PowerProtect Appliance (DELL EMC) Types! Choos The Best Option!

by Davoud Teimouri · Published 04/02/2023 · Updated 10/06/2023

DELL EMC PowerProtect Appliance has two types currently. We’ll review difference between two types at this post.

On This Post:

What Are Two Types of DELL EMC PowerProtect Appliance?

PowerProtect Appliance has two types with different use cases:

Integrated Appliances
Target Appliances

DELL EMC PowerProtect Integrated Appliance

The next-generation of Integrated Data Protection Appliance (IDPA) is all-in-one data protection software and storage in a single appliance that delivers backup, replication, recovery, search, analytics and more. Transform your data protection for the future with the DP series. It’s easy to deploy and manage and can help consolidate data protection software and hardware for any size organization. Features include:

Systems starting at 8 TB to 288 TB usable capacity
Flexible consumption models
Cloud long-term retention and cloud DR-ready
VMware integration

When I wrote this post, Integrated Appliance has two model with different specifications.

PowerProtect DP4400

I think that this model is suitable for small and medium businesses:

Max Throughput: Up to 9TB/hr
Logical Capacity: Up to 4.8PB
Logical Capacity with Cloud Tier: Up to 14.4PB
Usable Capacity: 8TB – 96TB
Usable Capacity with Cloud Tier: Up to 288TB

PowerProtect DP5900

Compared to another model, this model has more capacity and deduplication ratio because of powerful hardware acceleration.

However, this model suitable to enterprise businesses:

Max Throughput: Up to 33TB/hr
Logical Capacity: Up to 18.7PB
Logical Capacity with Cloud Tier: Up to 56.1PB
Usable Capacity: 96TB – 288TB
Usable Capacity with Cloud Tier: Up to 864TB

The results are based on vendor test and actual result may vary.

Logical capacity based on up to 50x deduplication (DP4400) and up to 65x deduplication (DP5900) based on additional hardware assisted data compression of up to 30% better than previous generation. Actual capacity & throughput depends on application workload, deduplication, and other settings.

DELL EMC PowerProtect Target Appliance

The next generation of Data Domain backup appliances deliver enterprise performance, efficiency and scale. Designed to meet backup, archive, disaster and cyber recovery needs for organizations of all sizes, DD Series easily integrates with Dell and third-party backup software. Features include:

Sizes from 4 TB to 1.5 PB of usable capacity
Software-defined version for ROBO, entry-level and cloud environments — starting at 1 TB
Cloud long-term retention and cloud DR-ready
Cyber recovery integration

PowerProtect DD series has one virtual edition and five physical appliance models.

However, those models are different in specifications like throughput and capacity.

PowerProtect DD Virtual Edition (DDVE) is software-defined model and most specifications such as throughput are depending to hardware.

But its logical capacity can be up to 4.8 PB and not more.

Logical capacity based on up to 50x deduplication (DD3300) and typically 65X deduplication (DD6400, DD6900, DD9400, DD9900) based on additional hardware-assisted data compression of typically 30% more logical capacity per TB.

Also, throughput drawn running DDVE at 96TB instance. Host server: 2xIntel Xeon CPU (6 Cores each) @2GHz, 128GB memory, 2x10GbE NIC: Storage: DAS with 3TB 7200RPM SAS Drives, RAID6, Battery Powered HBA Cache Enabled, Disk Cache Disabled

Conclusion

PowerProtect DP series has more integration with other solutions such as VMware virtualization solutions and you don’t need to additional software or hardware for integration.

In other hand, PowerProtect DD series offering many protocols to use these appliances as target. DD series can simultaneously support multiple access methods including NFS and/or CIFS, VTL, NDMP and DD Boost all applications and utilities can be supported in the same DD series at the same time to enable greater protection storage consolidation. A system can present itself as a file server, offering NFS, CIFS access over Ethernet; as a virtual tape library (VTL) over Fibre Channel; as an NDMP tape server over Ethernet; or as a disk target using application specific interfaces like DD Boost. DD VTL is qualified with leading open systems and IBMi enterprise backup applications.

However, PowerProtect DD series has virtual edition, so there is ability to build your PowerProtect DD as software-defined target. In other words, you can reduce your costs and also build multiple software-defined appliances in datacenter for different use cases.