We performed a comparison between Dell Unity XT and Pure Storage FlashBlade 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.
"Scalability is one of the best features. You can quickly add more. You can swap out the drives with larger sizes, you can add more shelves. All of that is perfect - the whole concept of keeping it modular..."
"The simplicity of it. The performance is good, but the simplicity is the best thing. Storage management is quite complex, but Pure Storage is easy to manage."
"We were actually able to do multiple upgrades, including head upgrades and moving between the platforms, M20 and M50, over the years. We have never once lost a ping and have never had an outage due to an OS upgrade or a complete head upgrade."
"It does efficient work of storing data while still delivering the performance that you would normally expect from a higher priced solution."
"I like its speed. It has all the features that I need."
"Because of the encryption, we have different storage and the encryption can go over both."
"The most valuable features in Pure Storage FlashArray are deduplication and active cluster."
"The speed is the most valuable feature, along with the ease of getting it connected. We were able to get it online in less than a day."
"Scheduled components are sourced from Korea based on their quality selection, with the actual purchase taking place in Vietnam. The notable features include cache memories and MOS feeder in Dell Unity. Additionally, the storage dynamics are managed uniformly on a global scale, whether it is a simple or wide-ranging configuration."
"All-flash performance, Snapshotting capabilities and replication are all valuable features."
"We have Dell EMC engineers helping us out and doing some over the shoulder training. They are working with our customer right now doing data migration over to Unities from the legacy Oracle stuff. While they're doing this, they're showing people how the Unities work and the ins and outs of the software interface."
"The NAS capability is mainly what we're looking for from this product, and being able to recover fast in DR."
"We like the way it integrates with our environment. These features help us use multiple soft applications. The new features of going off the grid and replicating really help us. They give us an advantage versus traditional storage resources."
"The most valuable feature is the dynamic cache of this product. It is very important. We have the physical cache and we can boost this cache using disks. All the products are mainly flash now and this is one of the main characteristics which our customers like."
"Setup is simple."
"Stable data storage platform which promotes ease of management through its multi-cloud support. Remote support provided to users to address issues is very good."
"The solution provides many controllers."
"The most valuable features are the Metro clustering, and disaster recovery."
"The most valuable features include the ease of implementation, ease of use and the speed that you can do backup and recovery on."
"It has also helped to simplify storage for us in the way that it's easy to manage. Their automatic monitoring really helps when things break or are about to break. They see a problem coming and alert us even before our own system does."
"The snapshots, replication, and the ability to have immutable blades are the most valuable features. You're putting data snapshots out in those blades, and they cannot be touched. Its performance is great."
"The initial setup was straightforward. If you know how to plug in power and network you're pretty much qualified. They were on site to configure the network, the box to fit into our network architecture. Other than that, we self-managed from there."
"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."
"The ease of deployment and management has helped us simplify our storage. We also do not have to worry about capacity management as much. A lot of these things are native to Pure Storage."
"I would like to see the NAS add-on component become more fault-tolerant than just a single virtual machine running inside the array. I'm unwilling to use it for that reason."
"We would like more extended historical data to help with some of the capacity planning. This is something that we are asking for all the time. E.g., what was the historical performance of this particular volume? So, we would like more historicals."
"I would like to see support for NVMe, end-to-end."
"I would like to have support available in Spanish."
"We haven't seen ROI yet."
"I would like the ability to swap out the network adapters into it. So, without taking out the whole controller, I would like to be able to swap adapters. This would make things easier."
"The price could be better."
"The 3PAR SSD arrays that we have are still failing a lot so even though we're under warranty, we still have to get someone out and usually have someone troubleshoot so that usually adds onto the cost. With Pure, we've had a disc fail and we pop it out and you pop it in and it's good to go."
"Dell could improve Unity XT by adding support for NVMe."
"The monitoring part could be better. With EMC storage systems - or Unity and VPLEX, because I'm using them, for the moment - the monitoring part is very difficult. They should improve this to have a better reporting system."
"What I'd like to see is a little more detail on the networking side. I can go into where it's showing me the replication, but when I go into the network it just gives me broad-based information. I don't know which replication job is actually feeding it. I have to go in and rely on other apps."
"Dell EMC Unity XT should present a path or a roadmap on how they could put their products on the cloud. This would have some value for their current customers."
"I would like it to be a little bit easier to contact support. We can contact support, but we have to go through a phone tree. We get routed to different places. I might call support to say that I need a drive replaced and get transferred to three different groups before I get to the group I actually need."
"It would be better if there were more integrations."
"A customer had to buy VMX because Unity didn't have WORM."
"The pricing is a bit high. We'd like it to come down."
"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade should improve on more cloud integration."
"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."
"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."
"Commvault has mainly driven the Analytics, providing data and reports. However, the product has room for improvement, especially regarding storage analytics. Upgrading firmware has caused issues, requiring feature disabling to revert to traditional backups. The firmware upgrades sometimes affect Commvault backups."
"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."
"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."
"On our dedupe during our initial buy, we were expecting a number a little higher like 4x. However, we are getting about 3.6. While it is close enough, it doesn't quite hit the numbers. So, this has been a challenge."
Dell Unity XT is ranked 4th in All-Flash Storage with 186 reviews while Pure Storage FlashBlade is ranked 16th in All-Flash Storage with 31 reviews. Dell Unity XT is rated 8.4, while Pure Storage FlashBlade is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Dell Unity XT writes "Easy to set up with good data compression technology and useful deduplication". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pure Storage FlashBlade writes "A high-performing and scalable solution that improves data performance for S3 workloads". Dell Unity XT is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem and HPE 3PAR StoreServ, whereas Pure Storage FlashBlade is most compared with Dell PowerScale (Isilon), VAST Data, MinIO, Red Hat Ceph Storage and Dell ECS. See our Dell Unity XT vs. Pure Storage FlashBlade report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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