Dell DR4100 and DR6000 Competitive Analysis
The Dell DR6000 and DR4100 are powerful backup and deduplication appliances that can offer great value to
organizations looking for high capacity backup targets or a foundation for a disaster recovery strategy.
The DR Series appliances are 2U, rack-based system backup storage repositories that utilize Dell’s global, block-based
inline deduplication and compression technology to reduce the amount of backup storage capacity needed to protect
your data. The DR Series system license also includes replication features at no additional cost and a Global View
management console that automates the management of multiple DR appliances within a network.
The DR4100 is designed for medium enterprises and remote sites. It is available in raw capacities of 2.7, 5.4, 9, 18 and
27TB and can be expanded to a total of 81TB of usable capacity (post RAID) using two Dell PowerVault MD1200
expansion shelves. The DR4100 supports NFS, CIFS, OST and RDA (Rapid Data Access) protocols at no additional cost.
The DR6000 is engineered to support larger enterprises and scales up to 180TB of usable post-RAID capacity using four
expansion shelves in configurations of 9, 18, 27 and 36TB. The DR6000 supports NFS, CIFS, OST and RDA (Rapid Data
Access) protocols and also includes support for a Dell Rapid NFS and Rapid CIFS technology, which helps speed the
ingestion of file shares backed up using NFS or CIFS. All these protocols and applications are included in the standard
license at no additional cost.
The following section shows how the DR4100 and DR6000 measure up against competing solutions from other
manufacturers.
Dell DR4100 and DR6000 vs Quantum DXi6700
The main advantages of the DR4100 and DR6000 over many rival systems is in performance and licensing costs. As an
example against the Quantum DXi6700, the DR4100 and DR6000 have:
No additional charge for encryption: in transit AES256 bit encryption is included as standard on the DR6000 and
DR4100. On the DXi6700 it is an extra cost option.
3 Year Warranty as standard: The Dell DR4100 and DR6000 carry a 3 year Dell warranty. The Quantum DXi6700 has only
a 1 year warranty.
Larger drive capacity and density: The DR4100 and DR6000 both support larger 3 and 4TB hard drives, providing better
storage density and power consumption than the DXi6700, which only supports 2TB hard drives.
Faster backup performance: The Dell DR6000 includes Rapid NFS and Rapid CIFS backup acceleration software. Any
supported backup software can use Rapid NFS and Rapid CIFS to achieve up to 8x the number of concurrent backup
streams that the DXi6700 supports.
Dell DR6000 vs EMC Data Domain DD4200 and DD4500
The Dell DR6000 is often considered against the EMC Data Domain DD4300 and DD4500 as a backup and deduplication
solution. However, the DR6000 offers several advantages over the Data Domain units.
Faster backups. Using the Dell DR6000, organizations can simultaneously backup 512 streams of data as compared to
the 270 concurrent backup streams supported by the EMC DD4200 and DD4500.
All-inclusive licensing. The Dell DR6000 includes backup acceleration, encryption, replication and its NAS interface at no
extra charge. While the EMC Data Domain DD4200 and DD4500 offer these features, they cost extra.
3 year warranty. The Dell DR6000 has a 3 year hardware warranty whereas EMC only offers a 1 year warranty on its
DD4200 and DD4500 appliances which results in organizations being hit with a support tax every year after the first year.
providing better storage density and power consumption than the DXi6700, which only supports 2TB hard drives.
Source side backup deduplication/acceleration. Symantec OST and EMC DD Boost have long provided backup
acceleration by using proprietary network protocols. The Dell DR6000 eliminates this need for proprietary protocols for
backup acceleration with Dell’s Rapid NFS/ Rapid CIFS source-side backup accelerator. This software works with ANY
backup software without the need for any special integration.
The DR4100 and DR6000 backup and deduplication appliances are certified to support Dell and third-party backup
applications, enabling you to take advantage of the space and time savings from deduplicated backups, regardless of the
backup application in your environment.
DR4100 and DR6000 supported backup applications.
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Dell NetVault™ Backup
Dell vRanger™
EMC® Networker®
Symantec NetBackup™
Symantec Backup Exec™
IBM® Tivoli® Storage Manager
CA ArcServe® Backup
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Dell AppAssure
CommVault Simpana®
Veeam
Oracle RMAN
HP Data Protector
Bridgehead
Amanda