We performed a comparison between Dell EMC PowerStore and Dell EMC Unity XT based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: The two products received similar reviews in most categories. According to reviews, Dell EMC PowerStore appears to be a bit more robust and therefore more appropriate for larger environments.
"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."
"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."
"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."
"I find all of the Dell PowerStore features to be valuable."
"PowerStore is easy to use. All the drives use soft encryption. To upgrade it, you download the app, and it runs by itself. It's very easy to deploy, share, and create volumes."
"Overall, we're quite happy with the product because we can move the data that is stored on more than 10 of our current storage devices to a single PowerStore."
"There is no complicated configuration for queries and calls. You just create a model and go."
"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerStore is the all-NVMe flash storage. This is the most powerful feature of this series. It supports compression and duplication leads."
"The most valuable feature is that it is easy to use this frame. I am a SAN administrator, but I was able to train my colleague, who had only been a VMware administrator, on the PowerStore in about half a day. Now he's autonomous in assigning volumes and creating data stores..."
"The supportability of SCME drives for faster data access from the PowerStore and is the most valuable feature."
"The solution is very easy to implement."
"A lot of the Unisphere interfaces are greatly improved in terms of monitoring capabilities, alerting, and ease of use. Setting up the storage and the file system are all just a few clicks away."
"Key features are ease of use, ease of management, ease of deployment, and the GUI is very user-friendly."
"Using this solution has meant that I do not need to look for different partners to provide me with solutions like a backup service. Dell provides end to end solutions."
"It is a stable solution that sells a lot...The deployment phase of the product was very easy."
"The way it takes the Snaps, that is one of the best features. Snapshot performance is what is key in the Unity, compared to a traditional VNX."
"We have simplified it down to where we're using one storage pool inside the Unity, whereas on the VNX, we had multiple storage pools. This has simplified that aspect for us. It would depend on each organization. We're heavy into VMware and this ties into it so simply. It's made it a lot easier for us. I create a datastore inside Unity, it just shows up in VMware. I love that tie-in."
"Inline data reduction is pretty impressive."
"The most valuable feature is that the solution is a hybrid system, so you can do both block and file storage."
"The software layer has to improve."
"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."
"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."
"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"We need better data deduplication."
"I do not like having to use VPLEX for synchronous replication, as opposed to having the store software built-in."
"PowerStore's management console could be improved."
"The support team doesn't always provide adequate assistance. So, there is room for improvement in the support."
"When it comes to Dell PowerStore, I would like to see more integration and more security features included. It's unfortunate that the solution does not feature Flash trace."
"When you create a case on Dell's support website, you don't always get someone who is experienced in the kind of systems you need help with...making it an area where Dell's support team needs to make improvements."
"It doesn't support SSD or Flash."
"Many customers are looking for a cyber recovery feature included in PowerStore. We would like to see this added in a future release."
"We are looking for the Dell PowerStore to become more mature to maximize our use cases."
"I would like the device to have the ability to pull down its own firmware. That would be a great thing."
"My only complaint would be some of the CLI Help files could be a little more detailed, but that's very minor complaint. We were trying to run some commands just to see how the storage snaps were interacting with the storage array, and it was a little difficult to look up exactly what commands should be run. The Help files detailing what exactly the commands did wasn't as detailed as we would have wanted them to be."
"We have had some downtime. Nothing is perfect. Unity’s have had some code-release problems, versions that, from a compatibility perspective, had some glitches which caused an outage. But, given the amount of Unity’s we run, that has been fairly minor and it hasn't happened at scale or across all of our Unity’s."
"The solution should include a free process in the HPE portal that uses serial numbers to verify that hardware is genuine."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say the deduplication part, because for large deduplications, you need an extra appliance to do it in order to avoid having problems in performance. I think that could be improved, because everything should be included in the product, not with an appliance from the outside."
"Dell EMC's competitor has a clustering technology. In the next release, it would be nice if they could build that into the product."
"The initial installation is straightforward and took approximately one hour. However, the full process was not as simple as IBM."
"They can certainly improve in terms of monitoring."
Dell PowerStore is ranked 1st in All-Flash Storage with 47 reviews while Dell Unity XT is ranked 4th in All-Flash Storage with 189 reviews. Dell PowerStore is rated 8.6, while Dell Unity XT is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Dell PowerStore writes "It has a very strong NAS that can support a lot of big, heavy environments". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Dell Unity XT writes "Easy to set up with good data compression technology and useful deduplication". Dell PowerStore is most compared with IBM FlashSystem, Pure Storage FlashArray, NetApp AFF, Dell PowerMax NVMe and Huawei OceanStor Dorado, whereas Dell Unity XT is most compared with NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, Pure Storage FlashArray, IBM FlashSystem and HPE 3PAR StoreServ. See our Dell PowerStore vs. Dell Unity XT report.
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We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
Hello Yasin,
The best solution depends upon your host environment. In general, PowerStore is more powerful than Unity but Unity is also a very good Storage solution.
The Unity 400 is a rather old, a much less powerfull solution and at its best holds ssd flashdrives if at all. Currently you have the Unity 8xx model, which has more CPU punch and therefore maxes out less fast on CPU utilisation. What this means is that you can add more shelves and disks and workloads to it before you hit the roof.
The powerstore 1200 is an nvme storage, is 60% more powerfull (compared to FC/SCSI-SSD on Unity) in our case, and has higher datareduction rates. If the unity reaches out to a datareduction rate of 1.5 or 2, the Powerstore T1200 is capable of 3 to 3.5 datareduction, probably due to half its blocksize. The price of the device is pretty much dependant on the price of its media, and therefore the Powerstore T1200 is the absolute winner.
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Another aspect is that the Powerstore can be used to build a cluster of arrays compared to the sync/asynch replication only feature of the Unity series, rendering the mirrored volumes unuseable unless one fails over to it, like in a disaster recovery scenario.
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The Powerstore also allows true A/A volumes on both sides . What this means is that one can build stretched vSphere clusters and the loss of your array in one site will still allow writing to the alternate protected disk, transparently ! You can have site local writes to your volumes and remain in sync without a need to cross site write.
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There is not much of a reason to settle for the Unity anymore, though some still prefer the Unity for NAS compared to Powerstore, but honestly speaking I won't recommend to use any of both for that purpose unless for limitted useage. Unity allocates RAM ressources dynamically when used for FC/SCSI AND NAS , whereas the Powerstore is initialized in a kind of split off of RAM ressources between NAS/FC SCSI at installation time. The ressource allocation is fixed and can't be altered lateron. Thats a hard call. So I'd favour the Unity only if you use it for low/moderate NAS needs in combination with FC/SCSI or block data and you don't have the budget nor the size to use a NAS optimised array on top.