Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Dell Unity XT pros and cons

Vendor: Dell Technologies

4.2 out of 5

196 reviews
96% willing to recommend

2,659 followers

Pros & Cons summary

Dell Unity XT offers a unified storage system with strong performance and reliability, excelling in scalability and ease of management. Integration with VMware simplifies management, despite needing improvement in support responsiveness and replication technology. High pricing can challenge smaller companies, and large-scale deduplication requires additional appliances. While setup is user-friendly, scalability and non-virtual volume integration need enhancement. The all-flash array provides high performance, demanding minimal maintenance.

Buyer's Guide

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

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Dell Unity XT offers excellent integration with VMware, enhancing the management and performance of virtual environments.

All-flash performance of Dell Unity XT significantly boosts speed and reduces latency for demanding workloads.

Dell Unity XT provides scalable storage options, efficiently managing capacity and expansion needs.

Replication features of Dell Unity XT enhance data protection and disaster recovery capabilities.

Dell Unity XT's support and customer service receive high praise for their responsiveness and effectiveness.

CONS

Dell Unity XT lacks deduplication and compression features in non-all-flash solutions.

Firmware upgrades are manual, requiring OS and drive firmware downloads.

The process of migrating data and handling deduplication lacks efficiency.

Some features from previous VNX models are not present in Dell Unity XT.

Data replication capabilities in Dell Unity XT could be improved.

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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

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: April 2025.

849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.

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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Srikanth Purushothaman

DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems

Dec 23, 2022

We've never had an issue with storage.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Show 10 more reviews (out of 158)

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.

Read full review

ST

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

Jan 29, 2025

Support Responsiveness & time to fix bugs should be improved.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

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: April 2025.

849,686 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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Srikanth Purushothaman

DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems

Dec 23, 2022

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

Read full review

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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Show 10 more reviews (out of 147)

Product Categories

Product Categories

All-Flash Storage

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Dell Unity XT

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Dell Unity XT

NetApp AFF vs Dell Unity XT

Pure FlashArray X NVMe vs Dell Unity XT

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell Unity XT

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Dell Unity XT

HPE Nimble Storage vs Dell Unity XT

HPE Primera vs Dell Unity XT

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs Dell Unity XT

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell Unity XT

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs Dell Unity XT

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs Dell Unity XT

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs Dell Unity XT

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs Dell Unity XT

Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs Dell Unity XT

See all alternatives

Product Categories

Product Categories

All-Flash Storage

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Dell Unity XT

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Dell Unity XT

NetApp AFF vs Dell Unity XT

Pure FlashArray X NVMe vs Dell Unity XT

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell Unity XT

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Dell Unity XT

HPE Nimble Storage vs Dell Unity XT

HPE Primera vs Dell Unity XT

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs Dell Unity XT

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell Unity XT

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs Dell Unity XT

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs Dell Unity XT

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs Dell Unity XT

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs Dell Unity XT

Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs Dell Unity XT

See all alternatives

Related questions

90

EMC VNX 2500 or EMC Unity 400. Which one is the newer and better Storage and why?

3

Dell EMC Unity vs NetApp All Flash FAS, which do you recommend?

152

What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?

34

Any advice re Dell PowerMax? We are looking at Unity and PowerMax, and also HPE.

64

When it comes to performance and pricing, what is the biggest difference between Dell EMC Unity and IBM FlashSystem?

2,170

How does Dell's EMC PowerStore compare with its EMC Unity XT?

201

Which solution do you prefer: Dell PowerStore 1200 or Dell Unity 400?

33

What do you think about Dell EMC PowerStore? Is it actually a new product?

21

How would you compare All-Flash Storage Arrays: Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F vs HPE Nimble Storage vs Dell EMC Unity XT?

12

Dell EMC XtremIO Flash Storage OR Hitachi Virtual Storage F Series