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 #7 with an average rating of 8.3, while IBM is ranked #10. Dell Technologies holds a 3.4% mindshare in MS, compared to IBM’s 2.6% 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

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469 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

IBM XIV

Read 6 IBM XIV reviews

279 Views
276 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: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell EqualLogic PS series vs. IBM XIV

December 2025

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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)

7th

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 January 2026, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of Dell EqualLogic PS series is 3.4%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM XIV is 2.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell EqualLogic PS series	3.4%
IBM XIV	2.6%
Other	94.0%

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

"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."

"Dell EqualLogic PS series is a highly stable solution."

"We were attracted by the flexibility of being able to put in a new shelf whenever we needed to, to expand."

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

"The technical support is very good."

"The solution has been working well overall."

"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."

More Dell EqualLogic PS series pros

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

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

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

"Installation is amazingly easy."

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

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

Cons

"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."

"Dell EqualLogic PS series could improve the performance because in our hybrid configuration the read speed is faster than the write speed."

"The solution is out of date and the new version has a lot of advanced features."

"Why is it not possible for both controllers to be simultaneously active (load balancing)?"

"There is no inline deduplication capability."

"Dell EqualLogic PS series could improve by providing fiber channel connectivity. Fiber channel connectivity is not supported, which is a requirement of advanced applications, such as SAP HANA. SAP HANA recommends fiber channel connectivity, but the Dell EqualLogic PS series is only an ISCSI data storage."

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

"6510 and 6610 have two iSCSI connections in each controller. Why do 6110xxx members have only one, and why do the same members have the possibility of having an active iSCSI interface in the passive controller? It could make a lot of noise with a failover."

More Dell EqualLogic PS series cons

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

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

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"Dell EqualLogic PS series can improve its scale-out feature. Sometimes the customer has a limited budget for storage expansion. When they want to expand their capacity, they need to buy a complete controller plus storage capacity, which sometimes is out of their budget. If Dell EqualLogic PS series support could scale up the environment in which only hard drive extension controllers should be supported, then customers can expand within a lower budget."

"Initial packages include all upgrades and services."

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

"Licensing is pretty straightforward."

"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."

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."

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

"Licensing is straightforward."

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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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HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs IBM XIV

Compared 23% of the time

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Compared 23% of the time

More IBM XIV Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell EqualLogic PS series

January 2026

Download Dell EqualLogic PS series product report

Buyer's Guide

Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

December 2025

Download IBM XIV product report

Also Known As

EqualLogic PS series

XIV

Overview

EqualLogic PS Series arrays bring a new level of performance to service more of your most demanding applications and virtualization requirements, while delivering the simplicity of the EqualLogic management experience. Featuring six array configurations, including 2U/2.5" drive options with All Flash and Hybrid Arrays, it is ideal for companies and organizations with growing data and performance needs.

Dell Technologies

IBM XIV is a high-end, grid-scale storage system that excels in tuning-free consistent performance, ease of use and exceptional data economics, including inline, and IBM Real-time Compression. IBM XIV is ideal for hybrid cloud, offering predictable service levels for dynamic workloads, simplified scale management, including in multi-tenant environments, flexible consumption models — and robust cloud automation and orchestration through OpenStack, RESTful API and VMware. It offers security and data protection through hot encryption, advanced mirroring and self-healing and investment protection with perpetual licensing.

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

December 2025

Free Report: Dell EqualLogic PS series vs. IBM XIV

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