Dell EqualLogic PS series vs IBM XIV comparison

Dell Technologies and IBM are both solutions in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category. Dell Technologies is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.3, while IBM is ranked #10. Dell Technologies holds a 5.0% mindshare in MS, compared to IBM’s 3.6% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Dell EqualLogic PS series

Read 20 Dell EqualLogic PS series reviews

1,162 Views
1,127 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

IBM XIV

Read 6 IBM XIV reviews

651 Views
644 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Dell EqualLogic PS series

IBM XIV

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

IBM XIV and Dell EqualLogic PS Series are competing in the storage solutions market. IBM XIV seems to have the upper hand with its data reliability and performance, while Dell EqualLogic PS Series offers impressive virtualization and scalability features.

Features: IBM XIV provides robust scalability, focusing on data reliability and easy integration into IT ecosystems. Dell EqualLogic PS Series offers advanced virtualization, automatic load balancing, and simplified management.

Room for Improvement: IBM XIV could benefit from more competitive pricing, enhanced automation features, and better integration with third-party tools. Dell EqualLogic PS Series might improve on providing deeper analytical insights, more advanced data protection features, and enhanced interoperability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM XIV offers straightforward deployment with reliable customer service, ensuring operational continuity. Dell EqualLogic PS Series provides seamless deployment with comprehensive support options, facilitating quick implementation.

Pricing and ROI: IBM XIV requires a higher initial setup cost but delivers favorable ROI through performance and efficiency. Dell EqualLogic PS Series boasts a competitive pricing structure and strong ROI, appealing to businesses focused on cost-effectiveness.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell EqualLogic PS series vs. IBM XIV Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Dell EqualLogic PS series vs. IBM XIV

April 2026

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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

Dell EqualLogic PS series

Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

6th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM XIV

Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

10th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of Dell EqualLogic PS series is 5.0%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM XIV is 3.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Dell EqualLogic PS series	5.0%
IBM XIV	3.6%
Other	91.4%

Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

Featured Reviews

Khuram Ayyaz

Network Executive at Virtual University

Has enabled uninterrupted access to educational platforms and simplified storage management

Dell EqualLogic PS series is easily scalable, and we can add extra boxes and storage. It was easy to deploy during COVID. Deploying Dell EqualLogic PS series is straightforward, with no complexity involved. Dell EqualLogic PS series is a good product. We did not experience any failures in the last six to seven years, and it is still running as our storage for offline data. There are snapshot capabilities in data protection available, but we did not use that feature because it consumes much space. We have only 150 terabytes of space and simply use it to create volumes without utilizing it for snapshots. We use thin provisioning in Dell EqualLogic PS series, but I did not explore that feature further.

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Ajith Kandaramage

IT Operation Engineer at HNB

Good value for money but issues with modular scaling

IBM XIV's most valuable features are NVME, especially when it comes to de-duplication, compression, and responsiveness I've been using IBM XIV for two and a half years. IBM XIV is stable. IBM XIV's scalability is adequate for our requirements, but because it's modular, you can't scale to larger…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If you have one datacenter fail, the VMs will start to run inside the other data center."

"It has contributed to the implementation of virtualization and all its benefits."

"The technical support for EqualLogic has been universally outstanding."

"The most valuable feature of Dell EqualLogic PS series auto tiering by using this feature, the customer can get higher performance on a valuable budget."

"Before deploying it, we used public clouds for our services, facing latency and other issues with other vendors; after deploying this cluster, we were very satisfied and relieved."

"Technical support is great; we have four-hour support from Dell for storage."

"Enterprise features for snapshot management and replication benefited us greatly."

"Its high availability. It has a lot of redundancy and good management software as well as good alerting."

More Dell EqualLogic PS series pros

"The product is exceptionally reliable and very easy to manage."

"IBM XIV's most valuable features are NVME, especially when it comes to de-duplication, compression, and responsiveness."

"Very easy to produce reporting data (Snaps). Very easy and fast for provisioning devices and Remote mirroring."

"The performance and robustness of the systems are very good."

"As it spreads, a chuck of 1MB across the board means using all available spindles on the backend."

"Hands down, this is the easiest storage platform on the market to manage."

"For us, the XIV is pretty much set-it-and-forget-it storage."

"Installation is amazingly easy."

More IBM XIV pros

Cons

"There is no inline deduplication capability."

"The solution does not scale well at all. It's a box, so we only have so much space to work with."

"Synchronous replication uses space inefficiently."

"It's kind of expensive when you buy the EqualLogic solution because, as you grow, you have to keep buying another controller. It can be more expensive with time."

"The product is reaching the end-of-lifecycle."

"When they deployed our cluster, they did not provide any documentation or low-level or high-level diagrams. They simply came, mounted the servers, and started installation without documentation, which is a negative point on the vendor side."

"If I need to have more space or more capacity, I need to replace the product. It would be ideal if we could scale without replacing the box itself."

"There is no option for mixing RAID types in one device."

More Dell EqualLogic PS series cons

"The change form synchronous mirroring to asynchronous (and vice versa) without reconfiguration from scratch would be helpful."

"IBM XIV's scalability is adequate for our requirements, but because it's modular, you can't scale to larger requirements."

"I would rather have a web GUI served directly from the unit, and a CLI accessible directly through SSH."

"Until the drive is replaced, the pool_resizing is locked."

"This product was not a good fit for our organization as we have a ton of latency sensitive applications and XIV was not able to keep up with IO + latency demand."

"I guess we'd like to see the XIV keep pace with how storage is going in terms of speed and latency."

"I encountered stability (performance) issues during enclosure or disk rebuild. Also some power supply issues due to malfunctions of circuits. Sometimes "internal" Snap sessions hang and consume pool capacity."

More IBM XIV cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Initial packages include all upgrades and services."

"Price-wise, the solution is cheap. I rate it a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is very cheap, and ten is very expensive."

"I don't think I would say that the product is less expensive...The product's price is not an issue for our company, considering the relationship we have with Dell and the customer support we receive."

"I didn't buy it. It was another person seven years ago. So, I don't really know, but all storage platforms cost a lot of money. It is probably in the mid-range, but you get what you pay for."

"It seemed expensive at first, but the durability lowered the cost of ownership dramatically over time."

"It is a fair price."

"All features are out of the box. The license will be in the virtual, OS, or application layer."

"There are annual maintenance costs beyond the original licensing period."

More Dell EqualLogic PS series pricing and cost advice

"If you are going to use the product behind an SVC, IBM will price the units lower, since you are likely not to use any of the advanced copy services."

"We have a five-year total cost of ownership where we pay an initial amount and then annually for maintenance."

"Licensing is straightforward."

"No-license-required policy, unlike others where you need a license for everything. Just pay once and forget about licenses."

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Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	7

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell EqualLogic PS series?

The technical support for the solution was really good.

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What needs improvement with Dell EqualLogic PS series?

I do not have anything in mind regarding new capabilities for Dell products at this time.

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What is your primary use case for Dell EqualLogic PS series?

We are essentially a university, and we have deployed Dell EqualLogic PS series in our data centers to run our production sites, student portals, websites, our on-premises portal, and campus manage...

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Comparisons

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NetApp FAS Series vs Dell EqualLogic PS series

Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 19% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs IBM XIV

Compared 19% of the time

NetApp FAS Series vs IBM XIV

Compared 16% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs IBM XIV

Compared 15% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs IBM XIV

Compared 11% of the time

More IBM XIV Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell EqualLogic PS series

May 2026

Download Dell EqualLogic PS series product report

Buyer's Guide

Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

April 2026

Download IBM XIV product report

Also Known As

EqualLogic PS series

XIV

Overview

Dell EqualLogic PS series offers enterprise-level scalability, reliability, and virtualization at reasonable costs. With exceptional performance and ease of management, it's an ideal choice for modern storage needs.

EqualLogic PS series provides impressive scale-out capabilities, seamless virtualization compatibility, automated tiering, and thin provisioning. The storage system supports robust features like snapshot capabilities, synchronous replication, and stable data expansion. High reliability and efficient data management make it suitable for organizations needing dependable storage solutions. While enhancements in controller failover, performance, and Fibre Channel connectivity are desired, it addresses high IOPS demands and integrates well with VMware environments, offering stable operation in data centers.

What are the key features of Dell EqualLogic PS series?

Scalability: Allows easy expansion to meet growing data needs.
Automated Tiering: Optimizes storage efficiency and performance.
Thin Provisioning: Maximizes storage utilization and efficiency.
Virtualization Compatibility: Seamlessly integrates with virtual environments.
Snapshot Capabilities: Enhances data protection and recovery.

What benefits can users expect from Dell EqualLogic PS series?

High Reliability: Zero failures over extended periods.
Reasonable Costs: Offers competitive pricing for its performance.
Exceptional Support: Backed by robust technical support services.
Straightforward Management: Easy to deploy and manage.
Redundancy: Ensures data safety and reliability.

In industries like education and corporate IT, Dell EqualLogic PS series is used for shared storage in VMware environments, powering virtual machines, student portals, and production sites. It effectively supports databases with high IOPS requirements, such as Oracle and SQL, making it a trusted component of data center operations for file storage and backup needs.

Dell Technologies

IBM XIV is a high-performance storage solution designed to meet the needs of businesses requiring efficient data management and scalability. It offers a reliable and flexible storage architecture that is easily scalable and highly secure.

IBM XIV provides enterprise-grade storage capabilities with a focus on simplicity and resilience in data storage. It supports dynamic scaling, allowing businesses to adapt to growing data requirements seamlessly. Designed to deliver high availability and efficient data protection, it integrates well with existing IT environments. Utilizing a grid architecture, IBM XIV ensures data is distributed evenly for optimal performance and reliability. Its intuitive management features reduce complexity in data handling.

What features make IBM XIV stand out?

Grid Architecture: Ensures data distribution across the system for improved performance and reliability.
Dynamic Scaling: Adapts to increasing data loads seamlessly.
High Availability: Maintains consistent access and operation with built-in redundancies.
Efficient Data Protection: Provides robust security measures for safeguarding critical information.
Intuitive Management: Simplifies setup and operational management with user-friendly features.

What benefits and ROI should users expect?

Improved Efficiency: Streamlines data management processes, reducing time and effort.
Cost-Effective Scalability: Scales operations without significant additional investment.
Enhanced Security: Protects sensitive data with robust security protocols.
Reduced Downtime: Ensures continuous operations with high availability.

Organizations in sectors like finance and healthcare turn to IBM XIV for its reliable data management and storage efficiency. Its ability to dynamically scale and efficiently handle large volumes of data makes it suitable for industries that demand quick data access and secure storage. Implementation is tailored to integrate with sector-specific compliance and demands, making it adaptable to unique operational environments.

IBM

Sample Customers

FAW Foundry, AW Engineering, Unimat, eLongNet Information Technology, BDO Brasil, Odyssey Space Research

Celero, NaviSite, Technische Universit_t Mªnchen, Netflix Inc., Muhr und Bender KG, Pelephone Communications

Buyer's Guide

Dell EqualLogic PS series vs. IBM XIV

April 2026

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