Dell SC Series Reviews

Dell Compellent storage just provides for our storage needs.

It has given us a reliable and dynamic storage system that we did not match before with our previous solution.

The feature I have found the most valuable is that the interface is easy to use which makes the product user-friendly.

I think it would be nice if the connection were better integrated with the network so I could get a broader view of both the network and the system. This would be good in order for us to be able to troubleshoot anything that is going wrong.

The product has improved so much over the years that it is hard to think of something else that it really needs to be improved now in comparison to where it was. It is actually kind of good the way it is. Nothing is really annoying me right now. It is really just working and you hardly have to know it is there.

The product is both stable and scalable.

It is a scalable product. We don't have any problem with that. Right now we have about 600 end-users on the system.

I'm very satisfied with the company's technical support. It's very nice. We were using Dell's Copilot Support and it was really very good.

Five years ago we used to have some off-brand thing. It was not a very good solution. It was just a collection of hard drives. When we got to a point we realized it wasn't able to do the job we had to choose another solution. That was when we did a little research and switched to a virtual environment and went with Compellent.

I think that overall the setup was pretty complex. It is not something you just set up in a heartbeat. You need to do some configuration so it takes a little bit longer than just push a button to install.

I think that overall that the product is very good for us and what we need it to do. 

The advice I would give to other people considering Compellent depends on what they want to do and what they want to use it for. I'm going with a hybrid converged infrastructure now. If you looking for traditional storage then I would definitely recommend it.

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best. I would rate Compellent overall as a seven.

Our primary use case of this solution is for deduplication software but that is just one of the features we use it for. We also use it for infrastructure protection or other objectives.

The most valuable features would be the ease of use and the cost effectiveness. Compared to other mid-range constrict technologies from Dell, this is a much cheaper solution.

Compared to other solutions, Compellent comes in the form of a component that's not true of a unified storage platform, for instance, to block a level of support can only be done through two different platforms.

The solution is very stable.

It is easy to scale - you can either add additional hard drives, or use expansion closures. That makes it easier to scale. We have a broad spectrum of small, medium and large-scale clients, and we are able to cover all sizes of organizations.

The technical support is quite good, especially coming from the speed of the technology and support that we received in the past. So yes, it's quite recommendable.

The setup and installation are much simpler now because Dell has standardized the configure process. 

I would definitely recommended this solution to others. However, if they are looking at the unifier, there are other alternatives. I would like to see it becoming more unified in the next release. I will give it an eight out of ten, because I think there is room for improvement. Nothing's perfect.

We are a solution provider and this we resell this solution to our clients.

The most valuable features are the Compression and Deduplication.

It is difficult to say where this solution needs improvement because it is very good.

While the price is competitive, in the next release it would be better if they could reduce the fees.

I think that Dell EMC is one of the best technical support services in Ukraine.

I am satisfied with the technical support.

The initial setup was straightforward, it took one day to deploy it.

The deployment model is for all cloud types.

We deployed this solution ourselves.

The pricing of this solution is competitive.

We are partners with Dell EMC.

I would recommend this solution.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

The compression capability is the solution's most valuable feature.

The interface could be simplified.

The cost of the solution could be better.

The solution is stable.

I'm unsure about how truly scalable the solution is. It might be scalable. I don't know for sure. We have about 100 people using it right now.

Technical support is very good. I do use it from time to time and it's always excellent.

We did previously use a different solution. We switched because there's big portfolio in our environment. Sometimes it's Compellent, sometimes it's IBM.

The initial setup is okay.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

I would recommend it to others. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

The solution's most valuable features are its storage capabilities and its duplication.

The solution could use more integration with popular backup systems. Dell storage solutions are not very integrated. There are no dedicated models for, for example, Veeam backup or Redhouse backup, etc.

The lower model, the 3000, should have duplication. It doesn't right now. It's only from 5000 that this is offered, but it depends on the performance. It could be they don't offer it on lower models because the duplication is too much of a burden to the performance.

The solution is stable; we've had no problems at all.

Scalability is okay, but the pricing of additional discs is pretty high. It's more optimized for the whole model of discs, not for single disc upgrades. We have about 500 users on the solution currently.

Technical support is good. They have good information and good remote monitoring of the systems. There are good accessibility and knowledgable engineers, so overall, we have a very good impression of the support of this solution. The take a reasonable amount of time to answer our queries.

We didn't previously use a different solution. We added this to replace some older methods because it's flexible and the visual storage was generally a very good idea.

The initial setup was rather straightforward. Deployment took about a month for the  5000, and the SC 3000 took about a week.

In terms of assistance with implementation, for the 5000 we used the Dell pilot program and for the SC 3000 we used a reseller.

We purchased the whole package at once. We don't pay any additional fees annually.

We are using the private cloud deployment model and utilize both the 3000 and 5000 models of the solution.

My advice to others considering using the solution would be, first of all, to buy the full disc on the shelf, not part of the shelf. Buy all the discs, and then buy another shelf because it's most effective financially. Buying a single disc is extremely ineffective and extremely expensive.

I would also advise others to look for backup software that is compatible. If you use something and it's not supported, you may be disappointed. We don't use it and don't plan to use it, so this is not a problem for us. There are probably others, however, that may look for an optimization method for their backups.

I would rate the solution eight out of ten; it would be higher if the solution had better integration capabilities.

We are heavily virtualized and it is used for the storage. It's performing well, we have had no issues to date.

It has improved our organization because before, we had the storage in silos. This solution allowed us to consolidate into a single Compellent system. That helped us to maximize our management greatly. 

The most valuable feature is the ability to replicate. We are running a financial company and it needs to be available 24/7. We can't afford any downtime.

The response time is also great.

We've had failures with disks, but no downtime. We were able to change them before they caused a problem.

It is a stable solution. We haven't had any downtime.

It can scale. We actually added a different chassis to it during the time we were using it.

Technical support was responsive, we got to the right person. We have never had a problem with them.

We were using EqualLogic before we went to the SC Series. We switched because we had them in silos so we needed to consolidate.

When we select a vendor, our most important criteria is that we should be able to depend on their product. Absolutely no failures. Uptime is most important.

I wouldn't say the setup was straightforward. It was complex, but it was manageable at the same time.

The solution is affordable. We bought an entry-level solution and, for the price and the amount of storage that we got, we consider it a deal.

We are a Dell EMC shop, so we always go with Dell EMC and Vmware as we have never been in a situation where we were unable to find a Dell product that suited our requirements perfectly. 

If you don't have a SAN infrastructure, this is a great one, a great entry-level SAN to start with.

We are actually moving on to a vSAN. Within the next two months, we won't be using the SC Series anymore and will be migrating away from it to a vSAN. There were no problems with the SC Series, we just wanted to implement a hyperconverged system.

The SC Series performed the functions we needed it to perform.

We're starting our ScaleIO implementation. We have vSAN but we also have software-defined. Our primary goal is to reduce our infrastructure costs by having another offering out there, outside of the traditional SAN storage environment.

It's definitely scalable, definitely fits the majority of our use cases, in high-performance environments such as Oracle, SQL, and so forth.

In particular, for us, we have two primary data centers. The hospital is located in New York but we have two data centers in New Jersey. So geo clustering is a big thing for us, for our active-active environment.

It's still an early phase for us, but as of right now it's stable.

We've been looking at it for some time, and we decided to go for it for our projects for this year.

In terms of the initial setup, we did two. We did the software-only and we also did the hardware. Software-only was pretty straightforward. With hardware, the challenge we had was that we're pretty siloed in our environment so we had to get networking involved. It was the complexity of the network which was difficult, to make sure we had the performance in the environment.

Start slowly. Generally, initially, you'll get pushback because people are used to traditional storage. Start with what we call low-hanging fruit. For example, we put our test environment on it. Once people become comfortable with it, see that it performs well, then they'll start looking for it for the higher-tier environments.

We're using VMware and it's particularly easy, you just provision the storage. But when it's a physical environment and you're trying to go to that environment you have to have a migration, usually a whole space migration. We try to get away from that because it's time-consuming, after hours, and so forth.

I would rate the SC Series at seven out of ten right now. That might change as future releases come out and more functionality comes into the product.

What we are using from Dell EMC is their server line and their storage line. We're pretty well embedded with Dell EMC.

We no longer have an issue, especially in the support arena, of wasted hours: getting support, waiting for support to arrive onsite. It's been a huge time saver for us.

The most valuable feature is the customer support. Everyone has a product that goes wrong. It's how well they handle it when it does, and Dell EMC has been tremendous at that.

In terms of managing the solution, they've gone from "not bad to manage" to "downright easy."

We have integrated the system with Exchange and vSphere, among others.

They need to make it a little cheaper.

I won't entertain any other vendor at this point.

In terms of scalability, so far, so good. We run a whole lot of different product lines. The ability to scale, at least within the product series, has been wonderful.

Technical support has been top-notch.

The only thing that made the setup difficult were the layers of project management. I know they're going through some changes as Dell and EMC merge, but they really need to take a strong look at how project managers are deployed and what their level of knowledge is. More often than not, I'm having to run those calls.

We've been able to take them and run them completely to end-of-life. For us, storage side, that's about five years. We consider that the best turnover rate for us, while for server hardware it's three years. With support contracts, they've all made it to the end of those time frames.

Licensing, especially on the storage line, could use some simplification. It's not terrible, but, for example, with the Isilon series, they've gone to completely a la carte. A la carte is very difficult to traverse, when it comes to what you need. It would be more beneficial, at least from my point of view as a customer, if they did it more like car companies do, where there are package lines. That would be my one complaint.

I always recommend them.

Regarding the purchasing process, we were working with a VAR and they helped loop us together with the sales engineers and usually, within a few hours of discussion, we were able to drill down on everything. We had a product solution figured out, and almost next-day.

The most important criteria when selecting a product like this are the reliability of the equipment itself and the support.

I rate the solution at nine out of ten. They've really got the customer service, especially in the support arenas, nailed. They make information-gathering on their solutions, especially during pre-sale, easy to do.