Dell SC Series provides a high-performance, cost-effective storage solution with ease of management and robust support. Users appreciate its scalability, flexibility, and efficient storage management, making it a reliable platform for diverse environments.
| Product | Mindshare (%) |
|---|---|
| Dell SC Series | 15.1% |
| Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform | 19.1% |
| IBM System Storage DS8000 Series | 17.5% |
| Other | 48.3% |
| Title | Rating | Mindshare | Recommending | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dell PowerStore | 4.4 | N/A | 97% | 220 interviewsAdd to research |
| Everpure FlashArray | 4.5 | N/A | 99% | 230 interviewsAdd to research |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 24 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 10 |
| Large Enterprise | 18 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 118 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 37 |
| Large Enterprise | 84 |
Renowned for its key attributes such as auto-tiering, replication, compression, and deduplication, Dell SC Series enhances scalability through Live Migrate and high availability features. Its efficient management with thin provisioning and data progression enhances resource utilization. The series is favored for stability, reliability, and integration capabilities, making it suitable for diverse deployments like private and public clouds, production workloads, virtual environments, large databases, and more.
What are the key features of Dell SC Series?Dell SC Series serves as a versatile storage solution across industries, supporting applications in converged infrastructure, disaster recovery, and VMware environments. Users rely on its performance for critical business applications such as Oracle and SQL file systems, maintaining its relevance and effectiveness in ever-changing technological landscapes.
Dell SC Series was previously known as SC Series Storage, Compellent.
TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric
| Author info | Rating | Review Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Architect Engineer, IT INFRASTRUCTURES Project Manager at Vilavi | 4.0 | We use Dell SC Series in a VMware hybrid environment and find its stability, replication, and management interface excellent. Setup was smooth, support reliable, though deduplication and compression could improve. Pricing was favorable due to our partnership. |
| System Administrator at Lovely Professional University | 4.0 | I use Dell SC Series for consolidating storage in both virtual and physical server environments, appreciating its versatility with SSDs and older drives. Dell offers competitive pricing, though integration with cloud storage for data replication would be an improvement. |
| Data Center Server & Storage Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees | 5.0 | I've utilized the Dell SC Series for VMware and HP UX servers, appreciating its excellent snapshots and auto-tiering features, which offer cost savings. Its interface is superior to VNX and Unity, though adding NVMe would enhance security further. |
| It adviser at a security firm with 201-500 employees | 5.0 | I primarily used the Dell SC Series for databases and virtual machines, finding it highly effective for data centers. Its performance, manageability, and installation ease were impressive, though I wished it supported NVMe over TCP. ROI and disk response times improved significantly. |
| Engineer at Fairway-corp | 3.5 | I primarily use the Dell SC Series for backups and file servers. Its main advantage is an affordable price that provides necessary support and functionality. However, the interface could use some improvement. I haven't considered other solutions or providers. |
| Managing Director at Insunginfo | 4.5 | I find the Dell SC Series to be a cost-effective storage solution benefiting my customers with its affordability, availability, and commendable performance. However, I believe there is room for improvement in its processing ability. |
| Chief Business Technology Consultant at ITech Associates (Pty) Ltd | 4.0 | I've deployed various models of the Dell SC Series for disaster recovery, and customers value its pay-as-you-grow provisioning, compression, and deduplication features. However, it lacks NVMe support. I've used IBM before but prefer Dell for its simplicity and support. |
| Infrastructure Business Lead | 5.0 | The Dell EMC SC Series was a lifesaver, offering flexible media, excellent scalability, and great performance, earning a 10/10. Though its aging architecture led us to PowerStore, its reliable tiering and Dell's support were invaluable. |
| Infrastructure architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees | 4.0 | I found Dell EMC SC Series reliable global server storage with great support for 10+ years. My main issue was reporting. Since it's phasing out, I wouldn't recommend it now, rating it an eight overall. |
| Senior Consultant at Gapp System | 4.0 | I appreciate this cost-effective, scalable primary storage for its features and ease of setup. While generally stable, some users report performance issues, and its impending discontinuation is a major concern for clients. |
The best features of Dell SC Series are stability and replication. The replication solution is excellent, and they have a solution named Live Migration. It is a robust platform. The interface and the GUI (graphical user interface) for administrating the Compellent are exceptional, with abundant information that is very clear. The management capabilities are excellent, and the stability of our storage hardware is remarkable.
For us, it is a great product. The deduplication and compression could potentially be improved, though they are already good. We cannot identify any significant areas that need improvement.
We have experience working with Dell SC Series.
The deployment was easy for us. We were supported by Dell SC Series in the installation process, and everything went smoothly. The GUI interface is straightforward to learn, and it was not difficult for us to manage and master.
The Dell SC Series demonstrates excellent stability and replication capabilities.
I would rate the technical support eight or nine out of ten. We have never had problems with them. Compared to other companies, Dell SC Series offers one of the best support experiences in my career.
Dell SC Series managed the process for us with their technicians. When we purchased the solution, we bought a package that included the infrastructure, hardware, and implementation support. The installation was excellent and perfectly controlled.
In our case, we received favorable pricing with Dell because of our strong partnership. While I acknowledge that Dell SC Series can be expensive for many companies, we received good discounts. The public prices are somewhat expensive, but our partnership allowed us to secure better rates.
We currently maintain a hybrid infrastructure with approximately 30-35% on the cloud and the remainder on-premise. Our organization, now called VILAVI (formerly Group Asso 2000), continues to evaluate whether to implement new applications or processes on cloud or on-premise by verifying prices and other factors.
The overall rating for Dell SC Series is 8 out of 10.
Basically, we have several servers, both physical and virtual. I have VMware deployed here, where I allocate storage to consolidate servers and provide storage facilities. Similarly, on the physical servers, I provide storage for end servers for data and file servers, and for database services like Dell.
I can deploy different types of hard disks, including SSDs. I can mix and match the drives, using older mechanical devices and the latest SFP drives in a single solution with different enclosures. The system automatically shifts hot and cold data according to usage, with features like resilient hardware and controllers. Cost reduction is part of my process. I negotiate and evaluate solutions from various vendors before finalizing a purchase, with Dell providing the best prices and overall hardware.
In the future, I want any box that comes on-premises to have the provision to integrate with cloud storage. If I want a second copy or need to replicate data from on-premises to the cloud, this provision should be covered in the on-premise hardware.
I have been using it for around three to four years.
I can give it a ten out of ten in terms of stability.
In terms of scalability, as far as I have tested or used all the features, I can give it an eight or eight and a half.
Technical support is good. I can log complaints online through the portal and have engineers in line. I can also take dedicated engineers if needed, although this involves a different support cost. As far as my requirements are concerned, it is working fine.
There are two or three types of support. Standard support involves logging a complaint and receiving a call from the OEM on the same day, but hardware replacement takes two to three days. Advanced support offers instant replacement without delays. Hardware support terms include calling or emailing the company or logging the call in the portal to receive remote support, or getting a dedicated engineer or account manager from Dell.
Positive
I previously worked with HP. Tthey provide a variety of products, including Series, desktops, and consumer products. However, EMC is more dedicated to storage solutions, offering more eligible and robust options. They are leading storage providers in hardware and software, which is why I chose them.
The installation involved one or two persons from the OEM side and from Dell side along with me. Basically, there were two or three people, one of whom was an on-site engineer and two from the OEM side.
As far as my usage is concerned, it's at par with my requirements. It completely meets my purpose in terms of storage. Dell has introduced many new versions and features, keeping pace with new facilities. The SC three zero two zero model can scale up to one petabyte. It has some AI features that automate collecting logs and escalating calls. EMC provides robust storage solutions, offering features like resilient hardware and compatibility across environments.
Overall product rating: eight out of ten.
I've used Dell SC Series at other companies as a good storage tier for servers for VMware and on HP UX servers as well.
It is unfortunate Dell is phasing out the SC Series. It includes cost savings for customers since it intelligently determines where to put data over time.
I'm a big fan of the SC Series platform. Its feature set is superior to some of the other platforms. The snapshots on SC are excellent, allowing for multiple snapshot schedules for any one system. The auto-tiering functionality intelligently moves new data to the highest performance tier and then progresses it down to less expensive tiers over time, providing cost savings for customers.
If Dell SC Series wasn't being phased out, adding an NVMe tier and secure snapshots like those on the PowerStore platform would be beneficial. Secure snapshots are immutable and serve as a good security feature in case a unit gets compromised, such as by hackers or ransomware.
I've had experience with SC Series since 2009.
Overall, the SC Series is a really good product, and its superior user interface shows detailed information about usage and provides a good breakdown.
Dell's customer support for this product has been excellent, and there have been very few problems in support interactions. I would rate support as excellent.
Positive
I have used other Dell or EMC arrays like VNX, Unity, and Clarion. Compared to these, the user interface of the Dell SC Series is much easier to use and provides better granular insights.
The initial setup is pretty straightforward. However, it's important to understand how it works to ensure snapshot profiles work effectively with storage profiles.
I've always found the pricing of Dell SC Series very good. I believe the product is being phased out because the pricing model was very cost-effective.
I am a big fan of the user interface of Dell SC Series because it provides extensive information about usage, aiding in data recovery and handling. The product is superior, and I wish it wasn't being eliminated.
I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.
I primarily used Dell SC Series for databases and virtual machines. It's very effective for maintaining a data center.
Dell SC Series offers a lot of performance, being one of the best performing storages Dell ever made. It was very easy to install, maintain, and provides excellent manageability. The storage also lowered the response time of disks across the entire farm, making it a great product for operational efficiency.
If Dell SC Series could have supported the protocol NVMe over TCP, that would have been great. It does not.
Additionally, Dell SC Series is no longer available, while Dell PowerStore, which supports NVMe over TCP, is different and not very affordable.
I used Dell SC Series for about three years.
Dell SC Series is a very stable machine. In storages, stability is the most important aspect, even before performance. I had no problems with it.
I would rate the scalability of Dell SC Series as seven out of ten.
Dell's technical support is professional, however, they are not very available at the very moment I need them. Improving real-time support with a direct number for storage would be beneficial.
Neutral
I previously used NetApp. I have used both NetApp and Dell throughout my career and know both solutions very well. I switched between these solutions primarily based on cost considerations.
The initial setup of Dell SC Series was very easy. It's one of the easiest systems to install and maintain.
The ROI was great. Users were very happy when I bought it, as it significantly lowered disk response times.
Cost considerations are crucial when choosing between solutions like Dell and NetApp. Sometimes Dell offers better performance for less money. That said, the costs can vary.
I previously evaluated NetApp and HP storage solutions. Compared to Dell and NetApp, HP 3PAR is not comparable and is considered a poor product.
Based on my experience, I would definitely recommend Dell SC Series if it was still available for sale. I rate the overall solution a ten out of ten.
I just use it for backups and file servers.
Mostly, the value is the price. It's not too expensive, but affordable. It permits the necessary support and functionality.
The interface could be better.
I have been using it for a couple of years.
The stability of this solution is dependent on where it is set up. So, it's dependent on the environment. Users could face disk failure.
I don't have experience with scaling it.
It is suitable for small or medium businesses.
I would rate my experience with the initial setup a six out of ten, where one is a difficult initial setup, and ten is easy.
Some menus aren't so intuitive. You have to really think about it or look around to do what you want to do.
The deployment takes a few days just to make sure the configuration is right.
I would rate the pricing a five out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.
I would recommend it to others.
Overall, I would rate it a seven out of ten, where one is the worst and ten is the best.
It is used for storage purposes.
I find this version to be more budget-friendly compared to products from other vendors. This aspect greatly benefits my customers. It's highly advantageous due to its affordability. The operational aspect is also noteworthy. Additionally, its availability and performance are commendable. The speaker are also equally powerful.
I would like to improve the processing ability.
I would rate the stability of this solution eight out of ten.
I would rate the scalability nine out of ten.
The customer support is very fast and reliable.
Positive
The setup is easy comparatively and I would rate it seven out of ten.I engaged in researching vendor reports and comparing outputs with other options. I also attend vendor seminars to gather knowledge. So, while I'm responsible for the necessary preparation leading up to deployment, I'm not directly engaged in the deployment process itself.
There are costs involving the solution, vendor fees and product safety which are additional.
I would rate this solution nine out of ten and recommend it to bigger organizations.
Performance
The SC includes various models, and we've deployed everything from their entry range to their mid-range storage. We mainly use SC for disaster recovery.
Customers are most impressed with SC's provisioning because you don't need to buy a large amount of storage upfront. It's pay-as-you-grow. It also has solid compression and duplication features.
The SC Series doesn't support NVMe storage.
We've been using Dell SC Series for more than seven years.
SC is a fairly stable platform. I rate SC eight out of 10 for stability.
SC is fairly scalable. I give it a nine for scalability. You can scale up or scale out. You can increase the storage capacity or bring on additional storage boxes, which are viewed as one storage solution. It's a good solution for small or medium-sized businesses.
Dell support is superb. I rate Dell support nine out of 10.
I used IBM earlier in my career, but I have primarily been a Dell reseller for the last 14 years. We also flirt with other technologies like Lenovo and NetApp, but we are primarily a Dell shop. The main difference between Dell and the other products is the simplicity, cost, and support services.
Deploy SC series storage is pretty straightforward. If you've worked with other storage technologies, it's easy to adapt to SC's requirements. I rate it eight out of 10 for ease of setup. You can deploy it in a day. We are currently using two people to deploy it: a lead and a support engineer.
The SC software comes with it, so it tends to be cheaper compared to other technologies. It's bundled with hardware, so it's a bit difficult to say what the license costs, but the price of the solution overall is reasonable. I rate the SC series nine out of 10 for affordability.
I rate the SC series eight out of 10. The product is at the end of its life, so I would recommend Dell Unity XT or PowerStore.
Regarding our use cases of Dell EMC SC Series, from a core perspective, we are going to phase out Oracle and move to SAP HANA. Oracle was part of our SAP legacy architecture, so we are migrating it to HANA. From a business perspective, we have a couple of Microsoft SQL-based applications that are using the SQL database and which we have for on-the-go users. Our core business is running on SAP and then, from a legacy structure, we have a bit of Microsoft SQL and the rest is on Microsoft.
The technology was declared end of sale last year, so we switched to the newer PowerStore, but we still have the SC Series working and functioning in test and dev. If I'm not mistaken, we got the updated code as well. Our agreement is extended, but we don't plan to continue with it because we've already shifted the workload onto PowerStore.
This solution is deployed on-prem.
One of the most valuable features is the capability to switch between all-flash to hybrid, which have have actually done for one of our arrays. We started with the hybrid, with the limited if I'm not mistaken, and then over a period of time, we swapped all the hybrids with the SSDs. This was one of the big features because it gave us the capability to not stick with just one kind of media.
Secondly, since it has sorted clustering, we were able to bring in the newer boxes and have it all clustered together. These were the two main features that we really looked into, which benefited our use case from an expansion/growth perspective. Another valuable feature is the ease of management.
What I understand is that this is a 13 year old architecture, so it has lived its life and they're phasing it out. Honestly, we were initially struggling with the integration with VMware (but it was fixed with the VMware 6.5) and, then, it was around a 10GB network. At that time, it had the longevity to go to 100GB as well. It got us thinking about, when we go into the containerized architecture, what do we need to do to fix the infrastructure?
I have been using this solution since 2013.
The performance was staggering and it was more than what we paid for. We were able to bring a lot of juice out from the SC Series. It took us some time, but we were able to get a higher performance once we understood the technology.
The SC Series was very low maintenance, which was one thing that we liked. We had Phone Home enabled, so we were getting all the patches from Dell. They were also able to help us from a drive failure perspective. Nothing went wrong with it—it was a good experience, which is why we are still sticking with Dell.
The scalability was one of our main purchasing decision data points. We wanted the architecture, which is highly clustered, and which gave us the scale up and scale out altogether. It was good. We never intended to go beyond 500 to 600 terabytes, but from a scalability perspective, it really proved its worth.
We are happy with Dell's technical support, which is one of the reasons why we stuck with Dell when the SC Series was coming to end of life. We explored other vendors as well, but we are comfortable with Dell.
On a scale from one to five, I would rate them a five. When we were in the midst of rolling out our containerized app for our mobile users, we had an issue. It was our own application issue and had nothing to do with them, but they came forward with a lot of APIs. From a data perspective, they even got one of their engineers to work and to support our application team. From a hardware perspective, they were able to come in and help us on our application, which is why I rate them a five.
From an acquisition perspective, it was very straightforward. From an implementation perspective, we had a little difficulty because it was a newer technology. From our admin perspective, it was not something that they were equipped with, so initially we had hiccups. However, I believe that this is fair for every new technology.
The automation part wasn't there, so we had hoped that we could automate it back in when we were acquiring it. We felt that this would've made our life easier, but we only came to realize this when we migrated our workloads from SC to the newer generation of PowerStore—it provided all the automation and everything that was missing on day one from an SC Series.
If I were to rate the initial setup on a scale from one to five, I'd put it at a four, from a technology perspective. From an internal perspective, I would rate us a three, but the shortcomings were on our end, in terms of internal skill building. The DSM, Dell Storage Manager, really came in handy, but we didn't know how to best leverage it.
For the deployment, we actually got the partner to come in and work with our team. We also leveraged Dell, but it was mainly from a documentation perspective. We didn't have any issues where we had to go and seek support or help, but it was our internal staff which slowed us down, not the platform or the product itself.
The SC Series was priced fairly. I wouldn't call it either expensive or cheap because we had a very tight budget, so if they were able to fit in that type of budget, they met our expectations.
I rate the SC Series a 10 out of 10 because it was a lifesaver. One of the use cases that we had, where we found it really gave us an edge, was back in 2015. There was a compliance requirement where we had to roll out a lot of old logs and data. We had it sitting on the old 2TB SATA drive, the slowest drive possible. We always worried about how we were going to get the data since we were using all-flash and archiving on the slowest 2TB drives, but when the stacking came, it really gave us all the data without any purchase—the tiering feature really shone at that time. So, that is one of the reasons why we trust and love this product.
If the SC Series was still in use, I would honestly recommend it to others, at any given time. When we moved out from business critical workloads, away from SC Series, we did a lot of crazy testing. It gave us the capability to get a lot of performance out and it was very flexible. If it was still there, we would still be buying more of it.
It is a global storage solution for all our servers.
What is most valuable about the Dell EMC SC Series system was its reliability. It did serve us well. Overall it was a good product for us.
In terms of what could be improved, I would say the lack of reporting would be the main issue.
I have been using Dell EMC SC Series for at least 10 - 12 years.
We keep it up to date, so it is the latest version. The hardware is not the latest, but the firmware and the controllers are the latest.
We use Compellent and we're looking at other products at this point. The Compellent is going to be phased out in a year or so or maybe two years. I don't know, but it has to be replaced sooner than later which is why I was looking for another product.
Component support was great. On a scale of one to ten they were a ten, they were always helpful.
It does the work for us. If you're on SSD, it is going to do the the work. Obviously working with tiering at tier 1, 2, 3 was a pain when we got it, because the data is always moving around but since we're using only one tier SSD, there's no management to do with it and we are just checking to see if everything is working well on that. Otherwise, outside of the reporting, I would not complain about that system. If we could extend the support another five years we would have done so because the support is perfect. When you call them, there is always someone.
Because this product is going to be phased out I wouldn't recommend anyone to start with it. But I'm looking at the PowerStore to see if it is a fit for us. I would assume that PowerStore is going to be the next step after the Compellent.
On a scale of one to ten, I would give Dell EMC SC Series an eight.
The solution is mainly used for primary storage and in more than half of the cases, we use the Live Volume, the Synchronous Replication - this Automatic Failover. Its function is for primary storage on two sites.
The customers really appreciate that the storage is cost-effective and that has enterprise features. The Synchronous Replication and the Live Volume, for example, are excellent. The storage is flexible. If you want to upgrade the storage with more capacity you can add one or two drives. It is very easy to upgrade in the future if you need to.
The setup is straightforward.
The solution has very good stability.
The scalability is excellent.
We find the pricing to be quite fair.
Dell will discontinue this storage. That's the main pain point for clients right now. They will focus on Power Store and the SC Series will be at end-of-life soon - possibly as soon as one or two months from now.
In some customer cases, customers experienced more performance or latency. The performance overall could be better.
I've been working with the solution for more than five years at this point. It's been a while.
The stability is okay, however, the performance could be better, as there have been a few issues surrounding latency. In most cases, the customer feedback is positive. It's only in extreme situations where there have been problems.
The scalability is great. If a customer needs more storage, they can simply add more drives. It's very flexible and very easy to expand.
I've gotten positive feedback in terms of technical support. My understanding is that they have been very helpful and responsive and customers have been happy with the service they receive.
There is no complexity in the setup. It's very straightforward. A company shouldn't have any issues with the setup process.
We are integrators and can help a customer with the installation of the product.
All the models and especially the entry model, the SC30/20, have a competitive price that is fair and offers very good value for money. It's reasonably and competitively priced.
I'm an integrator. Our company is a company that is delivering solutions in IT for other customers. So, I'm not using some solution like this storage. I'm an architect, so I'm architecting these solutions for our customers. The solutions which we are using are mainly from Dell EMC.
I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.
