Dell XtremIO Reviews

I was using Dell XtremIO as a storage admin and system storage admin internally within my company. My major use case for Dell XtremIO was for storage needs, including snap mirror, switching, SAN switch, and fiber.

The in-memory metadata architecture in Dell XtremIO was helpful for my data reduction efficiency.

I did use the inline data deduplication feature and compression. The inline data deduplication feature and compression were useful for me because the performance was very good when I needed to read or write from storage, latency was reduced, storage was extended, and volume replication was supported. It helped us to increase the latency performance of the application and the database application.

I saw benefits from the snapshot capability. The snapshot capability was helpful for me as it helped me to restore from snapshot, and the snapshot was very fast and worked extremely fine.

I did not see any negative impact on enterprise applications with Dell XtremIO related to sub-millisecond response times; the performance was very good and without latency. There were also a lot of volumes, a lot of LUNs, and a lot of capacity with no performance issues.

There are some areas that could be improved with Dell XtremIO. The API to connect with command line or to see performance very clearly could be enhanced, similar to how NetApp works with Grafana and NetApp monitor, which shows you a comprehensive view of the whole picture. The snapshot functionality could work more similarly to Snap Center. If I want to see all the VCenter with the VM, I think it needs the API for this.

I do see big differences between Dell and other products. NetApp works very closely with VCenter, and Hitachi also integrates well, but Dell is not very clear and does not proceed well with VCenter integration with Dell. It needs the API, and I need to see all the snapshots. If I want to restore a VM from only a few directories or a few files that I need to restore, it is very difficult.

I do see some differences in licensing. For the last few years, the Dell EMC price is acceptable. A few years ago, Dell EMC was expensive, approximately 20 percent more than NetApp. Right now the budget between EMC and NetApp is very closely aligned.

Regarding the installation process and deployment of Dell XtremIO, I notice that in Israel, a lot of professional services and engineers who work with Dell EMC have moved to another storage company. I do not know why. Dell EMC does not have enough engineers, system engineers, or professional services engineers to provide service to the old clients, similar to how NetApp or Hitachi do.

I think Dell XtremIO is between easy and complicated to deploy; it gives you the whole picture, but I need to go closely to VCenter to connect to VCenter to see the snapshot and to see performance with more dashboards of performance. I also need to connect the switch fiber channel to see all zoning to give me more flexibility to install or configure fiber channel or to see the performance of the fiber channels. I think there should be some fiber channel disconnect adapter or better troubleshooting from hardware for errors.

I have been using Dell XtremIO for a few years.

Dell XtremIO's scalability is quite easy; I think it is acceptable for us.

I give eight points for technical support.

Positive

I managed these products myself. I stopped using storages a few days back. I was using Dell PowerStore, VNX, Dell XtremIO, and PowerMax before a few days. I did not work with PowerStore. I do not have any experience with PowerEdge. I did not use PowerScale. I only used Dell XtremIO, VNX, Unity, and PowerMax. I think I bought Dell XtremIO directly from Dell or through some marketplaces, connecting through Dell. My review rating for this product is nine out of ten.

I use Dell XtremIO for storage operations, primarily for its scalability and the ability to define and manage complex, multi-domain systems.

Scalability is a significant feature of Dell XtremIO, as it is easy to expand and manage. It provides a lot of features suited for complex systems, such as scalability and the ability to define multi-domain systems, which are beneficial for data management and storage separation. 

It is efficient from the customer's point of view, offering deduplication at both the volume and file levels. The configuration and setup are straightforward, provided one has knowledge in setting up network infrastructure like VLANs. It is easy to install, use, and configure, making it a reliable product.

The interface could be simplified for beginners to ease the configuration of special objects in the system. While the current interface works well, a simpler version could be beneficial for new users.

I have been familiar with Dell XtremIO for about 12 years.

Dell XtremIO provides very good scalability, allowing for cluster configurations that are easy to scale. I rate its scalability as seven or eight out of ten. It is effective yet still has room for improvement.

I have never used technical support for Dell XtremIO since we manage it on our own, and I access support pages. Therefore, I have not interacted with their technical support team.

Neutral

The initial setup is straightforward once the prerequisite configurations, such as VLANs, are prepared. It is easy to install and get running, making it quite a good product for people familiar with its usage.

Pricing is hard to determine as it depends on the given configuration. XtremIO offers features that justify a potentially higher price, however, this varies with configuration. It has efficient deduplication and competitive features.

I also have experience with IBM products, although not as frequently. In the past, I have dealt with HPE products like SimpliVity.

I rate Dell XtremIO at eight out of ten. 

It is a product I would recommend to companies where data performance, scalability, and security are highly important due to its beneficial features.

I am deploying around fifty LUNs mostly with VMware.

The speed and scalability of Dell XtremIO are significant features that improve data storage management. It effectively supports my customer's high-performance computing needs. My customer has been using this Dell XtremIO box since 2017 and has not experienced any failures.

The product is highly expensive. Additionally, there is a significant lack of training, support documents, and forums available for Dell XtremIO, making troubleshooting difficult for third-party individuals.

I have been using the product for about two years.

The product is quite stable. My customer has been using Dell XtremIO since 2017 and has not experienced any failures.

I would rate the scalability of Dell XtremIO as seven out of ten.

I am not working with Dell for AMC support. I am receiving support from a third-party vendor because the device is end-of-life.

Positive

Dell XtremIO is quite expensive compared to other solutions on the market. I would rate its affordability as nine on a scale from one to ten, with ten being highly affordable.

I work with other vendors such as HPE and Huawei.

I am not recommending Dell XtremIO for other customers due to its high cost and lack of support. My overall rating for Dell XtremIO is six out of ten due to these issues.

We use it for virtual desktops.

It features video pen compression, which is highly effective. Additionally, its data protection mechanisms are robust and resilient, providing significant benefits

It is known for its ease of use, often described as plug-and-play. It offers impressive data compression, with ratios typically reaching up to 8:1. This allows users to deploy a small cluster to effectively meet substantial storage needs.

It can be more cost-efficient. It offers database restore functionality, and AppSync is one of Dell's tools that enhances this capability. Enhancing the integration between AppSync and XtremIO could further automate database restores and refreshes on platforms associated with XtremIO.

I have been using Dell XtremIO for ten years.

It is stable. Whenever there's an issue, you have to find where the asset is in the data centre.

It is scalable. The user base would be around five to seven thousand who are using this solution.

When you have Dell support, you can be assured that you will receive comprehensive assistance. However, while hardware issues will generally be covered, software-related problems or upgrades may not be addressed effectively if you opt for third-party support. Software issues, such as bugs or updates, typically require Dell’s OEM support for resolution.

Support can be categorized into Level 1 (L1) and Engineering. I would rate Level 1 support as five out of ten and Engineering support as ten out of ten.

Positive

Compared to other vendors such as SolidFire, Pure Storage, Hitachi, and IBM, Dell XtremIO stands out for its technical support, cost efficiency, and overall performance. Dell's ease of use and support capabilities make it a top choice in these areas.

The initial setup is straightforward. You just give it the IPs, and it does the rest. It is plug-and-play, which is very neat and very comfortable.

With Dell XtremIO, there is a concern about return on investment because hardware models often become obsolete after about five years, with end-of-sale and end-of-support notices. This necessitates eventual hardware renewal. However, XtremIO offers good flexibility in terms of expanding existing clusters, as different versions or models can be connected together.

For virtual desktop environments, Dell XtremIO is highly efficient in managing storage. For example, if you have 5,000 users who share a common OS, policies, and folders, XtremIO deduplicates the storage by focusing on the common elements and saving only one instance of them. This deduplication reduces storage requirements, as each user profile simply points to the common data rather than storing it separately.

It provides self-encrypting drives to ensure that data at rest is encrypted. Additionally, data in transit across the network is also encrypted, enhancing security.

XtremIO is optimized for handling various workloads, including those requiring high-performance storage for applications and compilers such as Python and C++.

In terms of data management, XtremIO includes deduplication and compression features, and its AI capabilities have improved over time to better identify and manage data patterns, leading to more efficient storage utilization.

Dell XtremIO supports replication, which enables broad DR scenarios. Unlike earlier models, the newer XtremIO models can handle replication between compact boxes at different sites, facilitating seamless disaster recovery in stretch VMware clusters where storage is also served.

There is minimal ongoing software management required. Hardware consumables like drives may fail and need replacement, but software maintenance is minimal.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Dell is super average to use. Dell XtremIO is a fine tool and is a good product. Most people use the performance offered by Dell XtremIO. I tell people that Dell XtremIO is not a tool solely about performance. You can use capacity and a software-driven data storage product with Dell XtremIO. Dell XtremIO is not unified.

The most valuable feature of the solution is its performance. It is not a tool that is driven by capacity or unification.

Dell XtremIO should attempt to make the product more unified to make it more agile.

The solution's stability has certain shortcomings where improvements are needed.

The only challenges associated with Dell products are associated with versions, specifically software versions.

I have experience with Dell XtremIO.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

All the storage solutions are becoming more scalable now because all the solutions now understand what it means to expand. Everybody is given scalability features in the tool.

I have one customer using Dell XtremIO.

The solution's technical support services are at a moderate level.

In terms of the product's initial setup phase, it is a good storage, but it has to be unified.

The price of the product depends on what you are looking for in the solution. You need to decide what kind of software you want in your storage. You can get a two-year or three-year license for the tool. You can also opt for a perpetual-based licensing model, which can be renewed on a yearly or two-year basis.

Performance is one reason people use Dell XtremIO, and you also need to choose whether you plan to use it for SAN or NAS storage.

Dell's deduplication technology is also fantastic and homogeneous. It also leverages the snapshot to be able to do that, so it is across both HPE, Dell, and NetApp.

Dell can be a fantastic product if the environment is right for you. With the product in place, you need to only focus on one thing, so you are not doing two things together. If your environment is more SAN-based, then you need to get SAN storage. If your environment has a mixed protocol, what you need to do is you can get something better.

With the product, you can work in areas like AI, ML, and robotics. I have had customers who used to use the product for machine learning.

I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

We use Dell XtremIO for high IOPS. We get backup within 10 minutes. 

Initially, we faced numerous issues with our analytical systems. However, we saw performance improvement after the implementation of the solution. 

I like the tool's snapshot backup and flash storage features. 

Sometimes we don't get an immediate response from the support team. The initial POC also took a lot of resources. 

I have been using the tool since 2016. 

I would rate the tool's stability a ten out of ten. 

Dell XtremIO is highly scalable and I would rate it a ten out of ten. My company has 2000 users for the product. We use the solution 24/7 since the last seven years. 

Dell's support is nice. 

Positive

Dell XtremIO is easy to setup and I would rate it a ten out of ten. The tool's evaluation took about four months and deployment took one month to complete. 

Dell XtremIO's price is affordable and I would rate it a five out of ten. 

I would rate Dell XtremIO a nine out of ten. The solution has reached the end of its life and you need to check whether you get a replacement for Dell XtremIO. You can choose this product and we are happy with it. 

At the time, we needed a reliable storage solution to store and access data based on user requirements.

But now, we are planning to decommission it. 

I remember one of the main use cases was that our system required specific storage capabilities. XtremIO allowed us to store data and provide user access based on their requirements. That's the main use case I recall from when we deployed the solution.

Scalability could be better.

We've been using XtremIO for over ten years. 

It was stable. We didn't encounter any issues after deployment.

Around 500 users accessed it through the system.

We didn't need to contact the support since we didn't face any issues after deployment.

Nowadays, there are more efficient solutions. But, ten years ago, it was at the time it was a top solution. I'm not sure how it compares to current options.

The initial setup is straightforward. 

We hired experts who handled the configuration for us. We had two or three experts who we outsourced the deployment to.

We didn't face any challenges after the experts did the deployment. The solution worked as needed.

It was a one-time perpetual license when we purchased it. It worked properly after we purchased it. 

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten. It's an older solution, so we didn't use it for AI purposes.

If you need a NAS solution, it's a good option, as it's a long-standing solution. I'm not sure about other options on the market now.

The product is used for managing storage in our organization. It handles large-scale volumes of workloads efficiently and was utilized for Oracle databases.

The product helped our organization by providing excellent performance and easy manageability. Its data deduplication improved our storage capacity considerably.

The most valuable features include the easy manageability of snapshots and its excellent performance in large-scale workloads.

When we upgraded the capacity from five to ten TB, the price of the disks was high. Dell explained that they are selling technology, not just disks.

We have been using Dell XtremIO for seven and a half years.

We faced no specific challenges with the product and there was no downtime. Even when one controller was down, it was replaced by the local partner within twenty-four hours.

The product scaled with our needs, however, upgrading capacity was expensive.

The support from the local partner was good, and we required minimal support from Dell. The administration of the product is easy.

Positive

We replaced Dell XtremIO with another product from Dell, which is PowerStore.

The support was provided by the local partner, and it was satisfactory.

When purchased eight years ago, it was offered at a special price that was good and competitive. However, upgrading was costly due to the high price of disks.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Dell Xtremio is great because it's fast. It's much quicker than traditional storage. When I need to find something on SharePoint, it's a lot faster with Dell Xtremio. So, it's really helpful for us.

The feature I like most about Dell Xtremio is its hardware quality compared to other vendors. It's clear they're continuously improving their research and development. Deployment is quick and easy compared to other vendors, saving us time. Updates and support are also hassle-free. Data reduction technology has helped cut storage costs and increase efficiency. So far, Dell Xtremio has been reliable with no downtime or issues.

I have been using Dell XtremIO for the past 3 to 4 years.

Regarding stability, we haven't faced any issues within our existing infrastructure. However, we can't speak for integration with solutions from other vendors.

Dell XtremIO is highly scalable, both in terms of hardware and other aspects. It integrates well with various virtualization platforms and firmware.

A small team with expertise can handle deployment and maintenance efficiently.

Setting up Dell XtremIO is straightforward and quick, almost like plug and play. We didn't need complex configurations, and once it's up, further adjustments or upgrades are relatively simple and quick compared to other vendors. Integration with our existing IT infrastructure and applications was seamless, as it is designed to be compatible

We worked with consultants for installation and deployment.

The value and impact of using Dell XtremIO are significant. Despite the cost, it offers stability, efficiency, and reliability, making it a worthwhile investment.

The licensing cost is on a yearly subscription basis, which can be expensive but is necessary for ongoing support and services. The pricing could be improved to make it more accessible.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Dell XtremIO 8 out of 10.

For those considering using it, I would recommend exploring all aspects of the solution, including HCI nodes, storage nodes, switches, security features, and backup and recovery options.

We use Dell EMC XtremIO for block data and VDA profiles.

The most valuable feature of Dell EMC XtremIO is the data protection (DP) group, it is one of the most advanced features in these types of arrays. The dedupe and compression that this array provides both do a superb job.

The replication of Dell EMC XtremIO could improve. In the newer versions they have improved, however, the replication can be improved further where we can include concurrent or cascaded methodologies.

In the next release, the solution could have better integration and if we can host assets on the cloud, such as NetApp has the NetApp volumes, which we can host on the cloud directly called NetApp CVO (cloud volume ONTAP). Dell EMC should come up with something purely on the cloud rather than manage services.

I have been using Dell EMC XtremIO for approximately seven years.

The solution is stable and has good performance, it guarantees millions of files. 

Dell EMC XtremIO is scalable and it is easy to do. However, we cannot have more than four bricks.

We have approximately 10 people in the storage team who use the solution and 5,000 use the services in my organization. 

The solution is used on a daily basis. The media profiles are launched for each user and it communicates to the Dell EMC XtremIO daily.

We contact technical support whenever there's a hardware failure. If there is a software glitch, such as the one we had where the connectivity status used to flicker. It had to show eight parts, but it flickered and showed five, six, seven, and eight, all the parts. The flickering in the database, which resides within the XtremIO management server actively tweaked a bit and we had a support engineering case open for it with the Dell support. However, it didn't materialize, this is something that should be fixed in the next update.

Overall I would rate the support Dell EMC XtremIO a nine out of ten. We don't reach out to them. Nine only because the hardware could be more durable. All the SSD's could use a single-level cell rather than a multi-cell.

I previously used SolidFire and NetApp. There is a third solution I have used called Violin Memory which is not used much, but it's a very good contender. 

The advantages of Dell EMC XtremIO are the market share Dell has and dependability.

All the other solutions are going more towards iSCSI connectivity while Dell is moving away from iSCSI and towards XtremIO's that offer both iSCSI and FC. There is not much development for iSCSI, this is a limiting factor.

The installation was straightforward. If you have everything in place in the network, it would only take two days maximum.

The implementation can be done by the customer, it is done by racking and stacking them.

The solution has a redundant component, there are only disc replacements or battery backups replacement required.

The price of the solution should be reduced. The price matches the price of a VMAX service but it does not have the capability of a VMAX service. However, the prices of Dell EMC XtremIO can be reduceable.

I would recommend this solution to others, it will make their life easier.

I rate Dell EMC XtremIO an eight out of ten.