"We have been able to consolidate storage into Pavilion. Pavilions are our only SANs because it is a bring your own disk solution. When new drives come out, we are able to take out half of the drives in the system, put in new drives, move our VMs over to the new drives, take the other drives out, and populate those with new drives. Then, we are suddenly twice as dense as we were before. NVMe flash is only going to get denser and cheaper so we can make use of that every couple of years by just throwing newer disks into it at a fraction of the cost of a new SAN."
"There's lots of flexibility in how we use the resources while also maintaining a small footprint."
"The high performance is very valuable, as well as the enterprise reliability features."
"Initial setup is a simple process."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with vCenter."
"We're able to access it from just about anywhere, as long as we have access to a browser. That feature is really neat because sometimes we will go to a different data center or a different site, and if we need to access it to see a LUN or to see any type of storage, we can do that. That's one of the big takeaways with Unity."
"When I have an issue and need technical support, I reach out to them either through chat or by submitting a service request, and the response is good."
"The most valuable features include snapshots, Thin Clones, and deduplication and compression."
"Integration is easy with this product."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is the unified storage. Also, its capabilities for block-access, file access, and the center box."
"I have found Dell EMC Unity XT to be stable."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to set a specific margin of performance to a specific workload."
"Some of the valuable features include MetroCluster switchover, in terms of disaster recovery, it is easy to use, and flexible."
"The hardware and software of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are easy for us to use."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the performance of the database access."
"Its performance is most valuable. This solution is much faster than other as well as older storage solutions. The performance of the system is very good. We are getting 50 times better experience than the older storages. We are using AFF 300. It also has native cloud integration and most of the features."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"I would like to see the management layer improved."
"In our current configuration, we can only run the line controllers in high availability, active-standby mode, whereas we would like to see active-active implemented."
"The rail system that Pavilion uses to mount up into a standard Dell or APC cabinet extends further back than normal rails, and they cover up the zero PDU slot. So, I don't like the rail system that comes with the device. That is my biggest complaint."
"Currently, the protocol SNMP is not implemented. That's a problem, as we follow this protocol and I can't check the integrity of this equipment."
"It could be improved in the area of management flexibility. For example, I really need to set read-only access for LUNs, and there's no such option with Unity XT."
"The price of this product can be more cost-effective."
"One area of improvement is replication. We are also using Oracle virtual machines, and when you are using systems from other vendors, the process of replicating from Unity through OLVM is more laborious than when we were using VPLEX."
"It could be a little easier to attach it to a network file system."
"The reporting should be better. In other systems, you can create many different kinds of reports but this is not the case with Dell."
"We do a lot of VMware. It only integrates with VMware in one way, which is virtual volumes. I don't really have any visibility on anything else. From VMware, I can't look into Unity. From Unity, I can't look into VMware unless I am using virtual volumes, where they integrate together happily, but we are not using that. I would like better integration for non-virtual volume VMware use."
"It could go faster. Make it bigger, better, and faster at a lower price, and I am there."
"We have used IBM previously. We found that the storage from IBM was poor and we chose NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays because it can scale very easily."
"I would like to have the ability to replicate data between All Flash and other NetApp storage systems."
"The dashboard could be simplified."
"There could be an improvement when it comes to SLA support, it could be faster."
"Better integration with other brands is important so we would like to see it easier to integrate."
"Its pricing should be better. Its price is competitive, but they need to improve the pricing. They have different licensing models, which they need to improve. My expectation was cloud integration, which they have, but it is a different license. Therefore, people cannot enjoy it. If I want to use it, I need to pay extra. There is a cost involved for everything, but it should reach everyone. It is similar to having a Rolls-Royce, but you need to pay extra for the key. If you want the key, you need to pay."
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Dell EMC Unity XT is ranked 5th in All-Flash Storage Arrays with 19 reviews while NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is ranked 17th in All-Flash Storage Arrays with 6 reviews. Dell EMC Unity XT is rated 8.8, while NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Dell EMC Unity XT writes "We can do both block and file storage on one unit without purchasing a separate device". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays writes "Good performance, easy to operate and maintain, with good support". Dell EMC Unity XT is most compared with Dell EMC PowerStore, NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS), HPE Nimble Storage, Pure Storage FlashArray and HPE 3PAR StoreServ, whereas NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is most compared with NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS), Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, HPE Primera, Dell EMC PowerStore and Dell EMC SC Series. See our Dell EMC Unity XT vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays report.
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