how there can be 2 TBs of data on local storage when nothing has changed on the host for the past three days."
"In terms of what could be improved with Rubrik, we need to improve the backup for remote sites. The competitors are stronger in terms of their remote office back up. Rubrik needs to improve to be stronger for backup. This is the main thing."
"We have some challenges with the solution's reporting because historical reports have some limitations."
"Rubrik is expensive."
"Setup is immediate but pricing is not cheap."
More Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) Pricing and Cost Advice →
Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is ranked 1st in Deduplication Software with 63 reviews while Rubrik is ranked 4th in Backup and Recovery with 83 reviews. Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is rated 8.6, while Rubrik is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) writes "Supports business continuity process but needs improvement in pricing". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Rubrik writes "Easy to use with minimal training required, innovative, good support". Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is most compared with HPE StoreOnce, Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, ExaGrid EX Series, Veeam Backup & Replication and Veritas NetBackup Appliance, whereas Rubrik is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, Cohesity DataProtect, Commvault Cloud, Zerto and Azure Backup.
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The biggest difference is Rubrik has native software and hardware on one platform. Data Domain is only a disk target and a very good one but you still need backup software such as Networker, Veritas, Commvault, etc. That software requires both a master and media server which drives a lot of complexity. Rubrik is hyperconverged data management, there is not software licensing, end of year true-ups or additional infrastructure. Policy-based backup and restore functions with cloud archiving integration. It’s also really fast! Finally, if you’re running Nutanix and its native hypervisor AHV then Rubrik can protect that hypervisor and VMware.
I agree with the other answers - With Data Domain, you still require a software solution to go with the back-end storage. I.e., Avamar, Networker, etc.
Rubrik is a Software Defined Solution or can be deployed with its own set of hardware\storage.