Dell SC Series vs Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform comparison

Dell SC Series vs. Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform

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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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature

One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.

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Steven McClendon

Data Center Server & Storage Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Superior platform with excellent snapshots and cost-saving auto-tiering

I'm a big fan of the SC Series platform. Its feature set is superior to some of the other platforms. The snapshots on SC are excellent, allowing for multiple snapshot schedules for any one system. The auto-tiering functionality intelligently moves new data to the highest performance tier and then progresses it down to less expensive tiers over time, providing cost savings for customers.

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Ozair Amin

Sales Manager - Infrastructure at Synergy Computers

A robust and dependable product that ensures a 100 percent data availability guarantee

We don't encounter any challenges in selling these Hitachi VSPs to our customers. These products boast an exceptionally robust architecture, making them highly reliable. This reliability is the key reason behind our lack of challenges. However, when we delve into the realm of competition, particularly in the unified storage sector, we do face certain challenges. This is primarily due to the usage of gateways in their storage solutions by some competitors. Unlike other competitors such as NetApp and Huawei, who do not employ gateways, we contend with challenges related to these gateways within the context of unified products. Many customers have been utilizing Hitachi Vantara for several years, relying on its storage capabilities. They appreciate its reliable roadmaps, which facilitate long-term planning. This makes it an effortless choice for customers to opt for Hitachi Vantara, as the product seamlessly accommodates updates and future changes. The key focal point of the Hitachi Vantara roadmap for our clients is centered around future upgrades. Typically, customers undergo tech refresh cycles approximately every five years. Consequently, when they embark on a tech refresh initiative, they tend to prioritize options that facilitate a smooth transition of data to alternative storage solutions. In this context, Hitachi Vantara leverages its external storage virtualization platform to ensure a seamless data migration process. This approach proves to be highly advantageous for our customers, and it stands as a primary reason for their choice to engage with Hitachi Vantara's offerings. Our customers are highly satisfied with their choice to acquire Hitachi products and services. I have not observed any of our customers shifting away from the Hitachi brand. I would recommend Hitachi Vantara 100 percent of the time to others. There are tools that assist us in accessing the IOPS per second and latencies of Hitachi Vantara systems. One such tool is the CPK tool, accessible through the Hitachi Vantara portal. Whenever we configure a product and a customer requests information about the IOPS and latencies, we can provide them with a report from the portal. This report includes details about reads, writes, IOPS, and sequential operations, offering a comprehensive overview of the IOPS performance that Hitachi Vantara offers. The combination of low latency and high performance has consistently assisted customers in improving their production and enhancing their working experience. It also aids them in easily managing the product, giving them time to expand their knowledge and plan for the future, rather than dealing with storage-related issues. The cost comparison of IOPS between our solutions and those of competitors is favorable at present, but this wasn't always the case. In the Pakistani market, Huawei used to be highly competitive. However, our current partnership with Hitachi has allowed us to pose a strong challenge to Huawei. Additionally, when considering products from NetApp, EMC, and even IBM, Hitachi remains highly competitive. Hitachi offers flexible media options to support the consolidation of multiple uses within the same platform which is important to our customers. Most of our customers utilize Unified Storage, employing a two-tier storage approach that includes both NVMe and SSDs. However, current trends indicate a shift in customer preferences towards NVMe over SAAS or SSDs due to the heightened reliability and increased cost-effectiveness of NVMe technology. This transition is driving many customers to adopt a comprehensive NVMe solution. Nonetheless, a substantial number of large customers still adhere to the two-tier storage model. For their primary tier, they employ NVMe drives, while for the secondary tier, they opt for NFS drives or a SAAS-based large-scale service. The integration of various use cases into a unified platform to facilitate the transformation of data into business insights is highly valuable. We receive input from our customers regarding their workloads. Based on the nature of these workloads and their intended use for storage – whether for ERP solutions, archives, or backup purposes – we recommend the appropriate storage type. These steps outline our process for evaluating the intended storage workload. Following this workload assessment, we suggest either NAS Unified Storage or Document Storage solutions. In the portal, there is a tool that enables us to calculate Hitachi's guaranteed effective capacity. It is quite straightforward for customers to comprehend and identify the effective capacity ratio. This is because many customers in Pakistan are already familiar with and using effective capacity ratios. Explaining the concept of effective capacity to customers is not a challenging task. Customers typically appreciate the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform due to its efficiency, easy product manageability, and product reliability, all of which offer significant benefits to the customers. This is crucial, especially in sectors like banking, where any breach or downtime could lead to substantial losses for customers. The uninterrupted operation of storage is paramount. This substantial benefit not only ensures customer satisfaction but also underscores the value derived from data utilization. Hitachi's adaptive data reduction technology assists in decreasing our client's storage footprint by around 50 percent. The majority of our customers were using storage from various vendors. We consolidated this storage into a single system using Hitachi Vantara.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."

"The solution is very straightforward to set up."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."

"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"The solution is scalable."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"Its feature set is superior to some of the other platforms."

"Customers are most impressed with SC's provisioning because you don't need to buy a large amount of storage upfront. It's pay-as-you-grow. It also has solid compression and duplication features."

"It's very scalable, especially with federation. If you outgrow the number of spindles that a unit can support, depending on the model, you can go into federation."

"The most valuable feature is the speed for the end-user."

"Performance-wise it's high speed. It's also more stable and scalable."

"Easy management of volumes: You can create volumes and easily assign them to VMware clusters, increasing their size."

"We see very low latency with very high IOPS for mixed workloads."

"Dell SC Series' most valuable features are performance and network facilities. We have no issues with its integration. The tool helps to visualize servers."

More Dell SC Series pros

"The most valuable features are external storage virtualization and the 100 percent data guaranteed availability."

"I am happy about the storage system and availability."

"One of the features, for us, that is important is the monitoring platform integrated into the solution. It has all the elements that we need to see, at all times, to be sure the platform is working right."

"There are no significant challenges in terms of scalability, and it can accommodate larger storage capacities compared to other storage solutions."

"The feature I like best is the stability of the hardware."

"It is robust. It doesn't need too much troubleshooting. It is a good device."

"Its resilience is the most valuable."

"The most valuable feature of Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G Series is the platform and overall usage has been good. We have not had very many issues."

More Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform pros

Cons

"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."

"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."

"One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them."

"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."

"I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert."

"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."

"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The price could be improved."

"The tool's pricing is high and not suitable for medium companies."

"Snapshots in VMware. You can’t do snapshots since the storage itself does that. Therefore, some apps (Veeam, for example) don’t work well with this kind of tiering storage."

"This solution could be improved if overall performance was improved and operated with a higher speed and supported a higher volume of RAM."

"It's not very efficient anymore. There are better products out there."

"The SC Series doesn't support NVMe storage."

"In terms of additional features, I would like to see some kind of I/O meter, to indicate what we are using in terms of performance. I would like to see automation with that, where it would give me the trends. I want to know those things easily, to help me know where issues are going to occur."

"While there's always room for improvement in everything, I can't really think of a specific feature of the solution that requires immediate attention."

More Dell SC Series cons

"The snapshot and clone operation functions can be made easier."

"Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform's GUI or interface for storage and management is a little bit difficult compared to Primera and HPE storage products."

"The installation procedure it a bit difficult, because it is a high-end solution. With this type of product, the original company is interested in doing the setup for customers in the area, but because of sanctions we were not able to get support in our area. We faced many issued trying to learn to run this product."

"The deployment could be a bit easier, because it's a bit tricky"

"We've only faced some minor issues. For example, the documentation of some features isn't as detailed as we would like."

"The complex setup, ease of use, and snapshot operations of this product need to be improved."

"The complex setup phase is an area where improvements are needed."

"The initial setup was difficult, as we don't have access to assistance. We had some issues around configuration. We needed to know things like what kind of rate is the best, or what kind of replication is ideal. We had to seek out answers online to get the information we needed."

More Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

"The product is expensive."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is reasonable, but it is expensive."

"There are costs involving the solution, vendor fees and product safety which are additional."

"The pricing of Dell EMC Compellent is competitive."

"It has a good price point and offers some value-added enterprise features."

"The SC Series was priced fairly. I wouldn't call it either expensive or cheap because we had a very tight budget, so if they were able to fit in that type of budget, they met our expectations."

"Support typically depends on the array. It can range anywhere from $7,000 to a couple of hundred thousand dollars."

"Always keep in mind, this is not just a enclosure with disks is a complete SAN as a service. There is software, license, and storage in one single solution."

"The scalability seems a bit more expensive than even buying a brand new one so far. That has been kind of a drawback."

More Dell SC Series pricing and cost advice

"The solution is expensive."

"I would like to see better pricing and more discounts."

"It is an expensive product. I rate its pricing a three out of ten."

"I find Hitachi to be cheaper by five to ten percent when compared to Dell and HP's costs, but the features in Dell are better than Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform."

"Hitachi VSP's pricing is good compared to other brands."

"The price is good enough considering the performance, and we are satisfied."

"The product is reasonably priced."

"I would rate the solution's pricing at around eight or nine on a scale of one to ten. While the solution may be priced higher than some competitors, we prioritize the quality and durability of the storage."

More Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

21%

University

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

18%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...

What do you like most about Dell SC Series?

I find this version to be more budget-friendly compared to products from other vendors. This aspect greatly benefits ...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell SC Series?

Cost considerations are crucial when choosing between solutions like Dell and NetApp. Sometimes Dell offers better pe...

What needs improvement with Dell SC Series?

In the future, I want any box that comes on-premises to have the provision to integrate with cloud storage. If I want...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform?

For NVMe storage, the pricing is reasonable compared to competitors in India. However, for entry-level SAN storage or...

What do you like most about Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform E990?

The product's reliability has been crucial for our company's operations.

What needs improvement with Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform E990?

The interface management and monitoring need improvement. Although I receive emails from Hitachi Virtual Storage Plat...

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Comparisons

Compared 30% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell SC Series

Compared 61% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell SC Series

Compared 10% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell SC Series

Compared 9% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell SC Series

Compared 9% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell SC Series

Compared 6% of the time

More Dell SC Series Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform

Compared 15% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform

Compared 12% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform

Compared 11% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform

Compared 7% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform

Compared 6% of the time

More Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Dell SC Series

Download Dell SC Series product report

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform

Download Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

SC Series Storage, Compellent

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series, 5000 Series, E Series, N Series, G Series

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

Pure Storage

Dell EMC SC Series arrays provide a unified platform for the ultimate in performance, adaptability and machine-driven efficiency. SC Series software delivers modern features that help you meet aggressive workload demands using the fewest drives necessary. With an open, future-ready design, SC Series storage integrates seamlessly with applications and infrastructure, enabling you to scale on a single platform and add capabilities without forklift upgrades.

Dell Technologies

RETHINK YOUR DEFINITION OF SPEED AND PERFORMANCE

With adaptive, guaranteed data reduction and a 100% data-availability guarantee, Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F series helps you tackle complicated business challenges. Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) VSP F series delivers up to 4.8M IOPS with sub-millisecond response times.
Featuring legendary Hitachi reliability, VSP F series arrays are backed by the industries only 100% availability guarantee. For these reasons, 80% of the Fortune 500 choose Hitachi all-flash arrays to accelerate the performance of mission-critical applications like Oracle, SAP, Virtualization, Microsoft apps etc. With over 350 patents in flash technology, Hitachi’s innovative mix of flash hardware and software accelerates ROI with enterprise-class reliability and performance.

Hitachi Vantara

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric

Turkcell, Owens Corning, Region Nord, Net Credit Financial Group (NFC Group), Russian Railways

Dell SC Series vs. Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform