Dell Unity XT vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell Unity XT and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Dell Unity XT vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Report (Updated: January 2023).
745,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray are simplicity, ease of use, and dashboard management.""The speed is one of the most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray.""The most valuable feature is replication.""It is always out of the box, and ready to use.""I like FlashArray's ActiveCluster as well as its snapshot and cloning capabilities.""It's just very easy for general block storage.""We find the ease of usability and setup valuable.""Provides fast access and is user-friendly."

More Pure Storage FlashArray Pros →

"On the Data Domain side, the most attractive feature is the compression ratio, which none of the other products in the market are currently able to provide. On the Unity side, what customers mostly like is the availability guarantee.""It is easy to set up the solution.""Stable flash storage platform with good scalability, efficiency, and speed.""The most valuable feature of Dell Unity XT is the GUI, it is very good. End users can manage using it. Additionally, the documentation is of high quality and it integrates well.""The most valuable aspects of this solution are its stability, performance, and ease of updating.""This solution is easy to work with and easy to maintain.""The product has helpful local technical support.""When I have an issue and need technical support, I reach out to them either through chat or by submitting a service request, and the response is good."

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"The solution is well integrated with other vendors.""The solution remains stable across versions.""It is less expensive than VMware products. It is also a little bit more flexible, but it really comes down to price for us.""The dashboard of Nutanix Acropolis AOS allows for simple management. The dashboard has all the information online about what's going on at any given time.""Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's most valuable features are all the cloud facilities or benefits it provides for my data center.""The scalability, performance, and licensing model are the most valuable features.""A lot of features are there, but for us, on the server administration side, creating a clone of the VM is valuable because many times, we have to deploy security patches. For deploying these patches, it helps to have a clone so that if something goes wrong, we can discard that VM and put back the clone VM. That is a very cool feature.""The flexibility of this system is very good. It's also faster than others, and has skilled technical support who showed more initiative than a competitor, e.g. VMware."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Pros →

Cons
"There was some complexity in the initial setup.""The primary drawback is the cost, which can be prohibitive for small configurations.""We need to add more storage in Pure Storage FlashArray with the cluster mode activated for us to have better performance.""I want to learn more about command line usage which I have not explored much yet. However, there are many automated solutions for repetitive tasks. I would like to see additional features like performance monitoring, configuring of alerts, and the customization of alert thresholds in the next release.""This product has only two active controllers, whereas other solutions can have more. This is something that needs to improve.""Its price could be cheaper. It is not the cheapest one out there, but I'm not directly involved in the figures and negotiations.""The price of Pure Storage FlashArray could be better.""Pure Storage support could be a little better."

More Pure Storage FlashArray Cons →

"Licensing costs could be reduced.""It is expensive, and the pricing could be better.""The price of Dell Unity XT could improve.""They can certainly improve in terms of monitoring.""Dell Unity XT could add a unit-to-unit replication. We haven't seen that because we don't have an additional one to test. However, it is not an improvement, but something that we would like to have visibility on how it's done or how it works.""The solution should include a free process in the HPE portal that uses serial numbers to verify that hardware is genuine.""This solution could be improved by offering containerization. This is something many of my customers are looking for.""In terms of what could be improved, I would say the deduplication part, because for large deduplications, you need an extra appliance to do it in order to avoid having problems in performance. I think that could be improved, because everything should be included in the product, not with an appliance from the outside."

More Dell Unity XT Cons →

"Nutanix Acropolis AOS could improve by having an auto-update feature. At this time I have to update each system manually. However, I bought the standard license and I did not buy the maximum license they have available. There could be a certain license that does the updates automatically.""This solution offers excellent functionality but could use a stronger interface.""As Nutanix Acropolis AOS is on the expensive side, one of its areas for improvement is the price. It would also be better if it can be integrated with other cloud providers, because currently, it's only for private cloud deployment.""Nutanix has a complex infrastructure, we have customers that consider VMware instead. Additionally, the performance could be better.""One of the improvements I would like to have is related to naming. It is getting confusing because they are using three-letter acronyms, which are more or less misleading. What I do not like is that they changed names and reused names. They had a meaning in the past and they are still using the names for something similar.""There should be a little more access to Nutanix files.""We have a team that does the implementation of the solution for our customers, it is better to have professionals handle the process.""With some projects that we are deploying, there are errors that arise when adding nodes."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "You can pay extra for Evergreen support, which gives you free upgrades when new features are introduced."
  • "The best features come included without any additional cost."
  • "We purchased a license to use this solution and we pay for the storage ourselves."
  • "The price of the solution is not expensive."
  • "There are no licensing fees or other costs."
  • "There are no licensing fees aside from the support."
  • "It is not the cheapest one out there. We're paying yearly, but I'm not 100% sure."
  • "The price of the solution can be a bit expensive. There is an additional fee for support."
  • More Pure Storage FlashArray Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Pricing for this product is manageable, though slightly higher than comparable products."
  • "The solution is very expensive."
  • "The solution is very expensive."
  • "This solution is a good price for what you get."
  • "Here is our major complaint with pricing. Dell EMC comes to us and gives us a price. We are like, "Well, this doesn't even compare to what we got on the last project." We say, "No, you should bring it down to this level." Then, they come back again and we are sort of in the middle again. I am like, You already sold us other stuff at a better price. We are not going to just say, 'Yes,' because we are out of time.""
  • "I liked the price point when we purchased it."
  • "We looked at HPE Nimble but the price of the Unity XT was very good compared to the competition."
  • "The price in our country is very expensive and some of our customers opt for lower-cost alternatives."
  • More Dell Unity XT Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Its licensing model is easy, but the bad thing is that we need to pay for the whole capacity at once. With VMware vSAN, we only have to pay for the capacity that we are using, which is not the case with Nutanix. So, we have more overhead for the licensing cost with Nutanix."
  • "In terms of the solution's licensing, it's quite comprehensive."
  • "The price of the solution is expensive. However, the price to performance is good. The cost for development and installation is very low."
  • "The one disadvantage is relative, financially Nutanix Acropolis AOS is a little bit more expensive than the old solution."
  • "It is less expensive than the VMware alternative."
  • "We just have a support license for Nutanix."
  • "Many of my customers have issues with Acropolis' licensing model because they are charging the customers based on two things— the CPUs and the capacity in the solid stack disk — and that's a problem. Nutanix's competitors are not licensing that layer, so this is something that they should change. They should abandon this licensing model because it's too complex. Technical support is bundled with the subscription."
  • "The solution could be a little less expensive."
  • More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure… more »
    Top Answer:Pure Storage FlashArray's overall speed is its most valuable feature.
    Top Answer:Cost-wise, I imagine that the product's price would probably give you a nosebleed if you were a younger company.
    Top Answer:I saw that you have doubts about what you chose. I have a lot of experience with the constructor, honestly I can… more »
    Top Answer:They’re both great solutions and I’ve used both EMC is being VERY aggressive on pricing which may be the undoing of… more »
    Top Answer:First of all the decision should be taken looking at similar products in terms of capacity and performance I will show… more »
    Top Answer:We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface… more »
    Top Answer: Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from… more »
    Top Answer:We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    EMC Unity, Dell EMC Unity
    Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
    Learn More
    Overview

    Pure Storage FlashArray is the world’s first enterprise-class storage array that runs exclusively on the nonvolatile memory express (NVMe) protocol for memory access and storage. It represents a totally state-of-the-art type of storage technology. It offers users shared accelerated storage that delivers cutting-edge features in the realms of performance, simplicity, and consolidation. Pure Storage is fresh and modern today and will be for the next decade. Without forklift upgrades or planned downtime, Pure Storage takes the work out of storage ownership and delivers unprecedented customer satisfaction.

    Pure Storage FlashArray is built with simplicity and reliability in mind. The solution can be implemented and optimized in hours, as opposed to other similar solutions that can take days. It has no moving parts, which removes areas where it could potentially be vulnerable to suffering errors. It is highly stable and gives users the ability to manage system shutdowns in a way that  prevents data loss.

    Benefits of Pure Storage FlashArray

    Some of the benefits of using Pure Storage FlashArray include:

    • A much higher level of speed than similar pieces of technology. Pure Storage FlashArray maximizes the speed at which data can be transferred while at the same time minimizing system latencies that might slow the transfer down. Additionally, it offers users quick memory read and data access speeds.

    • A higher bang for your buck in terms of the storage capabilities you get for the money you pay. They are smaller in size than more standard storage technologies, but they offer flash memory, which enables users to store larger amounts of data than the current standard.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Pure Storage FlashArray is a highly effective piece of storage technology which stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its overall robustness and the value that it offers by way of its reliability and ease of use. It provides users with many valuable features that allow them to maximize what they can do with this solution. Pure Storage FlashArray’s reliability and ease of use make it a highly valuable solution. 

    PeerSpot user Prabakaran K., a technical consultant at Injazat Data Systems, notes the robustness of this solution when he writes, "FlashArray has many valuable features. It's very user-friendly and it has high availability, so there is comparatively less downtime. During maintenance, there is no shutdown procedure, so you can directly power off the Array and manage the shutdown process without any data loss, which is a unique feature. Managing replication and data migration is also very easy."

    PeerSpot user Jason D., a cloud solutions architect at a tech services company, notes three features that make this solution valuable when he writes, "We've had different types of storage, and three things of this solution are valuable. The first one is its outstanding performance. The second one is its stability. In the about three years that we've had it, we've had component failures, but we never had a service interruption or any data loss. The third one, which is really critical, is that it is super easy to use in terms of provisioning, storage, and managing the arrays. I'm able to maintain a multi-site environment with a couple of dozen arrays with a single mid-level storage admin."

    Dell EMC Unity XT is one of the best all-flash storage arrays on the market today. Dell EMC Unity XT arrays are designed for performance, optimized for efficiency, and built for a multi-cloud world. In addition, they support digital transformation, enabling businesses to reach the full potential of their data capital quickly and easily. Dell EMC Unity’s All-Flash and Hybrid Flash storage platforms provide the performance, efficiency, enterprise-class software, and virtualization integrations required for running a wide range of virtualized applications.

    Dell EMC Unity XT Features

    Dell EMC Unity XT has many valuable key features, including:

    • Unified storage flexibility: With Dell EMC Unity XT you can consolidate separate storage platforms into a single Unity XT unified storage system via a simple and intuitive (HTML5) management GUI that also connects you to CloudIQ.

    • All-inclusive data protection: Dell EMC Unity XT offers a reliable way to protect application data with all-inclusive data protection services, including snapshots, data-at-rest drive encryption, replication, thin clones, and dynamic pools.

    • Software-defined solutions: Dell EMC Unity XT provides software-defined storage and HA for on-prem and in the cloud solutions.

    • Multi-cloud alignment: With Dell EMC Unity XT you have the ability to build and manage an effective data-first multi-cloud strategy. It allows you to consolidate public and private cloud resources that align with your business goals.

    • Metro node: This feature enables automated business continuity with zero RPO and RTO. It also provides greater flexibility through multi-platform support and replication to any array and has zero performance impact on the storage array.

    • Scalable file system: Dell EMC Unity XT is built with a robust 256TBu file system. The UFS64 file system includes up to 256 independent VMDK clones, 16 thin clones, space efficient snapshots with a simple space reclaim and low IO impact, file system shrink that can reclaim free blocks, simplified Quotas for User, and much more.

    • DevOps integrations: Dell EMC Unity XT supports the Container Storage Interface (CSI) plugin to run Kubernetes workloads.

    Dell EMC Unity XT Benefits

    Some of the benefits of using Dell EMC Unity XT include:

    • High-speed data access
    • Low latency
    • Dual-active controller architecture
    • Multi-cloud
    • Intuitive user interface
    • Cost efficient
    • Solid performance

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Dell EMC Unity XT users.

    A Systems Engineering Manager at a manufacturing company says, "It is definitely one of the most robust, solid, well-performing products that I have dealt with. It is set it and forget it, which is pretty amazing." He also mentions, “We can do both block and file storage on one unit without purchasing a separate device.”

    Peter S., Senior Technical Specialist at a healthcare company, states, “The most valuable feature is reliability. At the end of the day, it just runs. This solution is easy to work with and easy to maintain.”

    PeerSpot user Melvin T., Senior Systems Engineer at Prosperity Bank, explains that the solution is “easy to use and we can add LUNs or space without interruption to end-users. We're able to access it from just about anywhere, as long as we have access to a browser. That feature is really neat because sometimes we will go to a different data center or a different site, and if we need to access it to see a LUN or to see any type of storage, we can do that. That's one of the big takeaways with Unity."

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is a top-ranking HCI software, cloud management tool, and Software Defined Storage (SDS) tool that is marketed as the foundation for users' hybrid clouds. It offers a powerful and secure hyperconverged infrastructure to deliver all data and applications at any scale and on any cloud. The solution offers a complete software stack that allows users to unify their hybrid cloud infrastructure. 

    NCI’s services include computer, storage and network, hypervisors and containers, and deployment in public or in private clouds. The product also comes with built-in resilience, disaster recovery capabilities, self-healing, and high-security capacities. It provides further deployment flexibility through several software and hardware options and platforms. NCI includes a full set of enterprise capabilities. It can also be deployed on a wide range of servers from popular manufacturers.

    The capabilities of the product are categorized into three main groups:

    • AOS storage
    • Flexible and open compute
    • Automated and secure networking

    Outside of these categories, NCI also offers other capabilities:

    • Integrated disaster recovery
    • Full-stack lifecycle management
    • VMware with Nutanix
    • Intelligent operations

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Features

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers its customers various features and tools in each of the previously mentioned categories. The available features for users currently include:

    • High-performance: This set of features utilizes hardware advances such as NVMe and RDMA to accelerate users' most demanding applications with consistent performance. The tools in this feature category work alongside data locality to ensure successful results.

    • Foolproof resiliency: These Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure features protect data and keep it available by facilitating advanced distributed consistency algorithms. Users can utilize these features to protect their data from issues like bit rot, hardware failures, and even entire site failure.

    • Flexibility: This set of features allows storage to be sized for the needs of each organization and expanded promptly and easily so that the organization and its data can grow. The features offer flexibility to users in terms of applying storage policies logically on a pre-workload basis, instead of being tied to hardware.

    • Hypervisor choice: Users can choose from the leading hypervisors - Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware ESXi. They can also leverage the built-in hypervisor AHV that Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides.

    • Integrated virtualization: These features offer simplified automation and AHV streamlined operations. The services in this category are optimized for high performance and reliability.

    • Kubernetes: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers features to build and deploy cloud-native applications on intelligent distributed infrastructure. Apps can be integrated with cloud-compatible storage and both building and deployment can be achieved within the same platform.

    • Microsegmentation: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers features to prevent malware spread and reduce attack surfaces by leveraging machine learning (ML).

    • Virtual networking: This set of features allows users to easily implement multi-tenancy in their environment or stretch networks across clouds.

    • Centralized network management: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides organizations with a way to manage networking configurations centrally. Users can utilize it across their human-computer interaction (HCI) environment with simple virtual switch management.

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Benefits

    The product offers various benefits to users who utilize its capacities. Some of these include:

    • NCI reduces technology sprawl and frees up technical resources to allow organizations to focus on other activities, potentially reducing costs for the business.

    • The product allows customers to deploy, scale, and bridge to the public cloud to be able to react in evolving business environments.

    • Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure improves data availability while simultaneously protecting it against several kinds of failures and attacks.

    • The solution offers high-performance, resilient distributed storage for all workloads.

    • Working alongside Nutanix Cloud Platform, NCI offers simple management of data from one console.

    • Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure works by the zero trust philosophy, protecting users' apps and data through specially designed security protocols.

    Reviews from Real Users

    According to Gerhard J., an IT manager at Q4 Fuel, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides serious reliability and stability across the entire system makes for ROI.

    A solutions architect at a computer software company describes NCI as a stable, straightforward to set up, and scalable solution.

    Offer
    Learn more about Pure Storage FlashArray
    Learn more about Dell Unity XT
    Learn more about Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)
    Sample Customers
    Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
    Draper, Rio Grande Pacific, Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre
    St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm20%
    Healthcare Company12%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Computer Software Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization35%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Healthcare Company15%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Energy/Utilities Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization63%
    Computer Software Company7%
    Manufacturing Company4%
    Government3%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization25%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Government6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise56%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise43%
    Large Enterprise41%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business29%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise48%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business10%
    Midsize Enterprise68%
    Large Enterprise22%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business36%
    Midsize Enterprise31%
    Large Enterprise33%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise35%
    Large Enterprise47%
    Buyer's Guide
    Dell Unity XT vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)
    January 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Unity XT vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and other solutions. Updated: January 2023.
    745,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Dell Unity XT is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 45 reviews while Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is ranked 2nd in HCI with 75 reviews. Dell Unity XT is rated 8.4, while Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Dell Unity XT writes "Price / Quality ratio is good and since OE 5.03 code the array family reached a rather good maturity level". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) writes "What you might not know about Nutanix that makes it so unique". Dell Unity XT is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem and HPE 3PAR StoreServ, whereas Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail, HPE SimpliVity and VMware vSphere. See our Dell Unity XT vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) report.

    We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.