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Dell PowerFlex vs Red Hat Ceph Storage 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
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
HCI (5th)
Red Hat Ceph Storage
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (2nd), File and Object Storage (2nd)
 

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 12.1%, up 9.1% compared to last year.
Red Hat Ceph Storage, on the other hand, focuses on Software Defined Storage (SDS), holds 21.1% mindshare, down 22.2% since last year.
HCI
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

Serdar De - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
ANDRE VINICIUS HAMERSKI - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers cost-effective scalability through open-source storage integration
Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage. We appreciate the scalability of the open-source solution, allowing us to address our growing data needs without encountering major issues. Having used it as a pilot system in Brazil, we gained significant knowledge and the ability to manage our infrastructure as code.

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 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."
"Perfectly suits customers dealing with the combination of future storage needs and, at the same time, keeping up their computing power."
"Saves us a lot of space in the data center."
"We've had no issues with scaling the solution."
"Dell PowerFlex is a highly scalable solution."
"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."
"The solution is scalable."
"It has helped to save money and scale the storage without limits."
"Most valuable features include replication and compression."
"Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage."
"The solution is pretty stable."
"The scalability feature is used by all users and is critical for our operations."
"Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage."
"The configuration of the solution and the user interface are both quite good."
"The most valuable feature is the stability of the product."
 

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 solution’s automation and pricing could be improved."
"I am not really impressed by the technical support of this solution."
"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 day, it's quite expensive. Sometimes your feature architecture is still coming out much cheaper than hardware costs for your infrastructure."
"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."
"Needs some more monitoring tools."
"They should provide continuous support for data migration."
"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."
"We have encountered slight integration issues."
"Routing around slow hardware."
"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."
"The product lacks RDMA support for inter-OSD communication."
"I've heard the integration with OpenShift is great, however, the licensing cost is excessively high."
"The licensing cost is excessively high. This is a significant issue from my perspective."
"It needs a better UI for easier installation and management."
"Rebalancing and recovery are a bit slow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The cost of this solution is fair."
"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."
"The product is expensive."
"The solution's price is medium."
"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two 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 price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."
"The price of Red Hat Ceph Storage is reasonable."
"We never used the paid support."
"I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten."
"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."
"The price of this product isn't high."
"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."
"There is no cost for software."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerFlex?
I don't know the cost of PowerFlex. I understand it is reasonable.
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...
What do you like most about Red Hat Ceph Storage?
The high availability of the solution is important to us.
What needs improvement with Red Hat Ceph Storage?
I have not identified any drawbacks, however, the response to public platform inquiries could be faster.
 

Also Known As

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex
Ceph
 

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
Dell, DreamHost
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