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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 6.2%, down 12.6% 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 PowerFlex6.2%
VxRail11.3%
VMware vSAN9.3%
Other73.2%
HCI
Converged Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
FlexPod XCS12.8%
HPE ConvergedSystem10.8%
Oracle Private Cloud Appliance8.2%
Other68.2%
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 technical support for this solution is pretty good."
"The support team responds quickly."
"The setup was very straightforward."
"The solution was connected to alternate storage, and it provides great scalability and reliability."
"Our primary use case of this solution is for storage nodes and compute nodes and I like that it is all in one box."
"The resiliency and data protection are the most valuable features."
"Dell PowerFlex improves our latency which allowed us to reduce a lot of our Microsoft Enterprise SQL licenses."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the storage space it offers."
"FlexPod has saved data center costs, due to the fact that we reduced our footprint for storage in a big way."
"Go for it."
"NetApp is way, way better than some others that we've had really bad times with."
"This solution runs all of our mission-critical applications, and the cost benefits to using this solution are very good."
"Peer organizations have recently purchased SolidFire and have seen a tremendous increase in their performance, not only just with speed, but with reliability."
"It's amazingly scalable. It just works. It can expand to large MetroClusters and keep expanding."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it combines storage and server – very streamlined, very flexible, and built upon reliability."
"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."
 

Cons

"It could be easier to learn."
"The support of containers needs to be improved. At present, it is limited to VMware. There needs to be direct communication with the hardware rather than through a hypervisor."
"Including instrumentation would be a helpful improvement."
"The biggest issue with the solution is that it doesn't support Hyper V. It's a big problem."
"I am not really impressed by the technical support of this solution."
"In terms of improvements, I think it would help to have easier access to the cost of installing VxRack infrastructure."
"They should provide continuous support for data migration."
"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."
"We are currently struggling with what to do for a solution moving forward."
"There were several different management consoles that we had to deal with: UCS, VMware, and separate ESXi installations."
"It would be helpful to have more flexibility for adding other components."
"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."
"I would like to see synchronous replication and easier automation in the next release."
"FlexPods can include the new networking and new virtualization of storage and data center interconnectivity with the networking side of it. They can evolve and grow by connecting pods together."
"FlexPod can improve with a single control management interface to manage all aspects and components of the solution."
"I think they are working on it, but I would like to be able to log into a portal and see the end-to-end solution and understand where it stands, from a supportability perspective."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of this solution is fair."
"The solution's price is medium."
"The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."
"The price could be improved."
"The product is expensive."
"From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users."
"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."
"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."
"Pricing and licensing is very affordable from a FlexPod perspective."
"Overall, the solution works pretty well. The biggest complaint I have from customers is the cost."
"We would like everything in one piece of hardware. This way we can just sell the product like a silo by putting everything in a stack together."
"We purchased FlexPod though Datalink."
"We have saved money using FlexPod. We have saved time and money for new service deployments."
"The product's pricing is high and I would rate it a nine out of ten."
"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."
"I have saved time on new service deployments. I've done deployments in under a week, and if it's a cloud-based deployment, it's even faster."
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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...
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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
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891,869 professionals have used our research since 2012.