Dell PowerVault Reviews

We have been using Dell PowerVault for multiple users for VMRS virtualization storage, for backup storage, as well as for raw storage for the Windows servers, mapping it as a LAN.

It is easy for L1 engineers to assign the LUN and then easy for handling, taking a snapshot, and assigning the volumes. Everything is easy in Dell PowerVault instead of a NetApp.

It is easy and user-friendly, and it is mostly user-friendly for me when managing comprehensive storage data management features such as snapshots, replication, and provisioning with Dell PowerVault.

It is easy to take a snapshot with a single click on the volume, and we can also automate the snapshot on a daily schedule at a specific time. This is useful, and it is also very useful for me to recover the snapshots from the storage. If I have any data loss, it is useful for me to take the snapshot and then restore my data.

I am using scheduled snapshots with Dell PowerVault. In one of my customers' locations, we are working with the scheduled snapshots. It is easy for me to give a schedule, whether monthly, daily, or weekly, anytime I can schedule it.

It is very easy to align the storage across the platforms with Dell PowerVault, and moreover, it is useful for me to assign the data and the volumes will be easy for aligning it.

From the user point of view, it is easy to access the console. Anyone can easily access this with minimum knowledge of the storage.

I need a dedupe ratio to be improved.

I have been using Dell PowerVault for the past two years. For the past two years, I have worked in multiple customer locations with Dell PowerVault.

I did not face any crashes, downtime, or performance issues with it. It is smoother only.

I think it is easy to scale it up and out with the growing needs of the organization. I have not done any scalability testing because as I am a growing engineer, I need some time.

Based on my experience, the engineers are aligning equally for us and responding as fast as possible for P1 cases and all. It is easy for this.

I would rate the tech support between eight to nine.

NetApp has vast adoption; most of my customers are using NetApp and it produces replications with a higher dedupe ratio than Dell PowerVault. I do not know about the costing, but most of the customers go with dedupe. Hitachi storage also is being adopted by most of the customers due to cost efficiency, I believe, because Hitachi storage is cost-efficient.

It is easy to set up Dell PowerVault. I did not face any challenges. The first thing is we need to align a management IP, and then I need to give the controller IPs and then LAN IPs and all.

For me, it is easy to access and their support is very good. I did not face any disk failures often in Dell PowerVault. I think the build quality is good, so I give it a rating of eight.

The cost-saving aspects I cannot comment on because it is purely on the sales side, and then for technical terms, I can say that it has faster movement than storage I have in my own storage. It can be useful for me to store larger data. Even in the backup, it allows me to store a number of data and then for the retentions and all, it can be useful.

It is good overall. I do not have anything negative to say. My overall review rating for this product is eight.

Primarily, we have an in-house architecture where all our IT infrastructure is hosted on data centers owned by us, and Dell PowerVault is used for all the critical data stored in our infrastructure. For example, we have our local file server, local database running a SQL server, application server, and backups all stored in Dell PowerVault storages configured as presentable volumes to each of these servers or resources. These PowerVault storages are redundant, so we don't go by only one storage box, adding the DEU and expansion boxes on top of it, with RAID configuration for multiple disk redundancy.

Furthermore, we have a D2D and D2T strategy, where disk-to-disk is the first level backup, and secondary level storage includes a tape library, so disk-to-tape, meaning all the data on the disk is also copied onto tape and stored as a secondary copy. Overall, Dell PowerVault stores all the data in our 70% hosted infrastructure, which includes proprietary data, databases, and user data in our on-prem data center.

Additionally, in the contact center industry, we utilize solutions such as Verint and NICE for contact center recording and analytics, with the storage for calls and analytic outputs hosted in the backend on Dell PowerVault.

Users need to establish a use case for using Dell PowerVault, such as whether they want to store data for frequent access, long-term retention, or recycling data with incremental updates. Building a use case is essential since different storage solutions cater to different requirements.

When visiting Dell's website to search for PowerVault, users will encounter a PowerVault builder that helps assess requirements and suggest options. As a data owner, users must decide if they need JBOD, RAID 5, or RAID 6, and determine required storage space, such as 2.5 inch SAS or SSDs. Factors such as data type, access frequency, and required access speed assist in designing the infrastructure with Dell PowerVault as hardware. It's important to accurately size and configure the system, ensuring that choices around disk types and configurations align with their use case, as improper configurations can lead to poor performance. Users must understand their requirements correctly before seeking solutions from Dell to ensure they receive effective hardware.

One of the advantages of Dell PowerVault is the easy deployment because I've been handling hardware for 23 years, from desktops to servers and storages, dealing with various brands such as Hitachi, IBM, and HP Compaq. Compared to these brands, especially after Dell merged with EMC, the ease of deployment remains good. You can literally plug in the storage, and it's user-friendly, allowing any normal power user to configure it.

Beyond that, it is available in various options, starting from a JBOD if desired, to the ME series with dual controllers and expansion options, which means users don't have to keep buying the same thing but can add on top of it.

My experience with Dell PowerVault has been good in terms of longevity, as I have seen lower failure rates compared to those of other brands, with very minor issues over the years and no serious storage threatening issues. We've even used PowerVault series that we intended to use for five years for almost eight years, and it was still working fine, providing good ROI compared to any other brand, which are the overall advantages of Dell PowerVault.

In terms of disadvantages, if you do not have an existing relationship with Dell or are exploring the market for the first time, the initial acquisition cost of Dell PowerVault is high compared to competitors such as Hitachi or IBM, which often undercut prices. Dell does not engage in undercutting, and I've seen this when referring Dell to someone without a prior relationship; they often find limited options due to high initial prices dictated by resellers. It would be beneficial for Dell to enhance outreach to new customers directly to prevent resellers from scaring them away with higher pricing.

I have been in the industry for close to 23 years, and I have been handling Dell PowerVault for close to 12 or 13 years.

The backend hardware is Dell PowerVault, but we do not rely on its native functionality for any backups. Dell PowerVault's job is to ensure that it has data stored with redundancy through the PowerVault manager, while we use separate layers of backup software such as Commvault and Veeam Backup for our primary backup interface. When I mention D2D and D2T, those are managed through the backup software layer. Dell PowerVault serves as backend hardware providing redundancy via disks and RAID controllers, but actual backups and restores are handled through the backup software level. I do not use Dell PowerVault for backup and restore purposes.

We keep proprietary data in the 70% of our on-premise data center and do not expose that data to AI or cloud due to concerns over data exfiltration. However, we do utilize analytics that technically involves original AI, where we input recorded calls to obtain sentiment analysis or text output, while still maintaining 30% of our infrastructure on private cloud.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate Dell PowerVault a nine out of ten.

My use case for Dell PowerVault is that it's our tier-two storage array for VMware. We also use it as a backup target for Veeam replication.

I would say my favorite features of Dell PowerVault are that it's pretty easy to use. It has been pretty stable. Firmware updates have been pretty easy to install and updates are pretty easy to do. Replacing a bad drive is fairly simple. It is just fairly easy to administer it.

There is room for improvement with Dell PowerVault as we did have some promises about dedupe and compression that did not turn out as promised, but Dell trued up and gave us more storage for no cost. We just recently upgraded some of our Dell PowerStores for more capacity.

I have been using it for probably a couple of years, approximately five years.

The initial deployment of Dell PowerVault was pretty easy. That was a couple of years ago when we did the install, but I don't think it took more than a day to get Dell PowerVault up and running and connected.

Dell PowerVault has been stable. We had maybe one outage a couple of years ago that was due to a bug, but they fixed it on our system fairly quickly.

Dell PowerVault's scalability is good. It scales up pretty effectively.

The technical support for Dell PowerVault is pretty good and they usually get back to us in a couple of hours with a technical engineer. We are pretty happy with Dell's support overall. I would give Dell PowerVault support an eight or nine.

Positive

We have used other storage vendors such as Pure as an example. We aren't only a Dell storage shop. We have other vendors.

The initial deployment of Dell PowerVault was pretty easy. That was a couple of years ago when we did the install, but I don't think it took more than a day to get Dell PowerVault up and running and connected.

We do updates and everything for Dell PowerVault. There is caring and feeding of it, but not that much.

I don't get involved in the negotiations for price for Dell PowerVault. We get a pretty good discount. I don't think it's terribly priced, but Pure Storage is cheaper.

They both have their good points and downfalls. I think I prefer Dell PowerVault more than Pure, but I have probably been using Dell for longer. The Pure user GUI is a bit goofy. It has some complicated steps that Dell doesn't have.

We use snaps quite a bit with Dell PowerVault. We use it as a backup target for some of our Veeam systems. It is pretty good. On a scale of 1-10, I rate Dell PowerVault an 8.

Dell PowerVault is one of the best affordable data storage solutions directly attached as DAS and SAN solutions where we can integrate easily with small or medium-sized businesses. In our businesses, we used to have huge data. In this AI era, we have to manage huge data and to get the results as expected with a single prompt. Dell PowerVault helps us to manage all those things in an easier way with the help of simple SQL writing as well as virtualization, workloads, and server capacity.

One of the projects we are working on is a Power BI related project where we have to integrate multiple data sources from SAP, SQL database, Postgres, and local storage where we use some older Excels and map that data for forecasting purpose. All database kind of connectivity and displaying the Power BI report to the stakeholders and the client is quite tricky. In this case, we used Dell PowerVault where we stored all set of networks and storages direct to our data storage which manipulates and calculates by itself, analyzes, and gives us a data structure in a proper way. This helped us to read through the data and generate a wonderful report and the client is delighted with that.

Dell PowerVault has its own PowerEdge servers and will help extend raw data. It is much cost-effective, which helps us to do things much faster and deliver the product in a quicker manner.

Dell PowerVault has impacted our organization positively because when we recently showed Power BI reports for end-user clients, they are super happy. As now onwards, the data keeps on coming each and every second or minute from all different sources. At that point, we thought of how to help or make a data backup safe, per hour or per minute, so that if anything happens, we can restore. It helps a lot and with the help of workloads, virtualization, database syncing, and mainly the backup made us easy and convenient so that we can have confidence on the client that their data is safe with us and can be used or helped in generating Power BI reports for forecasting purpose.

Dell PowerVault has helped our organization streamline workflows. After we got a demo from Dell, a person visited our organization and showed how exactly we can integrate with our needs. During that time, he demoed and helped in the integration of things and from that day, it has never stopped.

The best feature of Dell PowerVault is mainly the storage. Any raw data given to Dell PowerVault will be there for lifelong and we or anyone can use those data as and when they want with the help of DAS or SAN solutions. The second one is that it is much more cost-effective compared to any other similar products. It is easy to manage because it is a browser-based HTML5 which helps to interface to easy pulling and provisioning as well as helps in health monitoring. Along with that, one feature we can see is alerting when it sees a dependency or duplicates or discrepancy in the data, which helps us in a useful way.

When we integrate multiple source data at one place and with the help of Dell PowerVault, it monitors in such a way that it maintains the system or the health in such an easier way so that it should not hang and the extraction with the help of SQL queries cannot be stuck in between. The flow should be smooth and in that case, Dell PowerVault is the best.

It is very easy to start with Dell PowerVault and any person who is technically sound mainly on networking side and software side is okay to start with. It is nothing complex integrations or requiring a big learning phase. Anyone who is a little bit technical can easily start with and keep going and helping the organization.

Dell PowerVault is more secured compared to any other. We are handling data securely stored and synced in such a way that it should not be publicly exposed.

Dell PowerVault is 100% accurate as of now. Since a long time we are using it and the feature of AI integration with it will boost it in a much easier way.

It is quite easy to manage comprehensive storage data management features of snapshots, replication, and provisioning with Dell PowerVault. As we just need to instruct it what exactly we need, we can ask for a screenshot or see the health monitor or ask for easy pull provisioning. Anything we ask it to do, it will do in a quite easier way.

We are using on-demand and scheduled snapshots with Dell PowerVault. When we use the main integration with different data sources and they communicate within themselves to see the data correctness and how the health goes with it, it helps a lot with Dell PowerVault.

Dell PowerVault is one of the best as it communicates with AI as well, which is much more ongoing in the world. It is great going now.

I have been using Dell PowerVault since last five years and in a simple way, it is one of the best tools. I am using ME5 series and it is helping me in all kinds of work from modern, entry-level, and block storage, which helps make the process faster and things going faster rather than waiting for anyone.

Since from last years, I have been using Dell PowerVault. Till now, I have not got any problem with it. Any data comes, I trust on that. Dell PowerVault is stable.

Dell PowerVault's scalability is great. We can scale it at any point of view. Initially our company strength was around 250 and now it is 500 plus. As the organization grows, we need trusted solutions. At that point of time, Dell PowerVault is the best choice.

With respect to supports, as and when we contacted Dell for any understanding we're doing it correctly, Dell PowerVault is helping us in the supports team. We appreciate all the support from Dell.

Dell PowerVault's customer support is awesome. As and when we call them, chat with them, or mail them, they are quick and responsive.

Before, we were not using any structured solution. We were just using raw data usually from different sources without integrating.

Dell PowerVault has contributed to staying within budget for our operations. It is a return on investment. We have seen a return on investment with Dell PowerVault. It is actually delivering up to 640K IOPS with scaling up to around eight petabytes of capacity. It is much faster and quicker and saves a huge amount.

For Dell PowerVault, we initiated to the higher management asking if we can try this and see how efficiently we can manage our data and how it goes in the future. This is how it has been one of the best experiences.

We have not evaluated any options before choosing Dell PowerVault.

I usually recommend Dell PowerVault to banking companies that had large databases. Their database server was connected directly to Dell PowerVault to expand the database storage on the database server.

Unfortunately, I did not cover the initial setup for Dell PowerVault. Somebody else did the setup. I just came afterwards to do the maintenance.

From a technical point, the features I find most valuable in Dell PowerVault are that it is very easy to replace drives or to detect a failed drive in the expansion enclosure.

Overall, Dell PowerVault has helped my customers streamline workflows. Our customers were quite happy with the platform.

For them, Dell PowerVault is quite scalable. They were quite happy with the platform.

Regarding Dell PowerVault, the reliability of the drives is an area for improvement, and I would appreciate a little more silent cooling because with the platform, if it is open, the noise levels are quite high.

The noise levels for Dell PowerVault need to be addressed, and the acoustics need to be a little bit reduced. I am not sure how they can implement it, but the noise levels need to be reduced.

I have been supporting Dell PowerVault for some of our clients for about 10 years or so.

I would say a seven would be an accurate measurement for Dell PowerVault's stability.

The pricing for Dell PowerVault is reasonable, and so are the replacement drives. Even if the machine is out of warranty, you can always extend the warranty.

It has contributed to staying within budget for them.

There is always good competition because some of our customers were using Lenovo DS Storage, which I was also supporting. It usually came to the customer's preference and their familiarity with the support. Most customers, if they are familiar with Dell, would rather continue with Dell.

I am not using Dell PowerVault as such. I was just doing the technical support for the customers and fixing any issues with the platform.

Unfortunately, I did not work on the management side of Dell PowerVault. I was just providing technical support on the hardware platform. I did not work on the management platform for Dell PowerVault. I do not have experience with that.

My review rating for Dell PowerVault is 8.

My main use case for Dell PowerVault is that we sell it to customers.

A specific example of how my customers use Dell PowerVault is for data storage.

Customers have what they need with this solution, and the best part about the use is that it is excellent.

Dell PowerVault has a positive impact on my organization and on my customers' results through the availability and integrity of the data.

Data availability positively impacts my customers' operations by ensuring it is available, since operations cannot stop.

I think the best features that Dell PowerVault offers are mainly the support.

In addition to support, I consider quality to be another valuable feature in Dell PowerVault.

Regarding the AI features of Dell PowerVault, I think governance and security are good.

Regarding the AI features of Dell PowerVault, I find the accuracy and reliability of the results are good.

In my view, Dell PowerVault could not be improved as it delivers what it offers and what customers need.

I have been using Dell PowerVault for about 10 years.

Dell PowerVault is stable.

The scalability of Dell PowerVault meets needs very well.

Customer support is very good, a 10 out of 10.

We do not make the investment because we sell to the end customer.

My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing is that it is on-premises and the costs are currently very high.

Before choosing Dell PowerVault, customers usually evaluate other options like Lenovo and HPE, which can be found on PeerSpot.

I rate Dell PowerVault a 9 out of 10.

I chose that rating because for the types of customers we offer it to, it is the best in terms of quality.

Dell PowerVault is implemented in my organization as a private cloud using our own in-house cloud provider.

My advice to others considering using Dell PowerVault is that you can purchase it because it meets all expectations.

Because of reliability and consistency of the product, the typical use case for Dell PowerVault is very strong.

The solution is easy to configure and reliable. The performance is very good.

Storage consolidation is quite easy to configure on it.

Dell PowerVault's interface is user-friendly.

I think expandability could be improved for Dell PowerVault. It should be easier to expand and get expansion on it.

I have worked on Dell PowerVault for more than seven to eight years.

It is a stable solution in my opinion.

It is a scalable solution, but there are few limitations. The scalability is present but it is a bit complex to scale to the desired level. When we needed to increase the performance, we faced some issues.

I would rate my experience with technical support as nine out of ten.

Positive

We had a partner, not an integrator, reseller, or consultant for the deployment.

The first time was a bit complicated as we were having difficulties adapting it within our system for the initial setup of Dell PowerVault. Once it was adapted, it has been performing quite well.

We had a partner, not an integrator, reseller, or consultant for the deployment.

Regarding the return on investment with Dell PowerVault, we have definitely seen cost savings.

The pricing is quite competitive in the market for the solution. When compared with HP and IBM, the price is quite competitive, though it could be better. We were getting other products at a cheaper price but we preferred Dell PowerVault as a partner because of the brand name.

The experience has been good with Dell PowerVault.

I am a customer and end user of Dell solutions.

I do not use Dell PowerVault's data protection mechanisms.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution an 8.

We use Dell PowerVault for the storage consolidation of SMBs. 

Dell PowerVault offers valuable full flash storage. 

The product is generally stable, but there have been instances, to my knowledge, where we faced issues in the controller during software upgrades. The availability is not at the desired level during these upgrade processes, as we sometimes need to shut down both controllers. This could be an area for improvement.

I have been working with the product for 15 years. 

The product is sufficient for the SMB market. In terms of size, it caters well to SMB needs, providing full flash for production and backup storage with nearline SAS disk.

I haven't contacted technical support yet. However, my customers are less satisfied than before with support. 

I rate the solution's pricing a seven to eight out of ten. 

The product is mostly for small and medium businesses. I rate it an eight out of ten. 

The solution is suited for small companies. It has a simple setup. If you want to virtualize something, then you buy two hosts.

The solution is stable. It is a simple and better vault solution than Synology.

Many features are coming up for Dell PowerVault. Most of these features are available on the Dell cloud IO platform. They include reporting and monitoring capabilities. While some customers may not need all these features, the platform performs very well for a particular region. It is a good solution with many possibilities for every type of customer. Customers who need more features than PowerVault offers can scale up to the next model, such as PowerStore, PowerScale, vPlex, or Extreme IO. The possibilities are endless.

There could be a starting model where you have a central storage solution for a pretty good price.

I have been using Dell PowerVault for one year.

The solution is a fairly good solution with built-in high availability.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

The solution’s scalability is limited.

If you are limited in sizing, you can add four nodes to one PowerVault cluster. You will get around 82 to 100 terabytes of storage. If you are a company with five users, it would be fairly enough to work with. Still, if you are a company with 5000 users, you are making the wrong decision upfront by buying PowerVault, so don't buy it because it's not scalable for the solution.

The technical support could be better. The problem with Dell support is that you have to explain your case to multiple people, which can be frustrating and time-consuming.

The initial setup is simple. You have to plug into the power, connect to the control, and get started. The deployment of Dell PowerVault depends on the communication method. Different deployment approaches are employed for private channel communication, ISKG integration, or direct-attach storage scenarios.

We have to buy the box along with the support.

Dell PowerVault has an integration tool with Veeam Backup & Application. However, you can purchase Avamar from Dell if you want a more robust integration.

There are some good things about the Dell PowerVault. It is quick and easy to use. However, if you made the wrong decision in choosing your platform and have big expansions in your company, it may not be worth the money. It is reusable for other purposes, but you can combine it.

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

We choose Power Vault when we need some basic storage, which would be deployed just behind the data call, for example, or just directly attached to a server. So it's regularly, it's not for a functional library. It's all basis needed process rate.

We like the simplicity of the environment and the stability of the platform.

The room for improvement lies in the responsiveness and real-time feedback of the web server setup. We could set up the installation through a web server, but it's not very reactive on the web server. For example, when you launch a task, and you don't know exactly if the task has begun or if the task is in progress, or if it's finished. You have to wait for three to five to ten minutes to be sure that the task is running or in progress or finished. So at that point, it's not very good. For the rest, we have a good organization for the platform. And it's working everywhere.

Another area of improvement is duplication. 

I have been working with this solution for 20 years.

The stability is quite good. Once you deploy all the equipment, it's very stable.

The stability also depends on the type of disk that is installed. But in general, this type of equipment is quite stable, and we have not had any problems with it.

You can extend your library. You can add some disks. But you have to rebuild your environment, so it's not very easy. And you can add some other libraries. You can add some cables to extend it, but it's not very easy to do. So it isn't very easy because the technique used to do that is not very easy. You have to work strictly to rebuild all the alignment. So, maybe this is an area of improvement.

There are around 10 to 15 customers using this solution.

The customer service and support are good.

The initial setup is quite easy. It is very intuitive. It is good.

The time taken for the deployment depends on the size of the storage. For a small storage, it could take half a day. For a large storage, the time to format and initialize the disks could take a while. So it could take one or two days.

We have a team of five engineers for the deployment and maintenance of the solution. 

The customers pay for the equipment, and it's not very expensive. There are no additional costs. 

You have to pay at the beginning for the equipment unless the equipment is not the right one. You have not chosen a good one, so you have to change, but you cannot improve some function of that equipment. You can improve the storage and the capacity, but you cannot improve the zone environment, the functional environment.

I would rate the pricing model a nine out of ten, with one being expensive and ten being cheap.

I would advise you to be sure that this type of equipment is the right one because if you want some advanced function, it's not a good one. So, to be sure that it's a good device for their environment. If not, you will not be very happy.

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