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Dell Unity XT pros and cons

Vendor: Dell Technologies

4.2 out of 5

197 reviews
96% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

Dell Unity XT integrates unified block and file storage with VMware and Microsoft platforms, enhancing storage management efficiency. It supports disaster recovery through robust replication and reduces data footprint via compression and deduplication, though version 4.1.0 lacks cloud-based replication and some features. Limitations include fewer port expansions, manual firmware downloads, and insufficient tools for EMC communication, which affect VMware replication and hinder Metro Storage Cluster functionality.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Unified block and file storage eliminates control stations and data movers, simplifying administration and saving rack space.

VMware integration enhances performance and simplifies datastore management.

All-flash models boost VMware environments and provide high performance with minimal latency.

Dynamic Pools allow flexible disk addition without the need for complete RAID sets, enhancing scalability.

Efficient remote support with proactive issue resolution enhances operational reliability and peace of mind.

CONS

Dell Unity XT lacks deduplication and compression in hybrid platforms.

The monitoring and reporting capabilities of Dell Unity XT need improvement.

Dell Unity XT's replication and scalability features are inadequate.

Pricing and licensing of Dell Unity XT are considered high.

Dell Unity XT has issues with stability and hardware reliability.

Dell Unity XT Pros review quotes

ST

Cloud Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Jan 29, 2025

The most valuable feature is the integration with vCenter.

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IT Manager at a transportation company with 201-500 employees

Sep 2, 2018

We currently have two Dell EMC Unities going. One of them at our primary on-premise DR site. They communicate with each other. If we ever have to failover, it is right there and ready.

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Network Administrator at a government with 11-50 employees

Sep 12, 2018

The solution is so easy to manage that I forget it is there.

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RP

Systems Engineering Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jan 3, 2022

It is definitely one of the most robust, solid, well-performing products that I have dealt with. It is set it and forget it, which is pretty amazing.

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SAN Administrator at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

Sep 5, 2018

I don't think I've ever seen latencies above 10 milliseconds unless it was something that wasn't the array that was messing up. The thing is rock-solid.

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PS

Senior Technical Specialist at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees

Dec 15, 2021

This solution is easy to work with and easy to maintain.

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Director of Technology at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

May 8, 2019

It gives me the flexibility with its ability to replicate to itself and the ability to use the Dell EMC Cloud as an option. That's always sitting there and waiting if we need it.

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Srikanth Purushothaman

DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems

Dec 23, 2022

We've never had an issue with storage.

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Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Sep 5, 2018

I like the integration into VirtualCenter. I used to have to add LUNs manually, then scan them in and format them. It does that all for you, all in one, immediate deployment of LUNs.

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Analytics and Sustainment Engineer at a aerospace/defense firm with 201-500 employees

May 8, 2019

We have Dell EMC engineers helping us out and doing some over the shoulder training. They are working with our customer right now doing data migration over to Unities from the legacy Oracle stuff. While they're doing this, they're showing people how the Unities work and the ins and outs of the software interface.

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Dell Unity XT Cons review quotes

Sr. Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Sep 2, 2018

We have had some downtime. Nothing is perfect. Unity’s have had some code-release problems, versions that, from a compatibility perspective, had some glitches which caused an outage. But, given the amount of Unity’s we run, that has been fairly minor and it hasn't happened at scale or across all of our Unity’s.

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ST

Cloud Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Jan 29, 2025

Support Responsiveness & time to fix bugs should be improved.

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IT Manager at a transportation company with 201-500 employees

Sep 2, 2018

It should be lighter. It takes up a ton of rack space. It would be nice to have a smaller footprint.

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Free Report: Dell Unity XT Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Dell Unity XT. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: July 2025.

865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Network Administrator at a government with 11-50 employees

Sep 12, 2018

The iSCSI and the VMware integation using vSphere could be less confusing.

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RP

Systems Engineering Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jan 3, 2022

We do a lot of VMware. It only integrates with VMware in one way, which is virtual volumes. I don't really have any visibility on anything else. From VMware, I can't look into Unity. From Unity, I can't look into VMware unless I am using virtual volumes, where they integrate together happily, but we are not using that. I would like better integration for non-virtual volume VMware use.

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PS

Senior Technical Specialist at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees

Dec 15, 2021

It could be a little easier to attach it to a network file system.

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Director of Technology at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

May 8, 2019

What I'd like to see is a little more detail on the networking side. I can go into where it's showing me the replication, but when I go into the network it just gives me broad-based information. I don't know which replication job is actually feeding it. I have to go in and rely on other apps.

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Srikanth Purushothaman

DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems

Dec 23, 2022

The pricing is a bit high. We'd like it to come down.

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Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Sep 5, 2018

I would like better integration with RecoverPoint. My major issue with the solution, all around, has been RecoverPoint more than Unity. While I like the easy user interface, I would like some more advanced features for troubleshooting built into the product, so that we can do more in-depth problem-solving.

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MT

Senior Systems Engineer at Prosperity Bank

Dec 20, 2021

I would like it to be a little bit easier to contact support. We can contact support, but we have to go through a phone tree. We get routed to different places. I might call support to say that I need a drive replaced and get transferred to three different groups before I get to the group I actually need.

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Product Categories

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Product Categories

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