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Hassan_Zaki - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Presales Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Has a simple setup process, but its scalability needs improvement
Pros and Cons
  • "It is an inexpensive storage solution."
  • "The product could support an NVMe hard disk."

What is our primary use case?

Our customers use the product for its advanced storage capacity.

What is most valuable?

It is an inexpensive storage solution.

What needs improvement?

The product could support an NVMe hard disk. The customers have to use limited storage drive types such as SSDs (Solid State Drives), HDDs (Hard Disk Drives), and SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) drives.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Dell PowerVault for four years.

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June 2025
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the product's stability an eight out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product is unscalable. Beyond a certain limit, you can't expand the performance.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup process is easy from the customers' perspective. It is simple and minimizes the cost as well.

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

The product is inexpensive. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate Dell PowerVault a six 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
PeerSpot user
System Administrator at PORTGUARDIAN.COM SRL
Reseller
Top 5Leaderboard
An exceptionally stable and scalable tool with strong capabilities related to the system and data
Pros and Cons
  • "Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
  • "The high prices of the solution are an area of concern where improvements are required."

What is our primary use case?

Right now, Dell PowerVault is working okay, but it will become obsolete soon. I will have to look for a new solution in place of Dell PowerVault.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of the solution is the strong and high capabilities related to the system and data.

What needs improvement?

The high prices of the solution are an area of concern where improvements are required.

In the future, I would like Dell PowerVault to provide me with replication features since, currently, it is a feature for which you need to make certain payments and is not included in the standard package provided by Dell.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Dell PowerVault for three years. I am a reseller of the solution. I use Dell PowerVault LTO7.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. In my company, we never had any stability issues with the product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a very scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

In Italy, my company deals with medium-sized businesses that use the solution, and it is something that you can count on your hands. As per my knowledge, I can say that there are 500 users of the solution. I don't know about how small and medium-sized companies are described in the UK.

How are customer service and support?

I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The product's initial setup was very easy. I rate the product's setup phase a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.

The solution is deployed on a hybrid cloud.

The product's deployment phase takes a few days.

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

Dell PowerVault is a really expensive product. For many solutions similar to Dell PowerVault, you need to make payments for the amount of GB you want to use. If you want to use the solution in TB, you must pay much more to use it.

I rate the product price a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high.

What other advice do I have?

I rate the overall product a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Dell PowerVault
June 2025
Learn what your peers think about Dell PowerVault. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
857,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user162129 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
MSP
Entry level storage array. Has limited scalability - perhaps below 100 server environments.

What is most valuable?

Extending volume sizes.

How has it helped my organization?

It allows on demand without disruption to growing the size of a volume which then in turn allows a system to see more disk capacity previously this required downtime and had to be schedule out of hours.

What needs improvement?

Better monitoring / event logs and firmware upgrade process.

For how long have I used the solution?

2 years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

No the San was fairly easy to install and the documentation is good.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Only once when the storage array seem to be very slow and caused VMware Hosts to not see the volumes.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Not yet, as this was for a small virtualisation environment of 20 servers and 100 desktops.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

Very good general Dell Storage support is very responsive.

Technical Support:

Technical knowledge was good.

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

EMC AX3, due to high hardware and maintenance costs Dell was selected.

How was the initial setup?

Was easy to setup.

What about the implementation team?

Vendor team, Ultima Business Solutions.

What was our ROI?

1 year.

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

Setup cost was £30k hard to determine day to day costs.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Dell EqualLogic was reviewed but deemed too expensive for the use case.

What other advice do I have?

Understand that this is a entry level storage array and has limited scalability perhaps below 100 server environments.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We're a Dell partner
PeerSpot user
it_user159420 - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder / Lead Network Consultant with 51-200 employees
Vendor
Needs to allow for larger drive sizes but gives us us the ability to have longer term storage for our customers.

Valuable Features

Expandability is the most important feature for us.

Improvements to My Organization

The MD3260 has given us the ability to have longer term storage for our customers and a reasonable price.

Room for Improvement

The MD3220i needs to allow for larger drive sizes.

Use of Solution

We have owned the MD3220i for about 2 years so far and we are new to the MD3260 only owning it for about 2 months.

Deployment Issues

The only issue during deployment is that Dell has different ways of installing different SANs. We would like to see more standardization when it comes to the full line of Dell storage products.

Customer Service and Technical Support

Customer Service:

I would rate their customer service as a 10 out of 10.

Technical Support:

I would rate their technical support as a 10 out of 10.

Initial Setup

The initial setup of both devices we have was not complex but rather tricky considering they are installed and configured in different ways.

Implementation Team

We have implemented all of our SANs in house.

ROI

With the 3260i, we use it as disaster recovery storage for our customers. Previously with the powervault, we were paying approximately .81 cents per GB. With the 3260, we are down to .18 per GB in cost. This enables us to lower prices for our customers are still make more money.

Other Solutions Considered

Since we are Dell partners, we simply chose Dell as the vendor. The ease of working with them is what is most important and their technical support has been first class.

Other Advice

The PowerVault 3220i is a good unit, but my biggest concern with it is that the unit will only support up to 1TB sized hard drives. This makes the cost of unit higher when using it as added storage. The MD3260 is a great unit, inexpensive, hold tons of drives, its expandable, and the cost is low.

If I had advice to give, it would be based on all the Dell Storage devices. Make sure you evaluate each device thoroughly and understand exactly what you need it to do. Make sure you talk with a product specialist and let them understand your motives. Choosing the correct device for the job is most important.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user5157 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr System Engineer at a outsourcing company with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
A highly reliable system with excellent IOPS performance, SD card booting options but lacking a LCD view on-board.

Valuable Features:

A highly reliable RAID system with durable high speed hard disk drives. The OS can be flashed on to a SD card thereby giving you more space for storage. I've found that the enterprise support from Dell Customer Care is excellent.

Room for Improvement:

No LCD panel for viewing status on-board.

Other Advice:

My Company has huge data requirements for which I bought this Dell Powervault NX 3200 with 10 TB storage. It was selected due to very impressive IOPS performance and has proven itself. In my company there are more than 100 users connecting to this server simultaneously and still the I/O operations are very smooth. Dell-IDRAC provides a nice way to manage and monitor its performance.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user1068 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user1068Tech Support Staff at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Real User

We have used this backup system for more than five years now to complement our cloud backup system. The only reason we still use PowerVault RAID system for backing up our company data is the fact that it has an excellent disk performance; it has never let us down apart from a few challenges we were able to overcome easily.

reviewer1278084 - PeerSpot reviewer
Pre-sale and Post-sale Engineer at a reseller with 201-500 employees
Real User
Top 20Leaderboard
Entry-level storage solution with good replication and tiered storage
Pros and Cons
  • "The initial setup was easy and simple."
  • "PowerVault could be improved by increasing its memory cache capacity and adding the ability to export data to the cloud."

What is our primary use case?

My primary uses are virtualization and general-purpose workloads.

What is most valuable?

The features I've found most valuable are replication and tiered storage.

What needs improvement?

PowerVault could be improved by increasing its memory cache capacity and adding the ability to export data to the cloud.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for a year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

PowerVault is stable.

How are customer service and support?

Dell's technical support is excellent.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was easy and simple.

What other advice do I have?

PowerVault is an entry-level model for customers needing their first storage solution. I would rate this solution as ten out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Systems Engineer at A3 Infotech
Real User
Top 20Leaderboard
A cost-effective solution for small businesses
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the tool's CloudIQ feature."
  • "If the solution came with a synchronous application, it would be particularly advantageous for small businesses operating across multiple sites."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for internal and external ERP.

What is most valuable?

I like the tool's CloudIQ feature.

What needs improvement?

If the solution came with a synchronous application, it would be particularly advantageous for small businesses operating across multiple sites.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using the solution since the early 2000s.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. I rate it a ten on ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. I rate it a ten on ten.

How are customer service and support?

We haven't used technical support for assistance. It has been running smoothly for several years now.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward.

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

The solution is more cost-effective than the competitors. It’s an affordable option for small businesses.


What other advice do I have?

Overall, I rate Dell PowerVault a ten on 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:
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
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Updated: June 2025
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free Dell PowerVault Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.