Dell PowerStore Reviews

I use the solution in my company as block storage.

The tool's most valuable features are compression and speed.

The particular models of Dell PowerStore we use in our company are our main storage tools for the commercial insertion business we do. In our company, we Dell PowerStore so that we can store a lot of data in it and the compression is really needed so that we can just have the space.

Regarding the size of my company's environment and how much space we use in the tool, I would say that we use close to 500 terabytes of data.

The product is great in terms of workload consolidation, power efficiency, and performance. The performance increase from the use of Dell Compellent and Dell Isilon is one of the reasons my company picked Dell PowerStore, which is so that we can get the compression and speed that it provides. The tool automatically reduces our workload time. In our company, we used to have job times running into hours, like 12 or 14 hours, and it has now been reduced to two hours because of the tool's speed. Instead of 4:1 data reduction, my company only gets 3:1 data reduction. My company is waiting for the patches and product to proceed with its next release so that we can get the 5:1 data reduction feature.

I use Dell PowerStore's integration capabilities. My company uses VMware on Dell PowerStore.

Dell PowerStore's integration with VMware has been beneficial in areas like speed and compression.

My company has been able to reduce footprint and data consolidation. In my company, we were able to consolidate all of our Barebone Servers onto VMs, and then onto Dell PowerStore. My company has been able to consolidate around sixty different servers along with an equal amount of virtual machines using Dell PowerStore.

Monitoring is an area of concern in the product where improvements are required. My company monitors a lot of stuff. My company does monitoring through SNMP traps since Dell PowerStore doesn't allow us to do any monitoring. It is pretty hard for our company to have a central monitoring system on Dell PowerStore since it doesn't have any monitoring capabilities.

I have experience with Dell PowerStore for years. My company has been using Dell PowerStore 3000T for four years, and we plan to move to Dell PowerStore 3200T soon. I am a user of the tool.

The product has been stable, and my company has not faced any issues. My company may have dealt with a handful of failed drivers. There was an issue where the memory got bad, and our company had to replace the memory part.

The scalability of the product is not something that is currently applicable to my company. I don't have any experience with the availability features of the product.

Based on whatever little service my company has used from the support team, I feel they are good. Though the technical team takes time to provide an answer to a query, I have noticed that they always provide the correct solution. I rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

Positive

My company does use other products apart from Dell PowerStore, but my group does not use any other tools.

My company did not have any issues with the setup process. The only issue my organization had with the product was associated with the monitoring part.

I am not aware of any savings that may be made from the use of the product.

Dealing with the licensing part of the product is very simple, especially considering the fact that we don't have many licenses associated with the tool.

My company did evaluate other products in the market, especially since there were different vendors offering different platforms in the market.

I cannot evaluate Dell PowerStore's pros and cons against other solutions since my company has been a Dell shop for years.

My company has not faced any issues with the product, and we also enjoy the speed and flexibility the tool provides when managing our workload.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

The main use cases for Dell PowerStore involve using it for applications that are compute and storage-sensitive. It is mainly the monitoring system that has a heavy load. Other than that, there are some critical internal applications that cannot have any time drift. 

One of the specific challenges we are trying to address is migrating from our existing infrastructure. The power consumption isn't entirely dependent on Dell PowerStore, but when it comes to heavy applications, the power consumption goes high. We have a Dell PowerStore at three or four sites right now. We are trying to see if we can roll it out to another three to five sites. 

We have about five Dell PowerStore appliances, and we are using the 500T model.

Dell PowerStore's compression and deduplication technologies are a big help for our organization. It's saving us a lot of storage compared to what we were previously using. We are transitioning from a typical infrastructure to a cloud-native infrastructure. It is helping us move applications to a containerized environment and getting the performance we need.

Its pricing is good when compared with what we were paying for the previous storage appliance and other things. We now have everything together. The management is pretty easy for us. A new person can easily understand it. It works very well for our mission-critical applications that can't have any delays.

Dell PowerStore’s data resiliency and cybersecurity features meet our organization's needs. 

The specific features of Dell PowerStore that I find the most impactful for our organization include using it for our NAS and SAN storage, which is a relief for us. It's natively supported with our VMware infrastructure. We are still trying to figure out how we can utilize it more. Due to the low latency on IOPS, it helps us with our critical apps that cannot afford delays. It decreases the number of incidents. The IOPS part works out well for us. 

The management UI is pretty decent and gets the job done, but the upgrade process is challenging. 

I've been working with Dell PowerStore for a year and a half.

I haven't had any performance issues with Dell PowerStore so far. 

Scalability is something we are looking at. Hopefully, we can get it in a cluster formation. At the moment, we are seeing if we can get it to a point where we do not have to interact with it every day.

We have more than 2,000 users and 11 people working with Dell PowerStore.

Dell's technical support is good. Dell has always been helpful for technical support. I didn't personally have a chance to open a case with them for Dell PowerStore, but my colleague did, and he had a good experience with them. We struggled a bit due to our time zone differences because the site we purchased it for is not in India; it's in the EU. That was the only thing that we struggled with a bit. Otherwise, the support has been good.

Positive

We used Pure Storage. We transitioned to Dell PowerStore because, with the VMs that we were running, Pure Storage used to crash. It was a pretty old solution. It hadn't been changed for a while, so the decision was made to go with Dell PowerStore.

The initial setup of Dell PowerStore was straightforward. It was pretty easy for us to set up. It took two to three days, maximum, to deploy Dell PowerStore in one location.

The migration part was a bit daunting for us. We had to move our existing data from one appliance to another.

In terms of maintenance, we haven't had any failed hard drives. It has been running fine. We just have to do maintenance every six months and make sure that the BIOS and firmware are up to date.

It required three people for deployment: one for the physical work and two engineers for migrating and managing our data.

In the long term, Dell PowerStore will help reduce our organization's CAPEX, but right now, it is a pretty hefty investment for our team.

The pricing structure and licensing model of Dell PowerStore are pretty decent. It's pretty competitive. The pricing has never been an issue, and it's fairly good. We are getting NVMe drives, so it's better than the market.

We considered distributed storage options such as Cohesity for storage solutions. We probably also checked HyperFlex with Nutanix.

Dell PowerStore's UI is good. The upgrade process is a bit complex, but there are no performance issues. Dell's hardware has always been pretty solid.

We have the VMware ecosystem and KVM. We have multiple OS running. We are looking into using it as a backup solution. We are thinking of replacing our existing storage infrastructure and have our backup solution running on Dell PowerStore.

It's a pretty reliable solution if someone's looking for a total replacement of their existing infrastructure. It's pretty easy to implement. That's one of the pros we've seen personally. It's a straightforward product, and there's not much hassle. 

I would rate Dell PowerStore an eight out of ten.

We use Dell PowerStore for storage management. We are using the 500T model. We have a standalone box and are not currently clustering multiple appliances.

The management portal is particularly user-friendly. We can access it easily, and the management software is not complicated.

With the recent firmware upgrade, we have a feature to restrict the bandwidth and throughput specifically for the volume.

The compression and deduplication that Dell PowerStore offers is performing well, especially compared to our previous storage solutions. We are achieving approximately a 2.8:1 ratio.

One suggestion for improvement would be related to volume management by both controllers. Currently, a volume is managed by a single controller, with alternate controllers managing different volumes based on load distribution. For example, if volume one is managed by controller one, volume two will be managed by controller two. In other vendors' solutions, both controllers participate in the I/Os. It would be more efficient if the volumes were controlled by both controllers in an active-active configuration.

The firmware upgrade takes longer than the other boxes. It should be better.

We have been using Dell PowerStore for three years.

I would rate the stability of the product at eight out of ten.

We experienced some concerns during a previous firmware upgrade when the controllers became unresponsive, which affected operations.

We have not performed any online scaling or scale-out operations as we use a simple standalone box. However, I believe the scalability features would be good, though I cannot speak from direct experience.

We have about 1,000 users.

I would rate the technical support a seven out of ten.

Neutral

We have NetApp AFF400, which is also good. However, since Dell PowerStore is a mid-range storage solution, it cannot be directly compared with our enterprise storage solutions. We use CloudIQ with Dell PowerStore.

It is easy. It took about a week.

We are not using ransomware protection. It is enabled in the new code, but we are not using any ransomware protection. We take a snapshot for any protection.

It is user-friendly, so we can easily manage storage. Many features are there. Compression is good, and the data configuration is good. 

I would rate Dell PowerStore an eight out of ten.

The use case for companies to buy Dell PowerStore is that it's an all-flash storage, which is needed to save their data or applications that demand faster responses. They brought it because the read and write operations of Dell PowerStore are extremely high, and the IOPS are very good compared to the other Hitachi level storage.

Dell PowerStore helps the organizations that I sell to by allowing them to buy less storage and store more capacity, which helps them save costs. Additionally, it's very durable and priced appropriately, which helps the organization to save money.

The most valuable feature of Dell PowerStore is the data compression, which is extremely good, having a data compression ratio of 5:1 that rarely other storages have in the market. This feature is very good compared to others.

What makes the data compression feature of Dell PowerStore so good is that if you need to store, for example, 100 TB of storage, you just have to buy 1/5 of it, the capacity, and then you can store that data. The compression features in the storage make it very special compared to others, apart from the day-to-day, normal data retrieving capabilities such as data deduplication, which this has something more that no other storages offer.

I would suggest that Dell PowerStore could come with various other features, such as a hybrid model apart from only all-flash, which would really help the customers.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for the past four years.

Dell PowerStore has rarely had any downtime; I have never come across it having any downtime, and the technical support is extremely good, which makes it a good product.

Dell PowerStore does not meet the needs of a small organization; Dell has Unity which meets the entry-level or SMB segment. Dell PowerStore is for mid and high enterprise segments, catering to bigger customers. Dell PowerStore can grow with a small company or if the company has less than 2,000 employees; it can grow to meet their needs.

Customer service and support for Dell PowerStore are very good, so once customers buy Dell PowerStore, they always choose to buy it again since the performance is extremely nice.

Positive

Besides Dell PowerStore, we offer other solutions such as HP solutions, Lenovo solutions, and NetApp solutions. Someone might pick Dell PowerStore versus HP or NetApp because PowerStore has the unique compression feature that other products lack, allowing them to buy less storage and save more capacity.

All Dell products are quite easy to deploy and maintain.

The success metrics that companies use to determine their ROI for Dell PowerStore are based on the kind of performance they get or the returns they see once Dell PowerStore is deployed, which are quite substantial since they always look at expanding it in the near future. They don't only buy it for a specific application; once they see the performance, they try to utilize it for all other applications as well.

The pricing of Dell PowerStore is a bit high, as it is not an entry-level storage, so it is priced higher than it should be.

The companies I sell Dell PowerStore to are extremely happy, as they keep expanding it and keep buying more shelves to expand the storage. 

A con for Dell PowerStore would be if somebody has standardized on certain products, such as only buying Dell or HP products, which might lead them to choose HP instead. HP is losing a lot of market share because of Dell PowerStore, as they do not have a product that can match it. 

I rate Dell PowerStore nine out of ten.

Our use case specifically for Dell PowerStore is for our e-commerce and data saving purposes. For our partners, we are helping to build Dell PowerStore solutions because it's very easy to reduce the size of the data. It's possible to reduce the size of data five to one compared to other competitors, which is a huge advantage. It saves space in the rack and provides other benefits.

Dell PowerStore caters to the needs of small and medium organizations. From the technical perspective, it's a perfect product for SMB and enterprise customers because of its simplicity to deploy and run. It is easily manageable.

The five to one data compression with Dell PowerStore is valuable. This compression ratio is a huge advantage in the market. We are positioning this as the first valuable feature advancing beyond our other competitors, such as HPE and Lenovo.

From our region perspective, it would be beneficial to have support with local languages for Dell PowerStore. However, English is acceptable for us as it serves our needs.

We have been using Dell PowerStore for two years, and we are satisfied with the storage because it's possible to manage all parts of the storage and align it to our needs fully.

Dell PowerStore supports growth and operational success at our company and our clients' companies. We can operate fully and be ready at any time because of Dell services and support. The RMA rate is perfect for this product.

The benefit of using Dell PowerStore is that we have comprehensive and excellent support from Dell. While we haven't experienced any issues with Dell PowerStore, when we have technical questions, we receive prompt and efficient support from Dell services. This is the main advantage for us in choosing Dell PowerStore. We could have solved our internal problems with cheaper versions from other vendors, but we chose Dell PowerStore because of the additional services we receive.

Positive

Before Dell PowerStore, we used PowerVault ME5, but we only used it for half a year because we realized we needed a more advanced solution.

Dell PowerStore is a price performance product positioned as mid-range, making it the best fit for our needs.

We have not calculated the return on investment from implementing Dell PowerStore because we only have two Dell PowerStore units, making it difficult to count with such a small amount. However, since we can run our business fully online, I believe we have seen a return on investment, though I don't have specific numbers.

We are not currently considering any other solution besides Dell PowerStore. In the near future, we might implement an SCI solution, but what we have now is sufficient. For our partners, we sell and resell all Dell technology solutions, including VxRail, Dell PowerStore, PowerFlex, and PowerScale. We have competence in all these products.

Customer service for Dell PowerStore deserves a rating of nine out of ten, leaving room for improvement. Before Dell PowerStore, we used PowerVault from Dell, but we needed more efficient and advanced storage. Dell PowerStore as a mid-range solution, fits our needs very well. As a distributor, Dell PowerStore is the main storage and driver for our partners. Internally, we are building AI cases on PowerEdge servers currently. While we are not including Dell PowerStore today, we plan to do so in the future. Our partners are already using Dell PowerStore for AI purposes, with one recent case involving hospital image storage. 

I would rate Dell PowerStore 10 out of 10.

I use the solution for storage, databases, and visualization. It serves as a storage option for our server.

It's easy, and the GUI is user-friendly. The recommendation was proper, so we adopted the solution. 

The performance is very good, which is important for storage. Performance is important for storage, with features like compression and deduplication. Performance is crucial, and the price compared to the risk isn't the worst. High availability is achieved, and the load is divided between two nodes.

Compression of data is good. It offers good resilience against ransomware. Our data is safe from attacks. I achieve a higher ability with this solution. There are features for resilience against ransomware and cyber attacks, including security. 

It's easy to manage. I use a lot of Dell solutions and find the GUI very user-friendly. 

The APEX IOPS are good. It gives a lot of good information.

We can consolidate data using PowerStore. We have a guaranteed compression of four to one. We also received extra space from the vendor.

We've been able to consolidate data by about 100% to 240%.

We've been able to increase operational efficiency. 

The data encryption is good and available in a standard license. There are snapshot and backup capabilities. 

PowerStore has helped us reduce our Capex by 20% to 40%. 

I don't see anything I need to change. I am happy with the years of use I've gotten. Nothing more is needed to meet our requirements. We have received the necessary functions, like consistent snapshots for the application. Currently, no function is missing for our needs. As long as they keep up with the quality, I would be happy.

I have used the solution for over five years.

I performed scalability adjustments this year. It was easy and simple.

Users can add capacity in single drive increments.

I'd rate scalability ten out of ten.

I am happy with customer service. I have not faced any problems.

Positive

I am still using familiar Dell products, such as PowerStore and Unity, as they are part of the same family. I'm also using PowerVault. 

We did not use a different solution previously. We've always used Dell.

The setup is easy. I implemented an instance. It is not hard. 

I need one person with some experience in storage to help with the setup. I may then possibly need more.

We currently have three devices. We are not clustering them.

There is some maintenance needed for fixes, et cetera.

We implemented the first time via a vendor. After that, it was easy to do by ourselves. 

Cost savings are evident, and we receive storage and resilience against cyber attacks. We see it as a good investment.

The cost is average.

Users can be enrolled in lifecycle extension with pro support. The pricing for that is too high for PowerStore.

The overall product rating is ten out of ten.

Our company's use case for these products includes SAN storage, virtual machines, and VM storage, particularly with Dell PowerStore, which we have been using for approximately four years now. 

The best feature of Dell PowerStore is its flexibility for expanding data storage. Dell PowerStore has helped our organization as it is a proven SAN solution that is expandable if we need it to be, and it is web-driven for manageability.

If I could improve anything about Dell PowerStore, there are a couple of in-the-weeds features that I would want to see, such as the size of snapshots to know when we can expire some of them.

We have been using Dell PowerStore for approximately four years. 

From what I have seen, it is absolutely scalable.

Our organization has about 700 to 750 employees.

I would evaluate the customer service and technical support as good. We normally go through our reseller, and then they contact Dell, and we collaborate together.

Positive

The change to Dell PowerStore occurred when Compellent, our previous solution, reached end of life. We transitioned from Compellent to Dell PowerStore.

I have seen a return on investment with Dell PowerStore as it does what we wanted it to do. It gives me peace of mind.

I have experience with the pricing and licensing. I was involved in the purchasing process, though I was not the final decision-maker.

If someone asked me about Dell PowerStore, I would say that it is priced appropriately.

We did not evaluate anyone else when we made the transition. Our reseller, with whom we have had a relationship for 20 years, looked out for our best interest.

We use PowerScale for our AI requirements, particularly with end-user cameras and similar applications. 

I rate Dell PowerStore eight 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.