Dell PowerFlex vs FlexPod XCS comparison

The compared Dell Technologies and NetApp solutions aren't in the same category. Dell Technologies is ranked #4 in HCI , with an average rating of 8.7, and holds a 11.2% mindshare in the category. NetApp is ranked #5 in CI , with an average rating of 8.4, and holds a 9.2% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerFlex

Read 28 Dell PowerFlex reviews

9,122 Views
6,041 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

FlexPod XCS

Read 295 FlexPod XCS reviews

583 Views
201 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Dell PowerFlex

FlexPod XCS

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell PowerFlex and FlexPod XCS based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI.

To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

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 PowerFlex

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

HCI (4th)

FlexPod XCS

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

295

Ranking in other categories

Converged Infrastructure (5th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. Dell PowerFlex is designed for HCI and holds a mindshare of 11.2%, up 10.2% compared to last year.
FlexPod XCS, on the other hand, focuses on Converged Infrastructure, holds 9.2% mindshare, down 9.7% since last year.

HCI

Converged Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

Serdar De

IT Manager at ÜÇGE Shopfitting & Design

Initial setup has been straightforward and it has reasonable pricing

We are new to this, so we are still learning about the valuable features The solution is okay overall. It could be easier to learn. We haven't had any issues. They could have more AI functionality in the future. I have been using the solution for six months. I have not encountered any problems…

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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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Dell PowerFlex is a complete hyperconverge that makes automation easy to manage and extremely stable."

"The solution is scalable."

"The resiliency and data protection are the most valuable features."

"We're doing a lot of VMware for IT so this solution is really valuable from a VMH point of view. We're trying to assist our customers mainly with management, because that's what they want. The most important aspects are ease of management, as well as ease of configuration, allowing them to attach additional nodes and resources for the applications."

"The integration with AWS is a valuable feature."

"The tool's most valuable features are its price and flexibility. It has high performance."

"Perfectly suits customers dealing with the combination of future storage needs and, at the same time, keeping up their computing power."

"It was easy to deploy."

More Dell PowerFlex pros

"It reduced the total cost of ownership."

"I live by the Validated Designs. I do exactly what those designs say and I haven't had a problem as a result. For example, they used to do the FCoE. They figured out there was a problem and they went over to the NFS. I moved over and I agreed with them. It worked better."

"Software flexibility. Everything is fully configurable. The reliability results from the design. Elements are well projected (disks, blade, network, etc.). No single point of failure is identifiable."

"When our clients choose to call NetApp or Cisco directly, the cooperative support model means they can get passed back and forth between the two organizations freely. It works really well."

"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 biggest lesson that I have learned from this solution is the ease of actually setting it up and learning it."

"You can just take out blades and replace them, and you're back up and running in no time."

"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."

More FlexPod XCS pros

Cons

"Licensing restrictions can be frustrating."

"There should be more functionality available for routing."

"The storage capability must be improved."

"Needs some more monitoring tools."

"The level of support needs improvement as the front-line support staff lack knowledge when we raise cases."

"The solution must be more flexible."

"The biggest issue with the solution is that it doesn't support Hyper V. It's a big problem."

"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface."

More Dell PowerFlex cons

"For the next release, because I know that we are using Pure Storage, what I want to see is the GUI interfaces on this UCS monitor."

"The procedure for contacting technical support could be simplified."

"We have had some problems with SnapSuite and the replication functionality."

"There could be room for improvement in terms of offering more flexibility in CBD options."

"FlexPod XCS' pricing could be cheaper. You need to find the right person for support."

"I would like more orchestration and networking in-between the VMs, the virtualization layer for networking. I would like to see better tools for this."

"The FlexPod service and support could be improved."

"The GPU based VDA solutions could use improvement."

More FlexPod XCS cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."

"The solution's pricing could be much cheaper and affordable."

"The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."

"The price could be improved."

"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."

"The product is expensive."

More Dell PowerFlex pricing and cost advice

"We have absolutely seen ROI. We have saved between two to four million dollars on travel alone over the past 24 months."

"Everything is purchased, so we do not do any leasing with this product."

"Storage is very expensive. To buy MIC cards and additional storage either on-prem or in the cloud, the IT department does not have money for it, so you need a more niche product or a more flexible way to store your data. That is the benefit that you get from this product."

"It's expensive, but when you pay for enterprise support and enterprise products, you have to pay the big bucks."

"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 have saved 50 percent on new service deployments."

"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."

"Our licensing costs are about $50,000 per year."

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Manufacturing Company

20%

Educational Organization

13%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerFlex?

The support is highly responsive.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerFlex?

The cost of this tool is reasonable.

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

VxRail vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 41% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 14% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 9% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 8% of the time

Dell VxBlock System vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 1% of the time

More Dell PowerFlex Competitors

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 19% of the time

Dell PowerEdge VRTX vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 16% of the time

HPE Hyper Converged vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 16% of the time

VMware vSAN vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 11% of the time

More FlexPod XCS Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerFlex

July 2025

Download Dell PowerFlex product report

Buyer's Guide

FlexPod XCS

July 2025

Download FlexPod XCS product report

Also Known As

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex

No data available

Overview

VxRack System consists of hyper-converged rack-scale engineered systems, with integrated networking, to achieve the scalability and management requirements of traditional and cloud native workloads. The VxRack series is purposely designed to enable customers to quickly deploy Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and/or Private Cloud architectures. VxRack Systems tightly integrate hardware with software and management layers.

The result is a fully tested, pre-configured, hyper-converged system with simplified operations at data center and Service Provider scale. VxRack Systems support the deployment of a variety of application workloads, allowing IT to rapidly deliver new services while improving overall agility and efficiency.

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

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 2025.

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