No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Dell PowerFlex vs FlexPod XCS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 PowerFlex
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
HCI (5th)
FlexPod XCS
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
295
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. Dell PowerFlex is designed for HCI and holds a mindshare of 6.0%, down 12.1% compared to last year.
FlexPod XCS, on the other hand, focuses on Converged Infrastructure, holds 12.8% mindshare, up 9.3% since last year.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerFlex6.0%
VxRail10.6%
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.2%
Other74.2%
HCI
Converged Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
FlexPod XCS12.8%
HPE ConvergedSystem10.9%
Oracle Private Cloud Appliance8.3%
Other68.0%
Converged Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

MS
System & Network Specialist at Alfaisal University
Has supported seamless integration and offers fast implementation
This needs to be checked for the most valuable features in Dell PowerFlex for data management. It is more stable, more powerful, and has more integration features. The scalability is very good and is one of the key features of Dell PowerFlex. Its flexibility and scalability are the main reasons we can use Dell PowerFlex.
John Kevin - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The API catalog helps us use Ansible automation."
"The setup was very straightforward."
"We are planning to upgrade this system in three years, but in the meantime, we are happy with VxFlex."
"Saves us a lot of space in the data center."
"The most valuable feature is the overall integration and just seeing the three different layers which make up the machine software. Altogether, it's something that I would say is much better than any other solution that I have experienced before."
"The resiliency and data protection are the most valuable features."
"It is more stable, more powerful, and has more integration features."
"Dell PowerFlex is a highly scalable solution."
"The product is very stable and it does what it needs to do."
"Very scalable, and we’ve been very pleased."
"All of our main applications run on this solution, and it has done a stellar job."
"We save days of work when doing new service deployments. With LUN clones we have a template provisioned for the image of our hypervisor on our NetApps, and we can deploy a brand new hypervisor in under an hour. Everything is scripted. We just clone a template LUN and boot from SAN, so there are no single points of failure."
"It simplifies the whole stack, and allows us to worry about other IT problems and not have to struggle with stack issues, basically."
"It just gave us everything in one box."
"It has been a great product, primarily because of a lot of its deduplication features, and the out-of-the-box thinking on block level storage from NetApp, in particular."
"If you have a passion for trying to create a better datacenter or if you have a passion for learning new things, FlexPod is the way to go."
 

Cons

"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface."
"It would be great to get earlier access to beta builds because we have to develop providers on our own. The APIs and enablers for custom automation could also be improved."
"I think there might be some room for improvement when it comes to pricing because although I know how to convert customers, at the end of the day, it's quite expensive."
"We're also running Hyper-V virtual machines. But we recently discovered that migration of the Hyper-V virtual machines is a bit challenging."
"The installation is complex."
"Licensing restrictions can be frustrating."
"There should be more functionality available for routing."
"The installation is complex."
"On the NetApp side, there are definitely things to improve in terms of software updates."
"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."
"I think that allowing faster certification times on newer codes on both Cisco and NetApp sides could be good as this is a pain point."
"One of the things that I've wanted would be availability of a health status, similar to Active IQ from my converged platform, on an app."
"Surprise me with something I haven't thought of. Maybe it's out-of-the-box and can configure itself."
"The majority of the time, if we need more storage, then we need to work with customizing the NetApp deployment. Right now, we just do a generic deployment, then wherever we have a need for storage, we have to move some application out of the next FlexPod deployment. One thing is to customize based on the requirements, but the requirements change so frequently, they are absolutely obsolete in six months."
"Not a ten because it could always be cheaper, it could always be faster."
"There have been issues upgrading the firmware."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as eight and a half. The tool is expensive."
"The solution's pricing could be much cheaper and affordable."
"The price could be improved."
"The cost of this solution is fair."
"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."
"The solution's price is medium."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"We have saved money using FlexPod. We have saved time and money for new service deployments."
"As a startup, for the amount of budget we have and the amount we spend, we are getting what we expected."
"We have seen an 80 percent improvement in application performance."
"It created lower total cost of ownership. Previously, we had disparate storage and servers, and there were bits of kits everywhere. Now, we have two data centers with almost identical setups in both."
"Buy storage based on the solutions you need, the technologies you need, and what will make your life a lot easier down the road."
"FlexPod has saved data center costs, due to the fact that we reduced our footprint for storage in a big way. We went from three complete racks down to a 2U storage array for more than 300 terabytes of storage."
"Anytime that you are buying any storage make sure you understand storage. Do not just buy storage based on what somebody sells you in terms of IO or throughput."
"We purchased from CDW•G. They are great partners on the government side."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which HCI solutions are best for your needs.
892,487 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Marketing Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise66
Large Enterprise182
 

Questions from the Community

What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?
VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if the user is working with a l...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerFlex?
Dell PowerFlex is a premium software-defined infrastructure solution and while the initial investment may seem higher than traditional SAN or mid-tier HCI solutions, the long-term TCO is competitive.
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerFlex?
Area of Improvement: While PowerFlex Manager is powerful, the UI could be more intuitive, especially for first-time users or non-technical admins. Streamlined navigation, contextual help and guided...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Canopy, 8x8Inc., Atos, Canadian Pacific, City of Denton, CenturyLink, BNP Paribas, Asyaport, EDF, CSC, Fox Sports, Insight, Hunter, KPIT, Paetec, Rosetta Stone, Sonda, Xerox
University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Broadcom, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: April 2026.
892,487 professionals have used our research since 2012.