Dell PowerStore Reviews

There is a lot of deduplication and compression involved, virtualization projects, and some databases where we get better compression and deduplication.

The number of IOPs we get compared to the previous model, Unity, is much more robust. It provides the best compression and deduplication, saving money and ensuring efficiency since the deduplication is inline.

PowerStore is robust compared to the previous models like Unity, and it provides excellent compression and deduplication.

The replication part needs improvement, particularly the integration of RecoverPoint. The best solution for application is RecoverPoint, but PowerStore does not have direct integration with it currently.

I have been working with PowerStore for three to three and a half years now.

The stability of the product is high. I would rate it eight out of ten.

PowerStore is very scalable. I would rate its scalability an eight because we have no issues expanding storage.

I rate Dell's technical support very high. Their experts are available and whenever I open any case, it gets resolved in minimal time. I am 100% satisfied with the quality of the support.

The initial setup is very simple.

The price is medium, not very high or low. However, it should be more flexible. They price it based on effective capacity, not raw capacity.

Huawei is the main competitor, and it has some good features and architecture compared to PowerStore.

I can recommend PowerStore to other users, 100%.

We primarily use Dell PowerStore as part of our VMware infrastructure and other Dell servers.

The biggest improvement we found when moving into Dell PowerStore was the deduplication and compression. I did not believe we could get that much storage into one. However, the solution brought it down and compressed everything, which was amazing.

We went from Compellent, which was over 100 terabytes, down to Dell PowerStore, which was 30 terabytes. It significantly saved on rack space, power, and cooling.

Our organization uses CloudIQ to manage and analyze our Dell storage. It's a little confusing because we have multiple IT shops, and I can see what other groups are using. I can only see what I can see, and they can only see what they see. So, it becomes more of a viewing thing than actually doing.

We were looking to replace our old Compellent hardware by implementing Dell PowerStore. The data reduction with Dell PowerStore was much better than we had with Compellent. It was truly amazing.

We are utilizing Dell PowerStore’s integration with VMware, which makes it a lot easier to manage.

We have been able to reduce our organizational footprint using Dell PowerStore. We went from 18U of rack space down to 2U.

We have two different PowerStores in two different geographical locations, but they're separate workloads altogether. They're not replicated or anything like that.

When you purchase the solution, it comes with professional services, and our experience with them has been great.

Dell PowerStore is far superior to other Dell products we've used over the years, such as EqualLogic and Compellent. I would recommend the solution to other users because it is worthwhile.

Sometimes, you have to go back and forth with the technical support team, where they want you to do something you've already done.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for a couple of years.

We haven't had to scale out the tool because we sized it right. Based on all our research, scaling out the solution should be pretty straightforward if we ever need to.

The solution’s technical support is pretty good. Sometimes, you have to go back and forth with the technical support team, where they want you to do something you've already done.

Positive

We previously used Compellent. We switched to Dell PowerStore because Compellent was approaching end-of-life.

Before choosing the solution, we evaluated Pure Storage. We chose Dell PowerStore because Dell is a trusted partner.

Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten.

We are a Dell partner and have been installing PowerStores since the beginning of their release. Austria is a small market so we usually deploy PowerStore 1200 and for smaller installations, we deploy PowerStore 500. We have a few customers that use PowerStore 3200.

The primary use case for PowerStore is typical block storage for VMware environments and for SQL and Microsoft bare metal systems.

We use CloudIQ to manage our customers. It is useful for us to predict the capacity and monitor performance.

PowerStore helps reduce energy consumption for our clients.

PowerStore helps reduce our client's footprint by up to four times.

We see a data reduction of three point five to one typically for our customers.

The most valuable feature is the unwavering performance. It is a fast system that is reliable. The entire Dell ecosystem offers good integration with powerful tech.

It would be helpful for us to have support for the S3 protocol because our main competitor has the S3 protocol in their system. We lost a few teams because of the requirements of S3, so maybe that could be added to their roadmap.

Dell's data reduction guarantee, initially straightforward for claiming additional storage, has become more complex. Their current analysis digs deeper into data composition, and some customers with encrypted data have been denied additional storage under the guarantee.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for three years.

Dell PowerStore is stable.

Dell PowerStore scalability is a big advantage because we can scale out if we install two or three appliances in the cluster using scale-up architecture and also scale up to four enclosures.

The Dell support is good. We have good experience starting with the Dell support portal.

Positive

We are a Dell partner but we also sell NetApp systems. NetApp was an early developer of QLC drives which Dell has only recently started to use with their first shipment going out in July of 2024. The pros of PowerStore are the performance, reliability, and flexibility. We can increase our storage pool by one SSD. Other vendors require a minimum of five SSDs or a bank to grow.

Dell PowerStore is affordable and the license is just a face license which is great.

I would rate Dell PowerStore eight out of ten.  

Dell PowerStore four point zero now can automatically replicate file services. This is an important feature of our customers but we have yet to upgrade to the latest version.

In Austria, we have installed one-half with about 15 to 20 times eight terabyte SSDs. So that means an effective capacity between 100 terabytes and 500 terabytes.

I have been working with the on-premises deployment model.

Dell PowerStore is not really difficult to deploy. There were basically no issues as long as the implementation plan was done properly.

The best features in Dell PowerStore are that it is not too difficult to configure, at least for those implementations that I was part of, and it basically just works. Every new generation of storage, including Dell PowerStore, brings more speed and convenience for end users, but it is not directly visible to them. For me, it was usually just easier to implement.

The data resiliency, availability, and cybersecurity features of Dell PowerStore are adequate, but as always, cybersecurity can be improved. However, there is always a tradeoff because as you increase the security, the usability tends to drop down a little. It is difficult to find a balance, and I think this is quite a balanced product from that point of view.

There are no specific features that I think are missing from Dell PowerStore. The new version that we should be implementing in about a week should be even better.

I am not in favor of AI functionality in the basic infrastructure with Dell PowerStore. The AI should be kept on top of everything, but the underlying infrastructure should be separate with not too many features. It should work on its own without connecting to everything.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for about six years.

A few years back, Dell technical support had an issue that was impossible to solve through online support, so a colleague had to call directly Dell support. Calling someone directly in the US from Bosnia is not exactly an ideal solution. It worked, but it is not ideal. This was connected to a switch that was procured, and it was unfortunately malfunctioning and had to be replaced. Diagnostics had to be run, and the quickest way to solve the problem was to contact Dell support directly by telephone and escalate the problem until we got someone qualified on the line. It works, but convenience is an issue.

I would rate support from Dell around an eight out of ten because it was somewhat difficult to get through the first layer of support, but when I got to the second layer, the personnel that got on the phone were really great. There are procedures on the first level that have to be run, and there is really no way to tell them to escalate just like that, and I understand that. It is acceptable, but the rating reflects the difficulty of calling from abroad and the length of the call.

I participated in installation and the implementation phase for different companies, but not extensively. Usually, the implementation was done with other people together, not on my own.

It is best to have at least two people for the deployment of Dell PowerStore. There is usually some consultancy during the implementation phase for Dell PowerStore, either through a contractor. There was never direct implementation consultancy with Dell, but usually through a contractor.

I think of some alternatives aside from Dell, but they were reviewed briefly, and due to previous very good experience, I stuck with Dell and the availability of qualified personnel from contractors.

I usually spend a few days on the deployment of Dell PowerStore, depending on the size of the project and how good the planning was, up to approximately five days.

In the places I worked at, we usually did not have any budgeting problems as long as the need has been explained properly. Dell PowerStore is not too expensive, but it is expensive. As long as the quality remains the same or better with Dell PowerStore, one room for improvement is the pricing part. However, I do not really understand what makes the price big or low for Dell, so it would be very difficult for me to judge if it can be made cheaper.

I had one previous implementation with Dell PowerStore, and the implementation that is coming will be another one. Usually, the implementation was standalone due to internal redundancies, and it was sufficient. I have been able to consolidate data using Dell PowerStore, most definitely. When you implement a new storage solution, you are always consolidating something.

The compression and deduplication technologies of Dell PowerStore are good to have, but sometimes we go without because it simplifies the potential for some things to go wrong, at least theoretically, because practically we did not have anything go wrong. It was more that I preferred not to use duplication and technology in the background, so we had to implement that in a part of the systems. That was not ideal, but acceptable.

My overall review rating for Dell PowerStore is nine out of ten.

We use Dell PowerStore for enterprise servers and backup servers.

Our organization is resistant to migrating to the Cloud and Dell PowerStore can hopefully help us change that way of thinking.

Most of our deployment is on-premise but we have some hybrid models using AWS and Azure.  

Dell PowerStore has improved our security, efficiency, compatibility, ease of implementation, and scalability.

It is one of the best solutions for power consumption. For example, the UPS that is implemented with our PowerStore is more efficient than our other solutions.

When it comes to cybersecurity resilience, Dell PowerStore allows us to use just one solution. PowerStore is the best solution for this type of use case.

We have integrated PowerStore with Veeam. This integration has improved the scalability and our ability to monitor the facility.

Dell PowerStore has helped reduce our organizational footprint.

Dell PowerStore is more cost-efficient than other solutions.

Dell PowerStore should offer more cybersecurity and warehouse data security. 

I have been using Dell PowerStore for three years.

PowerStore is stable.

PowerStore scalability is the best because it is so easy to increase the power in our data center.

The technical support we get from Dell now is good but it all depends on the level of support. That is based on the contract we signed. 

We previously used Oracle and switched to PowerStore because of the cost and the trust we have with Dell. 

The initial deployment was straightforward.

We used an integrator for our implementation. The service that Disk provided was good.

I would rate Dell PowerStore ten out of ten. 

We are a central data center and one of our most important solutions is implemented with PowerStore. Our data center is certified in tier three. It is fitted with UPS and A/C making it the best environment for a PowerStore implementation.

We use the Dell PowerStore 1000, 5000, 5200, 7000, and 9200 models in our environment. We have a ten-petabyte environment and we use it for structuring storage for our SQL data basis, our search engine, and backend storage for our Kubernetes environment.

We have seen a reduction in data center space, power cooling, and the number of people required to maintain the platforms. Now that it is PowerStore Prime, it has feature parity with previous generation products when it comes to what it can do from a software perspective, which is nice as well. Also because it is a flash product with no moving parts, I can trust that it is available 99.99 percent of the time.

It depends on the workload. I'm seeing data reductions upwards of three to one. In some areas, I'm seeing data reductions of one point six to one on other workloads, but that's because it has encryption already built into it. So when they don't do compression, they're not necessarily deduplication. And so it varies by work but you do see the savings there. The easiest way to quantify it is I can get the same capacity on a high-performance all-flash model that we were getting on a much larger deployment, spinning disk of a previous generation product. Given the amount of storage we have, the cost savings are in the six if not seven figures.

CloudIQ has provided a single pane of glass. There have been some issues with CloudIQ but we have been able to work through them. The nice thing about it isn't necessarily that it just tells me the health of my storage but also gives me performance metrics. Most importantly, it allows me to see my capacity and to project capacity constraints over time within a certain confidence range.

PowerStore reduces our energy consumption. I only have so much power available in my data center and since I can now put a greater capacity footprint within a rack in a space, I can now put other things in its place because of the reduced energy consumption.

Dell is a leader in what they call ESG values. I'm familiar with a lot of things they have done when it comes to working with other countries, and conservation efforts, especially with water. It's impressive to put this much energy and effort into that because it comes at a cost to Dell, so I know it is important to them.

We are utilizing PowerStore integrations, like PowerProtect, VMware, DevOps Container Store, and others. Now that we're at a PowerStore Prime. It's taking a while to get here, but now we can see the benefits within the VMware environments, we can also see benefits on how quickly we can deploy. Especially in our Kubernetes environment, containerization makes a big difference. We can now deploy multiple times within a day as opposed to taking days for a single deployment.

The Dell data reduction guarantee is reliable. I have been supplied with extra capacity from Dell because the reduction guarantee was not met and they stand behind it.

The most valuable features of PowerStore are its density and data reduction. Combined they allow for a larger data footprint in a smaller area. It is high-performing. I get good latency and high access times for mission-critical workloads. I can scale it to meet my needs and it is reliable.

I would like a feature parity on the software side. I've been with PowerStore since version one dot zero. I've been through the growing pains of the software. The hardware has always been reliable. The software has been evolving. The biggest area in PowerStore that needs improvement is the overall visibility within the ESX environment. I haven't seen PowerStore Prime yet. I'm hoping that it'll be like it was with Unity. I am assuming it will be but I haven't seen it. That's one area if it's not done. The other area is SNMP deployment so that I can use my own observability platforms to see its performance.

One area of suggestion for the platform engineering team is that when they do introduce new features not turn them on by default, let the customer decide if they want to use those new features. It's been more than once that I have done a software upgrade and started something that's caused a negative impact on my environment.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for four years.

Dell PowerStore is stable.

The scalability has improved with the newer systems. I'm running multi-petabyte storage appliances for block workloads, which is impressive. I'd like to be able to continue adding on more, but there are always limitations to every system. There is always the processor level and we don't want to exceed that. Over time, as processing gets more powerful, the scalability will increase with it. I don't think that's different with any storage product.

I am comfortable with the Dell technical support. I work with them all the time. We've had some issues with parts availability for our mission-critical support, it could take over a day or two while waiting for parts. It's been remedied by working with some executive teams to get parts mobilized for my implementation. Every support issue that I've had has been remedied in some way, but it's taken some effort.

Positive

Our initial deployment was not good. There's a lot of learning curve for the deployment team as well. We used professional services, but the way the clustering of PowerStore, we have multiple appliances working together needs to be set up, requires certain networking services to be running that wasn't a hundred percent clear, and it took us a while to understand why we weren't getting the expected results from our deployment. I have deployed a lot of these things now in my environment. Occasionally, we still run into the problem. Every deployment team is a little bit different here and some just assume that we need to have an IPv6 network enabled in the environment for it to work. They just need to be reminded. They're not complicated. They are dense and are fitted within a rack. There's not a lot of connectivity that we have to do. I use a fiber channel on mine. So that simplifies it if I had to do more IP networking too, it would probably be more complex.

We have evaluated competitors for storage solutions. PowerStore took a while to get to par with some competitors, but I believe they're there now. The cost is better with Dell. The biggest area where I find it beneficial to stay with a single vendor for storage is that I can work with one support organization and not have to worry about finger-pointing.

I would rate Dell PowerStore eight out of ten. I like it because of its performance. I have very complex workloads that run against it in sub-millisecond latencies. I get good data reduction which has improved over time. The GUI is straightforward. The only reason I'm not giving it higher than an eight right now is that it still takes a little more effort to integrate with our VMware environment compared to Unity. The VMware environment sees the Unity, and we add it. That may not be fixed with PowerStore Prime. I'm not on that version yet. So that's to be determined. if that gap is cleared, I will rate PowerStore higher.

We are 100 percent a Dell shop for storage and computing but do not use Dell for networking.

I use the product for computers to connect servers with storage, integrating computations and actions performed on the servers with vCenter and a single console or storage console.

In my experience, its effective capacity and effective storage capacity are notable features that differentiate it from others. I configured the storage for a customer, and they had all the scattered data placed on different servers. I consolidated all the data into a single dashboard accessible via Dell PowerStore Manager, which improves performance and IT infrastructure.

I don't think there is room for improvement in my opinion. It's already in a good state. I don't recall any issues, at least at this time.

I have used the solution for almost two years.

I haven't observed any glitchy behavior. It's a pretty stable product.

In my experience, you can scale it to any limit. You can expand through the expansion enclosures and add capacity and performance as well. It's easy.

Customer service is good, and support is also good from Dell.

Positive

Before using Dell PowerStore, I used Unity. It wasn't a struggle. It was a customer call, and it was for expansion rather than any issues they were facing. They acquired Dell PowerStore for their expansion purposes.

I found that the initial setup is not complex. You can go to the default password credentials or use your PowerStore management dashboard. From there, you can set your designated IP addresses and credentials, and then easily configure the storage with your setup.

In my experience, it's worth ROI in terms of performance and improvement in their IT infrastructure through many other aspects. Eighty percent.

The setup is very simple, but it's costly.

I would rate the overall product a nine out of ten. I think it might be almost nineteen or ninety-five percent they are claiming fine.

Most of our solution's use cases include VMware. There are migrations from several different platforms and servers using virtual environments.

Several of our customers with just SSD components implemented Dell PowerStore, and their reporting time went from two hours to ten minutes.

The solution's migration feature is very valuable, but the most valuable aspect is that more features appear with every iteration of the software.

Our organization uses CloudIQ to manage and analyze our Dell storage. Using CloudIQ has benefited our organization by projecting when we'll be full and telling us about the mechanics of things. It really gets ahead of any problems.

The solution's overall energy consumption would be less than that of SSDs or traditional drives.

Dell Technologies has good environment, social, and governance (ESG) values.

We implemented Dell PowerStore to address the challenges of speed and our in-line compression. The solution also helps with power efficiency, scalability, and data reduction.

Dell will say the data reduction is four, but realistically, it's 2.5. If the customer approaches Dell, they ask the customer to read the fine print. I've had to buy drives for my customers because Dell was unclear on making it good. So, we made it good ourselves because of our reputation.

We use Veeam for backup because Dell cybersecurity is a lot expensive.

We use Dell PowerStore's integration with VMware. Since the solution is integrated with VMware, we can perform many of our controls from VMware vCenter.

We have been able to reduce our organizational footprint using Dell PowerStore. We had a component with six departments, and we went from 12U to 2U, which probably used less power.

The environment in which this solution is used depends on the customer. Most of the time, it's either in a data center or a corporation.

Two clients use AWS, and others use Azure to deploy the solution. Dell PowerStore is a reliable solution.

The solution's pricing needs to be moderated a bit. As a partner, I'd like to be added to each customer's CloudIQ to take a look.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for three years and five months.

Dell PowerStore is a stable solution.

The solution provides good scalability.

The solution provides good technical support.

Positive

I previously used the Compellent solution. We switched to Dell PowerStore because Compellent was approaching its end of life, and all its features are included in Dell PowerStore.

Dell PowerStore is implemented in the data center in person, and we've been doing the deployment ourselves as a certified partner.

The solution provides a return on investment within 12 to 18 months.

The solution’s pricing is always too high.

Before choosing Dell PowerStore, we evaluated Pure Storage.

Overall, I rate the solution nine and a half out of ten.

We have a lot of distribution centers, and we are looking at infrastructure that gives us that low latency and helps us with the IoT and edge computing, like, robotic arms and things like that.

We implemented Dell PowerStore to address security and latency in our infrastructure.

The biggest benefit we have seen from Dell is the speed to market. In the past, we struggled to meet demand in our facilities, and with the Dell partnership, we are seeing the benefit.

Dell PowerStore helps with our workload reduction. At the end of the day, our goal is to reduce our TCO. 

The latency and the security are the most valuable features of Dell PowerStore. The latency is important because we are a distribution center that has workers who pick drugs and medical devices off the conveyor belt, so the efficiency is important. We also want to make sure that everything is secure and that we have an easy way to manage our infrastructure. 

Dell PowerStore can improve the integration with VMware.

I have been evaluating Dell PowerStore for six months.

So far the stability has been good.

We have not had any concerns about the scalability so far.

The technical support has been good so far but we are still in the evaluation phase and have not run into any major issues.

Positive

We previously used Pure Storage and a lot of legacy tools. We switched to Dell PowerStore based on the recommendations from Dell about the increased security and what we heard from others that PowerStore is a better solution.

The deployment was good.

We used Storage IT and Dell for the implementation.

We evaluated Pure but decided on PowerStore because of the cost.

I would rate Dell PowerStore eight out of ten for its security and TCO.

We use Dell PowerStore for our SAN appliances. It holds and runs pretty much all of our infrastructure. All our network devices connect to it, and then that runs block-based storage for all our VMs.

Dell PowerStore has really expanded our storage abilities, whereas we were earlier locked up with physical space storing stuff. We used to run out of space, and getting that extra footprint helps.

The solution's most valuable features are its form factor and switching to NVMe. Dell has lowered its footprint and power consumption. Regarding functionality, the management in the box itself between the nodes and automation between the nodes are quite nice.

CloudIQ is a fantastic feature that gives us a good overview of everything we have. With the depreciation of the SRS, we have to use that quite a lot more because they're moving everything over to CloudIQ. CloudIQ has been nice on a very broad term for our multiple appliances. Even with Dell PowerStore, we have the ability to keep an eye on two because they're not clustered together.

Dell PowerStore has been amazing in its overall energy consumption. The solution's ability to not have to max out a circuit just for our storage rack is amazing. It gave us a lot more freedom to expand with the existing power that we already have without having to get electricians to redo everything.

We were looking to address the challenges of physical storage size and power consumption by implementing the solution.

The data-at-rest encryption and its encryption features allow us to get to a higher consistent level of security possible.

The ability to use Dell PowerStore for our AI-driven workloads is very important. The processing isn't done there, but the AI systems being processed are still stored on the endpoints.

We have been able to reduce our organizational footprint by one standard rack using Dell PowerStore.

We had an issue where we lost both nodes, completely lost all our caching, and had to rebuild that whole appliance from scratch. We need to find a way to ensure the cache data is safe and secure. When we're maintaining it, it takes five to ten extra minutes to confirm it so we don't run the risk of something happening. There needs to be some sort of better feedback between the two nodes.

The one was running online as a master, but somehow, the caching was lost because both the nodes were offline. No one had any references to that cached data, which completely destroyed our data. Something needs to be done with the caching to ensure that if some issue occurs, there needs to be an ability to disable caching during maintenance to make it static, safe, and good.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for two years.

The solution's stability is good.

Dell PowerStore is a super scalable solution.

The solution’s technical support is amazing.

Positive

We switched from our previous solution to Dell PowerStore because it was getting old and taking up too much space in the rack. Since we didn't have any more racks, we didn't have any more plugs.

Since Dell did the deployment for us, it was as smooth as it could be.

Overall, I rate the solution a six out of ten.