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Dell SC Series vs IBM System Storage DS8000 Series comparison

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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 SC Series
Ranking in Frame-Based Disk Arrays
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (23rd)
IBM System Storage DS8000 S...
Ranking in Frame-Based Disk Arrays
3rd
Average Rating
9.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Frame-Based Disk Arrays category, the mindshare of Dell SC Series is 15.4%, up from 8.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM System Storage DS8000 Series is 15.8%, down from 32.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Frame-Based Disk Arrays Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell SC Series15.4%
IBM System Storage DS8000 Series15.8%
Other68.8%
Frame-Based Disk Arrays
 

Featured Reviews

RK
System Administrator at Lovely Professional University
Storage solutions accommodate diverse drives and offers good resiliency
Technical support is good. I can log complaints online through the portal and have engineers in line. I can also take dedicated engineers if needed, although this involves a different support cost. As far as my requirements are concerned, it is working fine. There are two or three types of support. Standard support involves logging a complaint and receiving a call from the OEM on the same day, but hardware replacement takes two to three days. Advanced support offers instant replacement without delays. Hardware support terms include calling or emailing the company or logging the call in the portal to receive remote support, or getting a dedicated engineer or account manager from Dell.
it_user1303074 - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Leader at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
An advanced enterprise storage system with a powerful throughput feature
I use this solution to lighten the workload. Oracle databases and SQL databases have a high workload in IBM The high throughput feature is the most powerful thing in this product. The GUI isn't as user-friendly as other options. The price could also be better. I would like to see a better GUI…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It was very easy to install, maintain, and provides excellent manageability."
"It is one of the most cost effective systems for us, and we have been able to run it longer than most, getting the most benefit and money out of it."
"With the SC Series SAN, the performance that we've gotten out of the boxes alleviated anyone's concerns."
"It had many features, like a snapshot, replication, on-the-file RAID levels, mix-and-match files, those kinds of things."
"With federation, you can have multiple systems across sites. You can treat them as one, and with a live migration, volumes don't go down. You can move them from site to site, doing maintenance, and keep your environment up."
"It's definitely scalable, definitely fits the majority of our use cases, in high-performance environments such as Oracle, SQL, and so forth."
"Everything is sub-5 MS for us. What I've found is that, with all-flash, when an app from my business is slow, I pretty much know it's them and not me. It leads to a performance conversation that has really hit an interesting threshold point where we are better than what they need. So now we get to have that "refactoring your application" conversation a lot quicker because now the performance on the infrastructure side isn't in question anymore."
"The most valuable features are the with back-end dedupe, and the thin nodes. For a 20TB or 60TB, we're using almost a one-to-two ratio."
"The high throughput feature is the most powerful thing in this product."
"The solution is very stable; there aren't any problems there at all as it doesn't have bugs or glitches and doesn't crash or freeze, and we've found it to be very reliable."
"I really recommend the IBM DS8000 solution as it is the most advanced technology available for storage solutions."
"The Global Copy and Global Mirror features are the solution's most valuable aspects."
"These are global mirror and replication for DR, which allow us to do a lot of DR testing."
"The main benefit is from the standpoint of recovery; recovery time and being able to quickly replicate data."
"We have had no outages now for literally six years and that's really impressive."
 

Cons

"While the scalability is good, there are certain limitations. Our racks are at their limit, so we do not have the requisite scalability to expand."
"Some menus aren't so intuitive."
"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."
"Compellent comes in the form of a component that's not true of a unified storage platform."
"This product is too expensive compared to others, and I don't see any value in using it."
"An issue we had was that the controller went down during an upgrade because of their upgrading the code. One side of the switch was down."
"The administration and support (on the way that they delivered) was a little bit slow."
"The initial setup is somewhat complex and should be made simpler to do."
"The pricing of the solution is difficult to deal with. Lower pricing would be preferred."
"I would like it to be easier to use. Some of it is so complex that we've got a lot of scripts and automation and things tied around it."
"We need the GUI feature to be improved. If the GUI is good, then it is easier to manage with just the clicks, rather than going in with CLI and commands to do the stuff."
"The GUI isn't as user-friendly as other options."
"Sometimes when we do encounter problems, but not a complete system shutdown, that gets a little bit frustrating."
"The solution should embedded replication switches into the hardware instead of using them externally."
"On the open system side, it's a little different."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have the basic license for the use of this solution and it is a permanent license. The overall cost could be less, it is expensive."
"It is one of the most cost effective systems for us. We have been able to run it longer than most, getting the most benefit and money out of it."
"The scalability seems a bit more expensive than even buying a brand new one so far. That has been kind of a drawback."
"We have reviewed many platforms over the years. It is probably the best solution for its value."
"The pricing of this solution is competitive."
"The maintenance is usually pretty good. It's not like some of the others where they increase it in the fourth, fifth, or sixth years."
"We have found the solution to be affordable."
"Compared to other solutions out there, it's affordable."
"The license is very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Construction Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell SC Series?
In our case, we received favorable pricing with Dell because of our strong partnership. While I acknowledge that Dell SC Series can be expensive for many companies, we received good discounts. The ...
What needs improvement with Dell SC Series?
For us, it is a great product. The deduplication and compression could potentially be improved, though they are already good. We cannot identify any significant areas that need improvement.
What is your primary use case for Dell SC Series?
We use Dell SC Series in a VMware environment.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

SC Series Storage, Compellent
System Storage DS8000
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric
Renfe, Park Nicollet Health Services, Ricoh Americas Corporation, SK Energy, SWK STADTWERKE KREFELD AG
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell SC Series vs. IBM System Storage DS8000 Series and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,076 professionals have used our research since 2012.