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Dell SC Series vs IBM System Storage DS8000 Series 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 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 (19th)
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 August 2026, in the Frame-Based Disk Arrays category, the mindshare of Dell SC Series is 15.4%, up from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM System Storage DS8000 Series is 16.1%, down from 33.0% 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 Series16.1%
Other68.5%
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.
reviewer1392684 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect; Senior Manager Mainframe Technical Service at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Great Global Copy and Global Mirror features with an easy initial setup
We're just a customer. We don't have a business relationship with the company. I'm an outsourcing service provider and I've had a lot of experience using the solution. We have everything from DS8100 disc storage, all the way up to 8990s. I'd advise new users to read the implementation installation guide. Most of the questions are answered in there. People just tend to skim over it and don't get into the details. However, it's important in making everything run smoothly and understanding the solution. That's probably the best advice I've actually heard from anybody. At the end of the day, don't be someone who skips the instructions, and all of a sudden you have a pile of parts. I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"They have a feature called Live Migrate; it's been very, very useful."
"Performance-wise it's high speed. It's also more stable and scalable."
"For all the deployments that I've seen or done, its been a rock solid platform."
"The Dell support is helpful and the response is quick, and the agents' knowledge is very good."
"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 performance benefits weren't surprising, we expected that. What we didn't expect were the densification benefits that we got out of going all-flash. We're able to put more applications on the arrays because of how all-flash performs. The way some of the application profiles have responded to all-flash has been really pleasing."
"I like the SC Series, I enjoy working with it, and with its auto-tiering and hybrid mix of SSDs and spinning disks, customers can revitalize their whole storage system completely without needing expensive all-flash arrays."
"It has good dedupe and compression. Also, the built-in data migration capabilities are pretty good, as is the federation. When we started migrating the workloads from different storage platforms, like NetApp and XtremeIO, it helped us in moving to that direction."
"These are global mirror and replication for DR, which allow us to do a lot of DR testing."
"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."
"The main benefit is from the standpoint of recovery; recovery time and being able to quickly replicate data."
"The high throughput feature is the most powerful thing in this product."
"The Global Copy and Global Mirror features are the solution's most valuable aspects."
"I really recommend the IBM DS8000 solution as it is the most advanced technology available for storage solutions."
"We have had no outages now for literally six years and that's really impressive."
 

Cons

"It would be helpful if the solution offered higher performance, at least on the back end."
"Customer support could be improved. It takes five or six reps to finally get someone who can help us."
"We had some issues with the battery in the previous version that we were unable to resolve."
"I would like to see higher compression, dedupe, faster I/O, and bigger drives."
"If Dell SC Series could have supported the protocol NVMe over TCP, that would have been great. It does not."
"This system is not a good fit for most customers. It's not only the fact that it's too old, but it has not developed any more since Dell bought it."
"Honestly, we were initially struggling with the integration with VMware (but it was fixed with the VMware 6.5) and, then, it was around a 10GB network."
"For example, for a 4TB SSD, they may charge you seven grand or eight grand. It's expensive."
"The GUI isn't as user-friendly as other options."
"On the open system side, it's a little different."
"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 solution should embedded replication switches into the hardware instead of using them externally."
"Sometimes when we do encounter problems, but not a complete system shutdown, that gets a little bit frustrating."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution could be better priced in comparison with other vendors."
"We have reviewed many platforms over the years. It is probably the best solution for its value."
"It's absolutely affordable. Again, not having to do a forklift upgrade like some of the others have had to do in the past, it's very affordable for our customers and they continue to buy."
"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 maintenance is usually pretty good. It's not like some of the others where they increase it in the fourth, fifth, or sixth years."
"It has a good price point and offers some value-added enterprise features."
"We were able to afford two tiers of flash storage at a price where the competition was giving us one tier or just a handful of discs."
"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."
"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%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise20
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: August 2026.
908,402 professionals have used our research since 2012.