Dell SC Series Reviews

We use it for multiple databases. We use it for Oracle and for SQL. We also use it for file systems — Oracle, SQL, file system storage. Most of our use cases involve Oracle, SQL, VMware, and large file systems.

I am a storage architect. have a state administrator that works with me as well.

Internally, within our company, there are a few dozen employees using this solution. Externally, we literally have millions of people that hit that storage system every day.

As far as our database administrators, they're always looking at the storage performance. Some of them actually have read-only log-ins to the storage array itself. They can log in and look at directly what the storage performance is for their database.

Currently, we are not using this solution extensively because it's becoming a sunset solution. There's no option to increase usage. It's like saying you want to buy a '65 Mustang — no, you can't get one brand new, they don't make those anymore. There's no expansion being done because the product's no longer available. 

It's allowed us to have one hundred percent uptime over the last five years — maybe more. One hundred percent uptime on our storage as far as quantitative numbers go.

They have a feature called Live Migrate; it's been very, very useful. It allows us to move storage from one SC series array to another, with no downtime. That's a very useful feature. The other useful features are, of course, high availability architecture that's built into it. That's very useful.

There's always room for improvement in the operating code; minor improvements here and there. We haven't had any real requests for them lately. I can't really think of anything.

Support for Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVME). Most of the newer storage systems support it, but this one doesn't because of its age. Support for that was something we had looked at, but they said, "No, we're not offering that with this. It's going to be in the next product, not in this product because the architecture is just too old." 

I'd look for that — support for NVME. That's really the only supportable or new feature that I'd really be looking for.

I have been using Dell EMC SC Series for roughly 12 years.

Dell EMC SC Series is very stable.

It's very scalable. That's one of the things we like about it — it's highly scalable.

The technical support is very good.

We were using EMC Clariion.

It's gotten better over the years. Initially, back in '08, it was very complex. Nowadays, it's a lot more simple and easier to deploy depending on which model you purchase, too. Some models are easier to deploy than others. I would say, for the most part, it's pretty simple.

Deployment took roughly two to three days, using professional service from Dell. We purchased the help of a consultant to assist us with deployment. It was a good experience overall.

Only one person is needed for deployment. Two people are needed to provide maintenance.

Performance would be a good return on investment indicator — the performance of the array. High availability features are a good indicator of the ROI. Those are probably the top two, the performance and availability.

The support we pay annually. Support typically depends on the array. It can range anywhere from $7,000 to a couple of hundred thousand dollars. It just depends on the specific one you're talking about and how big it is. It's based on size. The larger the array, the larger the maintenance cost. It's hard to really give you a range because the range is so wide. I don't even know if it'd be useful because you're talking anywhere from $5,000 to $250,000, depending on which specific array you're talking about. 

We looked at Kaminario as a storage vendor. We also looked at NetApp as well.

The reason why we didn't go with them was due to the price and the features that they had at the time. The feature set that the SC series had was better than the others.

My advice would be to look at the succeeding product, the replacement product that replaces it.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Dell EMC SC Series a rating of nine.

Just looking back at it over time, the initial setup was a little more difficult back in the 2008, 2009 timeframe. If that wasn't so difficult back then, I would give them a ten. As I said, that did get better. They got much better over time, but that's why I said nine out of ten.

The useability is the most valuable aspect of the solution. 

I've found the stability to be very good. 

The solution is scalable. 

We have found the solution's technical support to be helpful.

The model of the device is quite old. They need to update it a bit. 

From a performance point of view, it's getting a bit old. Although I know that the storage that we are using is a bit old as well. Beyond that, I don't see any other features that I'm exactly missing.

I've been using the solution for about two years or so, give or take. It hasn't been that long. 

The solution is quite stable and the performance is good even though it is getting old. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. We find it reliable. 

The solution can scale well.

We have about ten people using the solution in our organization. 

Technical support has been quite good. We are very satisfied with the level of support we receive. 

We've worked with a few similar solutions, including HPE Nimble Storage. If you compared it to this solution, I'd say that both have good value and both have their place in environments that are a bit different. I wouldn't compare them directly.

I haven't been involved in the usage or installation of the device.

The solution is coming to the end of life. They don't really sell them as new products.

I'm a user, consultant, and reseller. 

I can't remember the exact version number of the solution, however, the model of the series is 5020.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

Dell EMC SC Series has many valuable features.

We are very satisfied with Dell EMC SC Series.

The user interface is good, I would rate it a nine out of ten.

We had some issues with the battery in the previous version that we were unable to resolve. We are unable to resolve this issue, despite the fact that we have been using this product for over five years.

The price could be improved.

We have been working with Dell EMC SC Series and storage for more than 10 years.

We work with both the MD3620F and PowerStore 1000T versions.

Technical support is good. We have received good next-day technical support from them.

We are also working with NetApp.

The pricing is reasonable, but it is expensive.

We are partners with both NetApp, and Dell EMC.

I would rate Dell EMC SC Series a nine out of ten.

The flexibility of this solution has been valuable for our business. 

This solution could be improved if overall performance was improved and operated with a higher speed and supported a higher volume of RAM. 

I have used this solution for one year. 

The initial setup was complex, specifically when integrating this solution with other technology. The deployment was easier and offered flexibility. Before deployment, I would suggest checking other technology to ensure there is compatibility. 

This solution could be better priced in comparison with other vendors. 

I would recommend this solution for customers looking for Unity or PowerStore functionality.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

We only build the basic foundation and the basic installation for the end-user on Dell EMC SC Series. However, I'm not sure what they install on it. Our main use case for Dell EMC SC Series is for VMware.

The configuration could be easier in Dell EMC SC Series.

I have been using Dell EMC SC Series for approximately one year.

The stability of the Dell EMC SC Series is very good.

We have approximately 100 users using this solution in my organization.

The Dell support is helpful and the response is quick. The agents' knowledge is very good.

The installation could be easier. The comparable IBM solution is much easier to install.

The process for the installation takes approximately one day.

I did the implementation of the solution myself using the user guides.

We have the basic license for the use of this solution and it is a permanent license. The overall cost could be less, it is expensive.

I rate Dell EMC SC Series a nine out of ten.

We use the product in our company and I deal with it personally.

The solution is automated, but we still don't get a complete speech from the disc. The flash speed should be addressed. 

While the scalability is good, there are certain limitations. Our racks are at their limit, so we do not have the requisite scalability to expand. 

We would like to see replication of the data storage without the need to resort to third party tools. Storage to storage repetition would be a nice feature. 

We have been using Dell EMC SC Series for four years. 

The solution is stable. 

While the scalability is good, there are certain limitations. Our racks are at their limit, so we do not have the requisite scalability to expand.

When it comes to upgrading, we are contemplating a move to TISON, TI-1, TI-2 and TI-3. There may be a need to move between the TISON. 

As this is our first product, I cannot give a comprehensive review or rating.

I rate Dell EMC SC Series as an eight out of ten. 

We use this product for daily business and normal IT operations. We also use it for replication of one system to another system. We also use it for the hostings for HANA virtualization. Those kinds of replications and IT applications. We use a hybrid version.

It had a lot of integration and supported all the platforms, so I was happy with what they were offering. The biggest selling point was when the vendor upgraded it. Dell upgraded the software licenses sold with that. Whenever the hardware is end-of-life, we could upgrade the controller or add a new disk or whatever. There was no lifecycle of three years or five years. We could carry on just by upgrading. It had many features, like a snapshot, replication, on-the-file RAID levels, mix-and-match files, those kinds of things.

Dell could improve the upgrading process. It was the lifecycle that made it very short. You'd upgrade the disk, and in eight, nine months, it would be obsolete. They cancelled an enhancement that included an all-flash unit. This would have improved the product.

We had worked with this product from Compellent's days before Dell bought them over, so I'll presume from 2006.

We never had a single crash with this product. It was just fine. 

The support was excellent. We had this storage for a while and server monitoring from Compellent.

Any IT company can do it. It's straightforward.

Pricing is market-related and is flexible for the solution. Pricing depends on varying life cycles.

We're trying to move some people across to some other storage solutions because this product is at end-of-life. I would give this product 10 out of 10.

This is our SAN product for use with a traditional VMware setup, using VMware clusters. We have the 150 terabyte enclosure.

This product should be a lot more user-friendly.

A central management system should be put in place to make it easier to configure.

I have been using this solution for two years.

The technical support is great. We have 24/7 support with a four-hour response. They are responsive and they stay to help until the problem is resolved.

One time, we had a drive fail and we were notified before we even saw it on the device. Then, the new hardware was shipped to us the next day.

I also use HPE Nimble and I find that it is a lot easier to use and offers us more features.

I inherited this solution when I joined the company. In terms of setting it up, we add this SAN into a VMware cluster. The initial setup is unnecessarily complex, and much more so than a solution like HPE Nimble.

This product is too expensive compared to others, and I don't see any value in using it.

In summary, it's a nice product but it's too expensive and too complicated to set up.

If I were rating this product solely on the management or administrative side, I would rate it a one out of ten because it's just ridiculous. Performance-wise, I can rate it a four or five out of ten.

Overall, I would rate this solution a four out of ten.

We are a solution provider and the Dell EMC SC Series is one of the products that we implement for our customers. Our clients often use this product in a virtualized server environment for mid-range database use.

Once it's put in place, it becomes a vital tool.

Its leading feature is the price-performance ratio, which is very good.

The management is pretty good.

It has good expandability options.

The initial setup is somewhat complex and should be made simpler to do.

I have about five years' experience with this product.

I have not heard any feedback about bugs or glitches in the system. Once it's in place, it's solid.

It's fairly scalable, as long as you size it properly, to begin with. The expansion options are pretty good. Our clients for this product range in size from small to large businesses.

Technical support for this product is excellent and I would rate them a ten out of ten.

When you have questions, you get them answered

We have deployed HPE storage in some cases where it was what the customer already had installed. Some of these customers switched to Dell because their technical staff was more familiar with it.

My understanding from our engineers is that the initial setup is on the complex side. There are things that are not intuitive that make it a little more complex.

This is a solution with good performance that I recommend, and for anybody who is considering it, I would tell them to give it a shot.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

The solution is used for shared storage for the ESX cluster, VMware, or Vcenter cluster. It's a virtual machine and it's hosting space for virtual service. The primary reason we use the solution is to host the core infrastructure, the virtual servers including file servers, domain controllers, application servers, sequel servers, etc. Basically, the servers that run the business.

The solution's most valuable feature is its performance redundancy. The solution works quite well for that. The redundancy is important to us for snapshot and recovery purposes.

The product offers good performance and is quite powerful. 

The implementation is straightforward. 

While there's always room for improvement in everything, I can't really think of a specific feature of the solution that requires immediate attention.

I've been using the solution on and off for over a decade. It's been about 12 years at this point. However, I should note that I don't use it every day. 

The stability of the solution is good. There don't seem to be any issues with reliability. There aren't bugs or glitches. It works well.

The solution is targeted at small to medium businesses, I would say. It's usually something that you would put in and expand on, so, in that sense, yes, it is scalable to a degree. 

However, it is not infinitely scalable. That's not a criticism. You just need to buy the right product in the first place. I don't have any problems recommending it for companies of a certain size that may need to expand a bit.

We contact technical support all the time, so we've been in touch on multiple occasions. They are very good. They're responsive and knowledgeable. They help us when we have issues. We're very satisfied with the level of service they provide.

The initial setup is fairly straightforward. It's not complex by any means.

The time it takes to deploy the solution depends on how big it is. It's difficult to say exactly how long it will take as each company is different. At the most, it might take three days, however, it depends on where it is and what has to be set up. Right from out of the box users can start putting data on the storage. 

We handle the implementation for our clients. On top of that, wherever we've been asked to either install or work with Compellent SAN, there's usually someone on site who is trained to do basic maintenance and tasks of that nature.

I don't really have experience across different vendors. 

I'm a contractor and a Dell partner; I help implement the solution for clients, however, I'm not a reseller. I help fix and update the solution and occasionally maintain the product for clients. In my experience, the solution is usually deployed either on-premise within the office or the head office, or quite often in a co-located data center.

I would recommend the solution, however, only if it made sense for the individual company. It's not right for everyone and it would depend on the situation. A company considering implementing it should always check their requirements.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten overall. Now and then, they do break and you do have to replace them. With any solution, something always goes wrong at some point. That's not a mark against this particular product. I don't believe any product is perfect.