Dell PowerFlex vs Red Hat Ceph Storage comparison

The compared Dell Technologies and Red Hat solutions aren't in the same category. Dell Technologies is ranked #3 in HCI , with an average rating of 8.8, and holds a 10.0% mindshare in the category. Red Hat is ranked #2 in SDS , with an average rating of 8.8, and holds a 18.9% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 82% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerFlex

Read 29 Dell PowerFlex reviews

9,289 Views
8,453 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Red Hat Ceph Storage

Read 27 Red Hat Ceph Storage reviews

14,783 Views
3,104 Comparison Views

82% willing to recommend

Dell PowerFlex

Red Hat Ceph Storage

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell PowerFlex and Red Hat Ceph Storage 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: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

September 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

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

HCI (3rd)

Red Hat Ceph Storage

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (2nd), File and Object Storage (1st)

Mindshare comparison

Dell PowerFlex and Red Hat Ceph Storage aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Dell PowerFlex is designed for HCI and holds a mindshare of 10.0%, down 11.4% compared to last year.
Red Hat Ceph Storage, on the other hand, focuses on Software Defined Storage (SDS), holds 18.9% mindshare, down 21.9% since last year.

HCI Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell PowerFlex	10.0%
VxRail	16.1%
VMware vSAN	14.0%
Other	59.9%

HCI

Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Red Hat Ceph Storage	18.9%
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct	7.3%
DataCore SANsymphony	7.1%
Other	66.7%

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

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…

Read full review

Rifat Rahman

Infrastructure Architect & CEO at Tirzok Private Limited

Offers reliable performance and availability for large deployments

I would like to see improvements in Red Hat Ceph Storage not because I necessarily think it needs improvement, but because I generally prefer to do things manually rather than following the containerization part. Current deployments are based on containers, but I deploy manually with my scripts and controls. If there are no Kubernetes-like requirements, I often prefer to deploy a whole manual process. I don't ask for improvements in the deployment model because Red Hat has its own philosophy about making things, but it's my personal choice that I prefer things manually. Some features are available only in the containerization part, so if those are also available in manual deployment, that will help.

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

"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 solution was connected to alternate storage. It provides great scalability and reliability."

"My overall product rating would be nine out of ten."

"The setup was very straightforward."

"We've had no issues with scaling the solution."

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

"The most valuable feature is high availability."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is integration."

More Dell PowerFlex pros

"Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage."

"I can compare Red Hat Ceph Storage with products from other vendors; I explored quite a few, but I still find that Red Hat Ceph Storage is making the most disruption."

"I would definitely recommend Red Hat Ceph Storage. It is a complete solution for cloud-native storage needs."

"I really like that Red Hat Ceph Storage can be used as a total solution without any storage area network components."

"The setup is very easy, deserving a ten out of ten."

"The solution is pretty stable."

"radosgw and librados provide a simple integration with clone, snapshots, and other functions that aid in data integrity."

"What I found most valuable from Red Hat Ceph Storage is integration because if you are talking about a solution that consists purely of Red Hat products, this is where integration benefits come in. In particular, Red Hat Ceph Storage becomes a single solution for managing the entire environment in terms of the container or the infrastructure, or the worker nodes because it all comes from a single plug."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pros

Cons

"We are still hoping for better ways to incorporate AI. We have to extend third-party access to PowerFlex by calling the API. It would be easier if the product had built-in AI integration. If PowerFlex can contribute more to AI, it would be more useful."

"The storage capability must be improved."

"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 initial deployment was complicated and required a lot of data nodes, IPs, internal vLANs, data vLANs, and many other things."

"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."

"The solution is okay overall. It could be easier to learn."

"The installation is complex."

"The solution must be more flexible."

More Dell PowerFlex cons

"Areas of Red Hat Ceph Storage that have room for improvement include more promotion. Many people do not know about the Stratus case, which is one of the most reliable systems available in the world, but they are not aware that a system can keep working even if there is a hardware failure."

"I have encountered issues with stability when replication factor was not 3, which is the default and recommended value. Go below 3 and problems will arise."

"It takes some time to re-balance the storage in case of server failure."

"I would like to see better performance and stability when Ceph is in recovery."

"It took me a long time to get the storage drivers for the communication with Kubernetes up and running. The documentation could improve it is lacking information. I'm not sure if this is a Ceph problem or if Ceph should address this, but it was something I ran into. Additionally, there is a performance issue I am having that I am looking into, but overall I am satisfied with the performance."

"It would be nice to have a notification feature whenever an important action is completed."

"While the documentation for Ceph Storage is helpful, it could be improved."

"Rebalancing and recovery are a bit slow."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users."

"The pricing for this solution is good."

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

"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as eight and a half. The tool is expensive."

"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."

"The solution's price is medium."

More Dell PowerFlex pricing and cost advice

"The price of this product isn't high."

"There is no cost for software."

"We never used the paid support."

"I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten."

"The price of Red Hat Ceph Storage is reasonable."

"Most of time, you can get Ceph with the OpenStack solution in a subscription as a bundle."

"The operational overhead is higher compared to Azure because we own the hardware."

"If you can afford a product like Red Hat Ceph Storage then go for it. If you cannot, then you need to test Ceph and get your hands dirty."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	15

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	15

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?

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.

See all answers

How does Red Hat Ceph Storage compare with MiniO?

Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This solution allows for multiple copies of replicated and coded pools to be kept, ea...

See all answers

What do you like most about Red Hat Ceph Storage?

The high availability of the solution is important to us.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Red Hat Ceph Storage?

Areas of Red Hat Ceph Storage that have room for improvement include more promotion. Many people do not know about the Stratus case, which is one of the most reliable systems available in the world...

See all answers

Comparisons

VxRail vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 40% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 14% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 10% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 6% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 5% of the time

More Dell PowerFlex Competitors

MinIO vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 40% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 5% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 4% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 3% of the time

More Red Hat Ceph Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerFlex

September 2025

Download Dell PowerFlex product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ceph Storage

August 2025

Download Red Hat Ceph Storage product report

Also Known As

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex

Ceph

Overview

Dell PowerFlex is a software-defined storage infrastructure delivering modern architecture and versatile deployment for on-premises or cloud. It achieves high performance, scalable storage, and workload consolidation through advanced automation.

PowerFlex's VMware compatibility ensures seamless integration, offering flexibility in compute and storage scaling. With its hyper-converged infrastructure, it caters to AI, cloud, and database environments, providing robust automation, resilience, and security. Flexible deployment options are complemented by a single-window management system, prioritizing cost optimization. However, enhancements are needed in monitoring tools, user interface, and AI functionality. Migration from Hyper-V and licensing flexibility also require attention, while improved documentation could simplify usage. Integration with services and streamlined upgrade processes are essential.

What are the key features of Dell PowerFlex?

VMware Compatibility: Ensures smooth integration and flexibility in deployment.
Scalability: Independently scales compute and storage resources as needed.
High Availability: Maintains continuous availability across deployed systems.
Low Latency Performance: Optimizes storage and compute operations for minimal delays.
Hyper-Converged Infrastructure: Combines compute, storage, and networking for streamlined operations.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Ease of Management: Simplifies administration with a unified management interface.
Cost Optimization: Provides opportunities for reduced operational costs.
Flexibility: Offers diverse deployment options tailored to specific needs.
Automation Tools: Enhances efficiency through robust automation capabilities.
Robust Storage Capacity: Supports growing data requirements with substantial storage options.

PowerFlex is essential in industries requiring support for mission-critical workloads and large-scale applications. It is instrumental for deploying storage, compute nodes, hyper-converged infrastructure, and private clouds. The platform integrates compute, storage, and networking, optimizing performance for modern applications like AI video analytics and disaster recovery.

Dell Technologies

Red Hat Ceph Storage is an enterprise open source platform that provides unified software-defined storage on standard, economical servers and disks. With block, object, and file storage combined into one platform, Red Hat Ceph Storage efficiently and automatically manages all your data.

Red Hat

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

Dell, DreamHost

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: September 2025.

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