Dell PowerFlex vs FlexPod XCS comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

StarWind Virtual SAN
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.6
Number of Reviews
185
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st), HCI (4th)
Dell PowerFlex
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
HCI (7th)
FlexPod XCS
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
295
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the HCI category, the mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.1%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerFlex is 14.1%, up from 7.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FlexPod XCS is 0.6%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
Unique Categories:
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
9.2%
No other categories found
Converged Infrastructure
13.5%
 

Featured Reviews

FE
Mar 8, 2024
Good monitoring and configuring capabilities but disaster recovery documentation is sparse
My impression has been mostly positive. However, there have been some pitfalls. For example, it runs until it does not - and disaster recovery documentation is sparse and mostly unclear. This consequently follows a long learning curve and can take some time until this can be done efficiently. The feature log-structured file system has been removed. While I have not used it, I know some colleagues who have reported some performance benefits under certain circumstances. Additionally, vSAN does not offer extended SAN features like inline deduplication, compression, or S3-compatible access, which is part of most modern SAN feature sets, also in hyper-converged scenarios.
MV
May 20, 2024
Runs without issues and provides a return on investment
Dell PowerFlex is our primary private cloud.  The combination of reliability and scalability is perfect for us. When we need extra storage we have six nodes so we simply purchase new licenses and hard drives. Although it is possible to use the nodes just for storage, we use them for CPU and RAM as…
John Kevin - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 4, 2024
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 product has improved the ability to mimic physical SAN environments to demo scenarios and troubleshoot problems."
"Besides being 80% cheaper than the other alternatives, the simplicity makes reconfiguration and support much easier."
"It has improved our organization in terms of its uptime as our main cluster has never been offline due to a SAN failure."
"This solution made it possible to deploy a new infrastructure in the shortest amount of time, at a low cost without purchasing expensive hardware storage, and use unused servers."
"The best feature is its ease of installation and integration within a current infrastructure."
"The product gave us a cost-effective way to deploy a highly available server environment."
"StarWind vSAN has allowed us to grow rapidly while still providing flexibility and reliability."
"The StarWind Virtual SAN management console is intuitive and easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is integration."
"It has reduced downtime. Before, on our previous solution, we used to have downtime on some of the servers because of the sort of convention. But currently I've not experienced any downtime on any of the servers, and there is no more resource congestion."
"It is easy to use for management and operations teams because the tools are in one place."
"We've had no issues with scaling the solution."
"Dell PowerFlex is a one-stop-shop solution. Storage, compute, network, application monitoring, and support cases are all combined into one solution. It's very easy to administer compared to when you have a reference architecture where you need to design and build everything yourself. You would also then have to work with multiple vendors."
"The tool's most valuable features are its price and flexibility. It has high performance."
"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."
"FlexPods allow us to go through and roll out compute, having a converged infrastructure with the same level of simplicity that you would expect of a hyper-converged."
"For our DR, we rely heavily on SnapMirror technologies to accomplish our disaster recovery in VMware SRM."
"FlexPod's unified support for the entire stack is very important. Before, the customers would log a ticket by Cisco and a ticket by NetApp. It's better when vendors can parter and look for a solution together."
"We’ve seen an improvement in application performance."
"It reduced the total cost of ownership."
"It's a common platform, which provides for ease of use between all of the blade servers. It uses all the same tech, moving service profiles seamlessly across from one blade to the next. There is also combined support."
"This sounds dumb, but it just works. I don't want to have to deal with support, and I don't need to because, again, it has just worked."
"The most valuable features are the Fabric Interconnect Manager and the UCS Manager."
 

Cons

"StarWind really needs to market its product more."
"I would like to see improvements in the documentation area."
"We don't really have any issues with this product."
"If it's possible to make a driver/solution that does not make use of the iSCSI targets of Windows, that would be great. I don't know if that's possible, however, it could make the configuration a little easier."
"In the next release, they could make some graphs of the real-time loading, speed of storage, and interfaces. Of course, these can be viewed in other places. But, in the event of a malfunction or troubleshooting, this would be convenient."
"Initially, when we first started, the sync was horrible."
"To enable the proactive support capability that is part of our support agreement, I would ask that the terms and conditions be revised and made acceptable to corporate security."
"I would like them to invest time in reducing the complexity of the startup and shutdown procedure."
"The tool needs to improve its storage. It should also make migration to the cloud easier."
"The initial deployment was complicated and required a lot of data nodes, IPs, internal vLANs, data vLANs, and many other things."
"Exporting data from the dashboard is not very user-friendly. It's just designed in a way that it's going to cover let's say 90%, 80%, of the end-users needs. If you need more sophisticated reporting it's not easy to have."
"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."
"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."
"There should be more functionality available for routing."
"We've had some issues around the licensing."
"We're also running Hyper-V virtual machines. But we recently discovered that migration of the Hyper-V virtual machines is a bit challenging. Maybe if Dell EMC can come out with a tool that will make it very easy for us to migrate the Microsoft Hyper-V machine, that may be an improvement."
"Compatibility issues with replication. The Oracle table formats were not working and storage replications did not work as well, until we had to introduce other components to make it work."
"Since 2018 or 2019, maybe due to COVID and the chipsets, my DIMMs are dying left and right."
"We use technical support from time to time. Most of the time if we really need assistance we end up having to get above the tier one support. We're able to do a lot of the tier one troubleshooting on our own."
"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."
"There were several different management consoles that we had to deal with: UCS, VMware, and separate ESXi installations. Maybe one interface council where we could manage everything from might be a little easier."
"Hyper-V is not as well supported by NetApp and Cisco as VMware is, which is something that should be improved."
"The initial learning curve is pretty steep."
"I would like them to scale more to rack unit servers instead of blade servers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would suggest that you download the free version, deploy in your lab, and play with it."
"Their pricing seems pretty good, and their licensing structure is pretty straightforward."
"The cost, including OPEX, is lower compared to other solutions."
"We are happy with the price."
"This is the best priced solution for an SMB."
"When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."
"This solution has competitive prices and the implementation is very easy."
"The licensing is a bit weird. If you license the standard version of StarWind, it allows you four terabytes. Then, they have a pro version, but with the pro version, the only difference is it doubles the terabytes to eight."
"The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."
"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."
"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"The product is expensive."
"The solution's price is medium."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The price could be improved."
"The cost is a little high."
"We purchased the solution through CDW. They are a partner and knowledgeable."
"Coming from a rack and stack server model to FlexPod, it has saved us a lot of time (approximately hundreds to thousands of hours)."
"Make sure that you engage as much with whom you are buying from as a partnership, not just as a purchase."
"Make sure you are buying for performance, not just capacity."
"Cost is the primary factor behind why I would not give this product a perfect rating."
"The product's pricing is high and I would rate it a nine out of ten."
"It has saved us hundreds of man-hours by using this converged infrastructure."
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
21%
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about StarWind Virtual SAN?
It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combin...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
Make the most of your 30-day trial license, and if needed, you should contact the sales department of StarWind to ext...
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
The dashboard is functional, but it could benefit from a more modern and visually appealing design. A facelift would ...
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 bein...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerFlex?
I have good partners who prepared the price for us. I told them what we needed and everything worked out perfectly. W...
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 appl...
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 number...
What needs improvement with FlexPod?
FlexPod should focus more on automation. Integrating an automation tool with FlexPod would enable customers to levera...
 

Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS
VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
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, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: July 2024.
793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.