What is our primary use case?
Most of our PowerStore units are used for VMware VMs and vSphere. We migrated the VMs from our Unity storage.
We have two sites; the data center site (DC) and the disaster recovery (DR) site. We only use the PowerStore on the DC site. The project was put on hold due to COVID but we plan to continue with it this year.
How has it helped my organization?
VMware integration with the product is good. We use vSphere, which is one of the main VMware functions. In addition, we use vSAN for storage, and we have to use the SIEM.
This solution has helped us to simplify our storage operations, although we have a lot of storage devices and too few administrators. Because of this, we're looking for a software solution to assist us with administration. This is something that we will be doing next year.
Overall, we're quite happy with the product because we can move the data that is stored on more than 10 of our current storage devices to a single PowerStore. In terms of efficiency, this solution is the best choice for us.
What is most valuable?
The deduplication and compression features are quite impressive because when we enable this feature on other products, such as HPE 3PAR, we have a lot of latency. With PowerStore, we don't have that issue.
This device is less CPU intensive than the EMC Unity and the HPE 3PAR.
PowerStore supports the iSCSI interface, which we find helpful. We use one for our fiber channel but another one for iSCSI.
What needs improvement?
There is no Synchronize replication feature on the storage.
PowerStore should include more NAS functionality.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using EMC products since 2003, although I began using Dell EMC PowerStore only last year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability-wise, we have had no issues at all. In the past, all of our EMC products have been stable. We have not had the storage fail or had a faulty port. We have not even had to call support since putting it into production.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We plan to expand our usage in the future. One of our next goals is to purchase a PowerStore for our DR site because we need to have replication for our financial use case. We also plan to replace some of our other storage devices with PowerStore because we need to improve the overall efficiency.
How are customer service and support?
We have not opened a technical support case with Dell for PowerStore but because most of our products are from Dell, we have dealt with them in the past. We have purchased approximately 100 servers from Dell and we have always been quite happy with their support. We don't have any issues with them and I would rate them a ten out of ten.
Every time we have an issue, they work with us to resolve the problem. There has never been a need for a repeat call and we are quite happy with that.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have many Dell EMC Unity storage devices, including the Unity 450 and Unity 650, but we wanted a new, smaller storage unit.
The main reason that we moved to PowerStore was the compression and deduplication.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easier than other products, such as Unity.
We were able to set up the storage and put it into production within one day. PowerStore is very quick to set up. By comparison, Unity will take at least two days to install.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We are happy with the pricing that we get from Dell.
What other advice do I have?
This solution enables us to add compute and capacity independently, although we have not had to change our configuration.
PowerStore uses machine learning and automation for optimizing resources but we are just starting with it, so I don't know much about these features.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
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.