Systems Administrator at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Though tool also offers stability, it needs to offer better pricing plans
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a stable solution."
  • "From an improvement perspective, Dell ECS should aim to offer a better pricing plan to its users."

What is our primary use case?

I deal in the area of IT strategy consultation. There was one assignment in our company for which there was a need for a storage solution, and because of this, we chose Dell ECS. I don't use it on a daily basis.

What needs improvement?

From an improvement perspective, Dell ECS should aim to offer a better pricing plan to its users. There should be an improvement in the product's basic architecture to be able to handle large datasets.

For a multi-technology stack environment, the platform engineering aspect could be simpler.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have experience with Dell ECS. I work as a consultant.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution.

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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Around 1,20,000 customers of my company use the solution.

How are customer service and support?

I presume that the product's technical support works since I haven't heard anything bad about them.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

My company evaluated file storage and object storage products from Pure Storage before Dell ECS.

My company chose to work with Dell ECS since, with Pure Storage, it is very challenging to get resources capability-wise. Dell ECS was slightly cheaper than Pure Storage.

How was the initial setup?

The product's initial setup phase was straightforward.

Most organizations don't have a single stack, and they opt for multiple or different stacks. The question arises related to the ease of management of hybrid technology stacks in an environment. Even if you have a very compelling proposition for a use case, the tool still needs to fit in with the overall enterprise architecture, and the way to ensure that the product fits in easily becomes an issue.

The solution is deployed on a multi-cloud and multi-storage environment.

I have not faced any challenges with the implementation part of the product.

What was our ROI?

Dell ECS becomes an important part of the technology stack in an environment, so the company does not look at the ROI part and focuses more on the stability and reliability areas.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price of Vast.ai is much better than Amazon since it is available as one-tier storage, similar to flash storage or Pure Storage. With Dell ECS, the price per unit is low, and depending on the architecture, the price is almost one-third or one-fourth of the price of other products.

It is an expensive solution. There is a need to make early payments towards the licensing costs attached to the product.

What other advice do I have?

The solution can help with large-scale content repository management in companies, but I see that the trend seems to be moving towards Vast.ai presently since it seems to provide a lot of value to its users at a very low price. For large content storage nowadays, I think that Vast.ai is preferred in the large enterprise area.

The improvements I have noticed in system reliability from the use of Dell ECS stem from the fact that the product works well.

I recommend the product to those who plan to use it, but I would also suggest they look at products like Vast.ai before choosing Dell or Pure Storage.

I rate the overall product a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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System Engineer at CSS Versicherung
Real User
Top 20
Reliable with a good compliance mode and a decent interface
Pros and Cons
  • "The scalability is good."
  • "They need to ensure that the system will work if a site goes down."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution as an archive storage for our documents.

What is most valuable?

The compliance mode and such things are the most valuable aspects.

It has been stable. 

The scalability is good.

We're happy with the interface.

It integrates well with APIs.

What needs improvement?

At the moment, I don't feel like we have to improve anything. 

When the system goes down, then the compliance mode will not be all over the system. The system will stop working. They need to ensure that the system will work if a site goes down. That said, we have yet to have a site outage.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been dealing with the product for four years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. there are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It is reliable. The performance has been good. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable.

We have about 2,000 people using the solution. 

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is good. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We worked with the EMC Centera product previously. Dell EMC announced the end of life of the Centera assistance, so we changed to ECS.

How was the initial setup?

The setup for us was pretty easy and pretty hands-off as we had outside assistance. 

We implemented the solution a long time ago. I'm not sure how long the deployment itself took.

Normally, maintenance will be provided by Dell EMC. You call and then Dell EMC will do the upgrade and so on.

What about the implementation team?

The setup was done by an external consultant. We don't have so much to do with this setup.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I can't speak to the exact pricing. 

What other advice do I have?

I use the product. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

We're a customer and end-user.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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General Director at miromix unitedMiroMIX United
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
A stable solution that has unlimited scalability and can be used for archiving purposes
Pros and Cons
  • "The performance is good."
  • "The initial setup is not so easy."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for archives and unstructured data.

What is most valuable?

It is a good product. The performance is good.

What needs improvement?

The initial setup is not so easy.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for three to four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The tool is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The tool has unlimited scalability. We have one architect and a few enterprise engineers on our technical team.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is not so easy. However, we have the skills. We can contact Dell’s engineers for remote deployment. They provide a service called ProDeploy. It is an expensive option, so we prefer not to contact them. If something goes wrong, we can involve the engineers.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The product is quite expensive. The vendor provides us with discounts, though.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We compared the solution with HPE and NetApp. Dell ECS is cheaper than HPE but a little bit more expensive than NetApp.

What other advice do I have?

Our company hasn't sold the solution yet. However, we designed several projects and have at least two in progress. We have certified engineers and architects to draw and design everything. Currently, we have a project for archiving photocopies of tax reports. I recommend the product to others. Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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Data center sales at PT Sapta Tunas Teknologi
Reseller
Top 5
Stable and works well even for large-scale data, but needs more integration with other products, and could be better if it was a standalone software
Pros and Cons
  • "What I like best about Dell ECS is its stability. I also like that you can use it for large-scale data purposes. The solution works fine for me, and I haven't encountered any issues with it."
  • "If Dell ECS would be available as standalone software, so you can use any hardware with it, would make the solution better. It would also be good if Dell ECS had more integrations with other products."

What is our primary use case?

My customers for Dell ECS belong to the healthcare industry. If a customer has a lot of images, a large amount of data, and multiple websites, Dell ECS is a recommended product to use.

What is most valuable?

What I like best about Dell ECS is its stability. I also like that you can use it for large-scale data purposes. The solution works fine for me, and I haven't encountered any issues with it.

What needs improvement?

If Dell ECS would be available as standalone software, so you can use any hardware with it, would make the solution better.

It would also be good if Dell ECS had more integrations with other products.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with Dell ECS for a few months now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Dell ECS is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Dell ECS is a scalable solution.

How are customer service and support?

So far, the technical support for Dell ECS has been good.

How was the initial setup?

I didn't do the setup for Dell ECS, so I'm not aware of how easy or complex it is.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

If I remember correctly, Dell ECS is an appliance, so if you buy Dell ECS, you also have to buy the hardware, while IBM is standalone software, so you can buy IBM as software only without needing to buy the hardware.

On a scale of one to five, I'm rating the pricing for Dell ECS a four.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I evaluated IBM Cloud Object Storage.

What other advice do I have?

I'm not a user of object storage solutions, but a seller.

I provide Dell ECS to clients.

Five people use Dell ECS within my organization.

Dell ECS is a solution I would recommend to others.

My rating for Dell ECS is seven out of ten because IBM has a better object storage solution.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner/Seller
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Senior Datacenter Consultant at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Reseller
Reasonably priced with good stability and good scalability
Pros and Cons
  • "It's my understanding that the initial setup is straightforward."
  • "You should be able to calculate so that when it's full it's 100% full, not just 90%."

What is our primary use case?

We installed it last year at a customer site.

We use it for archive and for backups, our third copy backups.

What is most valuable?

The storage is cheap.

It's easier than tape. We use it instead of tape now. 

We've found the solution to have good stability.

The product can scale. 

It's my understanding that the initial setup is straightforward. 

Technical support seems to be pretty helpful.

What needs improvement?

The issue we have is the solution is doing a system Read-Only to only 90%. Instead of 100%, you get the read-only at 90%. It's hard to explain to the customer that, "your system is full, you only have it at 90% full, however, yes, that's considered full even though you have 10% left." You should be able to calculate so that when it's full it's 100% full, not just 90%. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've worked with the solution for a little over a year. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution feels pretty stable. We have not had any issues with it, aside from discs now and then. We have about six petabytes. It's a lot of discs, that we have, and only a few have failed. it's a small number in comparison to the big picture. We've been running it for a year pretty much without incident. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is more suitable for larger organizations as opposed to smaller companies. 

It's a product that is easy to scale. 

How are customer service and support?

It's been working fine and therefore we haven't used technical support that much. We use it when we expand the system with more notes, and for the GEODrive. We might have some questions about that, however, overall it's been pretty good and problem-free.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've been working with storage for 20 or 30 years or something like that. I've been with IBM, NetApp, and other EMC products before Dell. I've had experience with HPE, 3PARs, and Nimble. I've used pretty much every storage product on the market.

The difference depends on basically the customer and what they have from the beginning. Each product has its positive attributes. It depends on what the customers are going to do with it. We have other archive products that are at least as good as the ECS.

How was the initial setup?

While the initial setup looks pretty straightforward, we didn't actually do the implementation. 

There are things in the background that are running, of course, however in terms of maintenance requirements, it's not that much.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

In terms of pricing, for the performance it gives, it's quite competitive. It's not the best performance, so you get what you pay for, however, if you want performance for, for example, a file server, or something like that, ECS is not the right product. That said, the pricing also depends on the customer and how much discount they get, et cetera. There are different licensing models. 

What other advice do I have?

I'm a consultant. We're a partner and reseller.

We are using the latest version. We just updated it in August or September. 

I'd advise new users to buy enough nodes for the performance so that you calculate the performance correctly, as that can be an issue for some.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. For how we use it, we are quite happy with its capabilities.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Executive Manager, IT Operations with 11-50 employees
Real User
Good technology that performs well
Pros and Cons
  • "The technology is very good, it performs well."
  • "It is a good solution, except for the cost."

What is our primary use case?

Dell EMC ECS is the leading storage area network, you can do anything with it. Some companies have 10,000 users, it depends on the structure.

What is most valuable?

The technology is very good, it performs well.

What needs improvement?

It is a good solution, except for the cost.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Dell EMC ECS for 15 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is perfect.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Dell EMC ECS is an enterprise solution. It works for small, medium and large enterprise organizations.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support of Dell EMC ECS is fine as long as you are paying your licensing for both software and hardware. If you are paying for higher level support you will receive higher level support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have worked on all enterprise storage solutions.

How was the initial setup?

All storage is different. You need qualified people who understand storage to install it.

What about the implementation team?

The solution requires a qualified competent technical team to install it.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Dell EMC ECS solution is expensive. It requires an annual subscription, monthly will not work for the user or for Dell.

What other advice do I have?

This solution can be for everybody. You need to assess your own needs. Dell EMC ECS covers solutions across the board. You can't go wrong with a universal leadership product.

I rate the solution an 8 out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Product Manager at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Reseller
Competitive and stable, but they need better support and pricing
Pros and Cons
  • "This product is very competitive."
  • "In Taiwan, they don't have professional technical support."

What is our primary use case?

We create a service for our customers to access EMC Storage.

We use this product for an on-premises server to access the EMC storage. We locate our EMC in our IDC center, and we provide our enterprise customers access to it. 

We sell this service, space, and AWS SAN storage.

What is most valuable?

This product is very competitive. It's a good product.

What needs improvement?

In Taiwan, they don't have professional technical support. They don't have many channels or distributions to provide professional services.

They only provide preventative services for themselves. It is very difficult for us to resell this service to our enterprise customers because EMC doesn't have many resources. This is an area that needs to be improved. 

Our customers need EMC for their Big Data services.

This product is very competitive but the professional services need to be improved. 

Also, the price could be reduced. We need more marketing activity in Taiwan, as it would be very helpful in trying to resell this product.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been selling the latest version of this solution for six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's a very stable storage solution.

Because we wanted to provide our enterprise customers with a multi-tenancy service, but they don't have the multi-tenancy architecture, they can only use it on-premises at one company. We contacted Dell EMC ECS and we created a scenario for the mechanics to build out a multi-tenancy service.

This is something that was not originally provided with Dell EMC ECS.

How are customer service and technical support?

Dell has a very poor support channel in Taiwan. They sell the models directly to our enterprise customers. They don't have a very good vendor support system. 

We need to start it ourselves, then we can provide it to our enterprise customers.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Dell EMC ECS is too expensive.

What other advice do I have?

We plan to continue selling this solution, but we need them to support it on more than just a case by case basis because it takes too long. 

It depends on the Dell EMC resources but we cannot rely on their distributors for help. It's not a good enough business model.

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it. That said, there are a few improvements needed, including that it could be cheaper.

I would rate this product a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
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IT Infrastructure Engineer at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Extremely stable with a straightforward setup and fairly good pricing
Pros and Cons
  • "The stability is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
  • "The solution needs to provide better integration between this solution and all other kinds of systems."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use this as a storage solution. My system is based on it.

What is most valuable?

The stability is the most valuable aspect of the solution.

The pricing, at least compared to HP, is quite good.

What needs improvement?

The solution needs to provide better integration between this solution and all other kinds of systems.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for 12 years at this point. It's been more than a decade.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is extremely good. It's one of its selling points. We don't have bugs or glitches. It doesn't freeze. It's completely reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is quite good. However, in order to scale, we need to buy a new version in order to do so. Other than that, it's pretty good.

Our whole system is on this storage, therefore all of our ministry users can use the system.

Although we have no plans to increase usage right now, we will in the future.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did use a different solution previously. It was an HP product. The solution was older and we didn't see a new version that met our needs, so we switched over to Dell, which had a very good reputation and price.

How was the initial setup?

The solution's initial setup is not complex. It's very straightforward.

Our deployment was more than six years ago, however, from what I can recall, it took about two weeks to one month from beginning to end.

You only need two to three people for deployment and maintenance.

What about the implementation team?

We had a reseller in our country that assisted us in the implementation process.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing on the solution is pretty good. We pay for licensing on a yearly basis.

What other advice do I have?

We're just customers. We don't have a business relationship with Dell. We're using the version before Unity. I'm not sure the name of it.

I'd recommend the solution. I'd rate it nine out of ten overall.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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