Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers vs FlexPod XCS comparison

Dell Technologies and NetApp are both solutions in the Converged Infrastructure category. Dell Technologies is ranked #3 with an average rating of 9.0, while NetApp is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.3. Dell Technologies holds a 2.6% mindshare in CI, compared to NetApp’s 9.2% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers

Read 211 Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers reviews

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98% willing to recommend

FlexPod XCS

Read 295 FlexPod XCS reviews

1,703 Views
630 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers

FlexPod XCS

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

FlexPod XCS and Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers compete in the data center solutions category. FlexPod XCS seems to have the upper hand with its unified support model that simplifies deployment and ongoing management.

Features: FlexPod XCS distinguishes itself with pre-designed architecture, ensuring compatibility and flexibility through seamless integration of components, backed by joint Cisco and NetApp support for easier issue resolution. Key features include powerful scalability, FlexClone, and mirroring capabilities that expand storage and deployment options. Meanwhile, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers offer robust performance and reliability through iDRAC's remote management, along with OpenManage Essentials for easy hardware management. High resilience and support for virtualization and fault tolerance are noteworthy, accommodating diverse high-demand workloads.

Room for Improvement: FlexPod XCS users call for quicker certification of Cisco and NetApp updates and improved, unified support services to reduce vendor switching. A cohesive interface for component management is desired for smoother integration and better task automation. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers could benefit from reduced configuration complexity, more efficient firmware updates, and broader monitoring capabilities. Simplifying the OpenManage Console and ensuring a cohesive upgrade path for hardware iterations are also suggested.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: FlexPod XCS's verified architecture and single-vendor support streamline deployment, simplifying data center operations despite occasional cross-vendor support inconsistencies. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers provide strong customer service aided by iDRAC's remote management tools, although managing separate components remains complex.

Pricing and ROI: FlexPod XCS is considered expensive, yet its scalability and management efficiencies justify the cost by reducing operating expenses and enhancing ROI over time. Licensing complexities for Cisco, NetApp, and VMware require careful cost evaluation. Meanwhile, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are competitively priced, offering good ROI through consistent reliability and lower operational expenses. The ability to customize configurations appealingly suits various business needs, although a more extensive pricing strategy could enhance reach.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers vs. FlexPod XCS Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers vs. FlexPod XCS

July 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 PowerEdge Rack Servers

Ranking in Converged Infrastructure

3rd

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

211

Ranking in other categories

Data Center Networking (4th), Blade Servers (5th), Rack Servers (1st)

FlexPod XCS

Ranking in Converged Infrastructure

6th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

295

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Converged Infrastructure category, the mindshare of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers is 2.6%. The mindshare of FlexPod XCS is 9.2%, down from 10.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Converged Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

Syed Masuood

Country manager at Asta Innosys

Handles workloads and diverse applications efficiently

We have a lot of VMs on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. On a single server, we have probably hosted 14 or 15 VMs. Out of these, 8 to 10 are continuously running, and four of them are backup VMs, so it can handle a good workload. For cybersecurity, it is only accessible on the intranet; it is not accessible through the web. We use it for local development purposes, and it is behind our firewall. Its security is strong. We handle a lot of test data for government and confidential customers. It is safe and strong locally. We have not experienced any security issues. Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers have helped to reduce unplanned production downtime if we need to replace a hard disk, instead of completely shutting a server, there is a hot swap feature. It is quite good in that aspect. Usually, for any activity, there is a downtime of about 30 minutes. It has saved a lot of time. We have tried AI workloads for a development environment for a government customer in Singapore. The servers are hosted in Singapore. It is an ML-based engine with AI. It is a government project where data is processed, and we run it on Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers. The benefit of running AI workloads on PowerEdge Servers is that it is easy to allocate memory. The application we are running is memory intensive. It is pretty easy to scale memory and storage.

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John Kevin

Deputy IT Manager at MBBank

Enforces standardized setup procedures following Certified Validated Design (CVD) guidelines and offers greater flexibility and control over the system compared to traditional systems

The GUI setup follows the right setup, meaning we have to follow the CVDi.e. Certified Validated Design. Everything is clear, because you can build CI yourself, but without rules, it can be messy. With FlexPod, there are rules to follow, making it more standardized. This helps with troubleshooting and compatibility assessments, simplifying troubleshooting significantly. We also use FlexPod pre-validated architectures to validate the design. It is very, very important to us because we had a bad case in 2015 where separate items integrated poorly due to no version or firmware compatibility certification. Troubleshooting became a nightmare. So, standards are crucial for us, and everything entering production should be verified or at least documented for certification.

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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

"Looking at the new models, they have greatly improved the cooling system, which is a significant advantage."

"The robustness of the hardware itself is valuable. We have had PowerEdge servers running even after they were out of their warranty timeline. For example, about four or five years ago, we updated the virtualization platform. One of the servers that we had on that platform was ten years old. These servers have a lot of durability. You can see that they are well-made."

"Our overall experience with their product and support has been consistently excellent."

"I believe Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers can grow with our business."

"I have very good experience with their technical support."

"I would rate Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers a ten out of ten."

"Any necessary adjustments can be made seamlessly without the need to unplug cables, as everything is contained within the rack itself."

"The most valuable feature is the storage, which is offered in different varieties with many options depending on the use cases, including unstructured data."

More Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers pros

"SolidFire all-flash block storage system in an existing FlexPod data center environment. This improves the agility and performance, including the additional load of cabling."

"The storage efficiency and performance are valuable."

"The solution is resilient, because it has good scalability, and other products in the market don't have this. It has scalable storage and service."

"We found FlexPod to be innovative when it comes to compute, storage, and networking. We've taken advantage of their storage optimizations to obtain better use out of the space. We upgraded to All Flash FAS (AFF), which has provided a huge performance increase that we haven't barely scratched the surface of. We have plenty of overhead, so that's always nice when taking on tasks which might have otherwise taxed a smaller system."

"The guides that we use to install FlexPods are always up-to-date. This is really helpful, especially if there is a new product with NetApp moving so far forward and Cisco as well. For them to join together and update a centralized document for the install process, it is really good. It helps us understand if there are features from the first version that we installed while upgrading that we need to implement. Those are in the document. So, we find that document useful and helpful when moving forward."

"It provides ease of automation."

"Integration is most valuable. This is a reference architecture. So, we don't have to design something from scratch and figure out how it is going to work."

"Technical support has been good when we have contacted them in the past. They have been helpful."

More FlexPod XCS pros

Cons

"The BIOS interface could be improved; it is very poor. PowerEdge is very good overall, but if you compare the BIOS interface with HPE, it is not very good."

"The licensing of the different formats of the iDRAC is somewhat annoying."

"PowerEdge is not that flexible. For example, it's difficult if I need something that is not in Dell's portfolio. We offer the flexibility to the customer. We can implement different things Dell doesn't have. If you have preconfigured systems, it's hard to transition them to what you need."

"Their support can be better. Getting to the right person for support is a challenge."

"Although PowerEdge's price is high."

"Maybe on the education side, working with third-party sellers on how easy their products are could probably help."

"One of the things that I've noticed is that over time, the system degrades, meaning that little things don't work. For example, the hard drive would need to be replaced or iDRAC would not be functioning properly. We may have to flash the firmware. It is not like some other hardware where it just runs without issues for four or five years. With Dell, generally, there are little hiccups here and there."

"Its customer support should be improved."

More Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers cons

"We have had bugs which have been released, even though they have been minor."

"There are certain things that are just hard to do on a physical infrastructure, like for instance you need to make petabytes of data available at high speed."

"Some of the define features could use improvement."

"I'd like them to bring back the GUI for NetApp ONTAP. They changed the interface in version 9.8, and it's not great. In 9.9 they've tried to bring it back a little bit, but it's still not great."

"Areas for improvement would be the support for the engineering team, who seem to have no clue when you open a case, the communication with and recognition of resellers, and the documentation, with could be more detailed."

"They just announced that they are going to move it along with Intersight from Cisco. That can be a private or public cloud, which is one of the areas where it can grow more and has a lot of potential."

"The FAS in it, with all its flexibility and scalability, it is much more complex and could be simplified."

"The biggest thing that I would like to see is more cost-effective FlexPod solutions."

More FlexPod XCS cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We weren't paying very much, but it was at the end of the lifecycle. We are now using the VxRail hyper-converged infrastructure, and the pricing was very similar for the same amount of power but with easier automation."

"The licensing comes with a warranty."

"It is expensive. The price needs to be more competitive. Additional licenses are required to enable some of the features for scalability."

"This is an expensive solution."

"The pricing of Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers has been a little problematic. It was sticker shock with our most recent purchase compared to the previous one, and there's a gap in pricing at our current level because what we do isn't very compute-intensive, resulting in a mismatch where we fit into an in-between category without an exact solution available."

"Dell is pretty good. good. I had a conversation with Dell a while ago due to a vendor. We got much better pricing from a competitor. When I looked at another company, Dell called me and asked why am I looking at someone else when they have a distributor. I told them that their pricing was not good, so Dell went back to the distributor, and we got much better pricing"

"It's a bit of a shock when you have to find the money, but the pricing is very competitive, so I'm happy with that."

"It's a one-time licensing fee for the device and we pay a quota per year for the support."

More Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers pricing and cost advice

"You get better management and orchestration, but it still costs you money."

"Buy storage based on the solutions you need, the technologies you need, and what will make your life a lot easier down the road."

"Make sure you are buying for performance, not just capacity."

"As a startup, for the amount of budget we have and the amount we spend, we are getting what we expected."

"It seems very cost effective once it's in place, and it's easy to expand and easy to add capacity without a lot of extra money."

"We pay approximately $1,400 USD in total for between five-thousand and ten-thousand ports."

"The investment has been great. We put our money into it and it has given us something that we have been able to rely on for years."

"The FlexPod licensing can adjust to your purse, i.e. there are different levels available for businesses of all sizes."

More FlexPod XCS pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user244362

Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees

Aug 30, 2015

Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod

Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

21%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

20%

Educational Organization

15%

Performing Arts

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

When shopping for a rack server, would you go with Dell EMC Poweredge or Lenovo Thinksystem?

Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Dell EMC Poweredge or Lenovo Thinksystem rack servers were the better fit for us. We ultimately decided to go with Dell EMC Poweredge....

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?

It has helped us reduce unplanned downtime by 20% to 30%.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerEdge Rack Servers?

Mainly, I would like to improve the speed of storage response. We would like to improve our performance by using disks without rotation. The price is better now, and I think it will be better in th...

See all answers

What do you like most about FlexPod?

The system is designed for easy scaling. Because we define everything clearly. So when we plug the system in, we apply the profile, and it scales easily.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FlexPod?

The pricing is not cheaper, but stability is more important for us now. We focus on business gains, not static numbers. Following XCS rules ensures a stable environment, which is crucial. For me, C...

See all answers

What needs improvement with FlexPod?

FlexPod should focus more on automation. Integrating an automation tool with FlexPod would enable customers to leverage automation capabilities. More automation would be helpful. Currently, we cont...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 23% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Hyper Converged vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 10% of the time

HPE ConvergedSystem vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 8% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers

August 2025

Download Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers product report

Buyer's Guide

FlexPod XCS

August 2025

Download FlexPod XCS product report

Also Known As

PowerEdge R

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Overview

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are designed to optimize performance and efficiency in a data center environment, supporting various applications. Dell stands as the leading vendor in accelerated servers for AI, commanding a 33.8% revenue share. Based on user reviews, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers supporting tasks from basic web hosting to more demanding applications like data analytics and virtualization. They are engineered to offer high performance, reliability, and scalability. With a focus on automation and integrated security, these servers simplify operations and protect against threats, making them a smart choice for businesses of all sizes.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are a robust, secure, and scalable solution that can meet the diverse needs of businesses, backed by comprehensive support. Benefits to look for in reviews include performance, reliability, scalability, and customer support.

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers key features include:

Scalability: These servers can easily scale to meet growing business needs, supporting more workloads and processing power.
Integrated Security: From hardware to firmware to the operating system, Dell PowerEdge servers are designed with security in mind, offering layers of protection.
Energy Efficiency: Advanced thermal design and energy-smart technology help reduce operational costs and environmental impact.
Automation: With Dell EMC OpenManage, the management of servers is streamlined, allowing for automated deployment, monitoring, and updates.

In terms of implementation, Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers are used across various industries, from small businesses to large enterprises. They serve as the foundation for IT infrastructure, powering critical applications in healthcare, finance, education, and more. The adaptability of these servers means they can be tailored to specific industry needs, from handling large datasets in research institutions to supporting high-transaction databases in financial services.

Dell Technologies

FlexPod XCS is the secure platform your applications need from edge to cloud. Easily manage your suite of cloud-native, edge, and enterprise apps. Integrate advanced cloud services without compromising performance, security, reliability, or scale.

NetApp

Sample Customers

NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerEdge Rack Servers vs. FlexPod XCS

July 2025

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