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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
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
HCI (5th)
Red Hat Ceph Storage
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (3rd), 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 6.0%, down 12.1% compared to last year.
Red Hat Ceph Storage, on the other hand, focuses on Software Defined Storage (SDS), holds 10.9% mindshare, down 21.1% since last year.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerFlex6.0%
VxRail10.6%
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.2%
Other74.2%
HCI
Software Defined Storage (SDS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Red Hat Ceph Storage10.9%
DataCore SANsymphony6.5%
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)6.0%
Other76.6%
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

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.
Rifat Rahman - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The support is highly responsive."
"The integration with AWS is a valuable feature."
"Saves us a lot of space in the data center."
"Dell PowerFlex is a complete hyperconverge that makes automation easy to manage and extremely stable."
"The solution is scalable."
"Dell PowerFlex improves our latency which allowed us to reduce a lot of our Microsoft Enterprise SQL licenses."
"The catalog of APIs for automation has been most valuable, although they are quite limited."
"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."
"Red Hat Ceph Storage is a reliable solution, it works well."
"We are using Ceph internal inexpensive disk and data redundancy without spending extra money on external storage."
"Ceph’s ability to adapt to varying types of commodity hardware affords us substantial flexibility and future-proofing."
"We have some legacy servers that can be associated with this structure. With Ceph, we can rearrange these machines and reuse our investment."
"We use the solution for cloud storage."
"The product allows our OpenStack environment to move away from the classic network type of backend storage and enables increased resilience using commodity hardware pricing, which is a major benefit."
"It opens doors for completely open-source cloud."
"Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage."
 

Cons

"I am not really impressed by the technical support of this solution."
"I recommend adding some more monitoring tools."
"Compared to similar solutions, Dell PowerFlex is not cost-effective and has room for improvement."
"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 the day, it's quite expensive."
"The storage capability must be improved."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface."
"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."
"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."
"In the deployment step, we need to create some config files to add Ceph functions in OpenStack modules (Nova, Cinder, Glance). It would be useful to have a tool that validates the format of the data in those files, before generating a deploy with failures."
"Please create a failback solution for OpenStack replication and maybe QoS to allow guaranteed IOPS."
"While the documentation for Ceph Storage is helpful, it could be improved."
"We have encountered slight integration issues."
"Rebalancing and recovery are a bit slow."
"It would be nice to have a notification feature whenever an important action is completed."
"I've heard the integration with OpenShift is great, however, the licensing cost is excessively high."
"It needs a better UI for easier installation and management."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of this solution is fair."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as eight and a half. The tool is expensive."
"The solution's price is medium."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."
"From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users."
"The product is expensive."
"The operational overhead is higher compared to Azure because we own the hardware."
"There is no cost for software."
"The price of this product isn't high."
"The other big advantage is that Ceph is free software. Compared to traditional SAN based storage, it is very economical."
"I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten."
"The price of Red Hat Ceph Storage is reasonable."
"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."
"Most of time, you can get Ceph with the OpenStack solution in a subscription​​ as a bundle.​"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise15
 

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...
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 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...
What advice do you have for others considering Red Hat Ceph Storage?
I do not have experience working with solutions such as Red Hat Ceph Storage and StorPool. I have plenty of experience related to storage, such as with Ceph. My customers use Ceph, so I am familiar...
 

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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