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DD Boost vs ExaGrid EX Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

DD Boost
Ranking in Deduplication Software
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ExaGrid EX Series
Ranking in Deduplication Software
8th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Deduplication Software category, the mindshare of DD Boost is 3.8%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ExaGrid EX Series is 5.4%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Deduplication Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
DD Boost3.8%
ExaGrid EX Series5.4%
Other90.8%
Deduplication Software
 

Featured Reviews

Brijesh Pillai - PeerSpot reviewer
Regional Manager - Enterprise Sales at Noventiq
Provides robust data protection solutions with room for better pricing options
Dell is a strategic partnership for us as resellers. We rarely focus on PowerProtect Data Manager (PPDM). Every data protection solution vendor offers encryption as part of their solution. This is one of the default standards required for data protection. Regarding Network Efficient Replication on disaster recovery operations, it is definitely effective. Customers get native capability out of the box to do a restoration. Typically, customers look at a secondary copy in the cloud, but primary will be on-premise. While we have a partnership with AWS, we do not buy from the AWS Marketplace. I would recommend this product to medium enterprises to large enterprises. On a scale of 1-10, I rate DD Boost a 7.
DG
Information Technology advisor at Lotus Consulting
Improvements in data storage efficiency and customer support experience
ExaGrid EX Series and Veeam was easy to set up, and it worked seamlessly. It was very simple to use. We rarely needed to touch the ExaGrid boxes, except for upgrades. With the systems engineer from ExaGrid, and with our common knowledge of backup software, it was very easy to use. The performance was good, the interface was good, and the GUI was good. When ExaGrid introduced the air gapped feature, it was almost complete. Almost every hardware vendor has an air gapped feature, but they were significantly ahead of other vendors. The air gapped and immutable storage are very nice features. The price compared to other competitors was good with better features. It is not a cheap product, but compared to the features, it is a good competitor.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It's stable and reliable."
"It's very stable as an infrastructure for backup, and we can use it as a storage as well."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is deduplication."
"The traditional storage node and VPN setups are still viable options, but DD Boost offers a premium option with additional advantages. If available, adopting DD Boost can be a good choice."
"Overall, scalability is great."
"The tool's deployment was easy."
"The solution can scale."
"The most valuable features are the performance and the duplication."
"The most valuable features of the solution are deduplication and landing zone."
"One of the most valuable aspects of the ExaGrid EX Series is the support."
"ExaGrid has improved my organization in the way that we get reliable backups with very little administration."
"The solution easily integrates with the backup targets, such as Veeam."
"The tool has improved backup and recovery times. One of the key features contributing to this improvement is the landing zone and deduplication retention zone. When data is in the landing zone, the process is fast, ensuring smooth backup and recovery operations at high speeds. However, the process becomes slower for long-term backups moved to the retention zone due to fragmentation. So, if the data is older than a few days, the speed may be limited, especially for non-deduplicated data in the landing zone."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use and data deduplication. It's extremely easy to use and does a very good job of data deduplication and compression."
"It is a solid and a quite simple solution, which is a good combination. The customers like the simplicity and its scale-out capacity. They like the support pricing, and even the extension capacity pricing, a fixed price, which the executive is offering in Czech market."
"ExaGrid EX Series and Veeam was easy to set up, and it worked seamlessly."
 

Cons

"The solution must provide better deduplication."
"One area that requires improvement is the time needed for cleanup processes."
"Lack of this functionality is, in my opinion, big limitation."
"A disadvantage could be in terms of price points because price points are a hindrance at times when we position it with customers."
"Integration could be better."
"DD Boost's technical support could be better."
"My customer was interested in ransomware protection. Currently, Dell offers the Cyber Vault solution, which is separate from Data Domain. Ideally, ransomware protection would be integrated directly within DD Boost, without requiring an additional out-of-the-box solution. This feature is currently available with HPE's Zerto and Huawei's Ocean Protect with third-party products like PradoNet. While Cyber Vault exists as a separate solution from Data Domain, having some standard protection for immutable backups into DD Boost would be a valuable addition and make it more competitive with other vendors."
"The solution could be faster."
"The one place where we are sometimes losing the opportunity with ExaGrid is that a few customers still require a fiber channel connectivity, which is not always possible."
"I would like for them to develop direct cloud integration with a third-party cloud. Direct integration with AWS and other cloud providers."
"When speaking about a scale-out, you want to have better equipment. You cannot just add a disc to the foreign equipment. You have to buy another one and put it together, like parallel."
"The product's documentation can be made more precise."
"The solution could improve by switching to a flash-type solution rather than the spinning drives that they currently use. However, we have not had any failure with the spinning drives. The flash-type drives are more up-to-date and are something that is in their roadmap."
"The support is not that fast to deal with our concerns. It is next day support, they could improve on the speed."
"The tool reduces storage footprint. However, clients are now storing data for longer durations with increasing requirements to retain backups for longer periods, particularly as a defense against ransomware attacks. As a result, the retention zone with duplicated data is experiencing more demand, leading to space constraints. This necessitates using higher-end, more expensive models to address the issue."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is high compared to the competition and should be reconsidered."
"The solution is expensive."
"DD Boost's price is good for its features."
"There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the product. The price of the product is on a higher scale, meaning not everybody can afford it."
"You don't have to pay additional costs."
"Dell EMC Data Domain Boost is an expensive product. There are extra costs for support because every year, you have to renew your SLA for support, and the cost is always increasing."
"The pricing is competitive when compared to other vendors."
"We scale this product by adding licenses, which are related to capacity."
"The previous solutions I have used both included the Backup Software and the Appliance making it hard to compare to this solution. However, overall the solution is reasonably priced for the features you receive. ExaGrid EX Series is priced better than HP, Dell, and possibly Commvault which I have compared in the past."
"My company had to pay 1,60,000 EUR for the system we use, and the payment was made just once for the system and five years of full support."
"In comparison to other solutions, it's affordable. They're all too expensive."
"The current agreement has 21 terabytes of free space and it cost approximately $35,000."
"I rate ExaGrid EX Series' pricing eight to nine out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DD Boost?
It's complicated for me because when we buy, we buy a package, so I don't have the DD price. Every Data Domain we buy comes with Boost technology, with the DDoS feature. I don't know the price of D...
What needs improvement with DD Boost?
DD Boost can improve by providing some sort of API to track the progress or the number of remaining data transfers. For instance, in other Dell products such as storage, SRDF replication protocol i...
What is your primary use case for DD Boost?
I am handling the storage part, not the compute part. Through storage, I have Dell PowerMax 2000, Dell Unity, Data Domain, and Dell SAN switches. Additionally, I have two boxes from IBM FlashSystem...
What needs improvement with ExaGrid EX Series?
Everything can always be better, so I would give it a nine.
What is your primary use case for ExaGrid EX Series?
We used ExaGrid EX Series as a landing zone for Veeam software. Initially they did not have immutable storage, but when they released that feature, we implemented it. We used it with Veeam software...
What advice do you have for others considering ExaGrid EX Series?
I was a customer. My overall rating for ExaGrid EX Series is 9 out of 10.
 

Also Known As

No data available
EX Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
NCI Group, North Attleborough Public School, North Kingstown School Department, NPS Pharmaceuticals, Prudential Douglas Elliman, Rathbone Brothers PLC, Rio Hondo College, Ruder Finn, Sarah Lawrence College
Find out what your peers are saying about DD Boost vs. ExaGrid EX Series and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.