Dell EMC Unity XT reviews

We currently provide data solutions to both HP and a banking client. The banking client utilizes our DNS solution. I have introduced our kit for selling the smart technology integrated into our offerings.

Scheduled components are sourced from Korea based on their quality selection, with the actual purchase taking place in Vietnam.  

The storage dynamics are managed uniformly on a global scale, whether it is a simple or wide-ranging configuration.

They place a strong emphasis on service, occasionally requiring approvals. However, with full installations, they have achieved almost uniformity. Their storage approach differs from a consolidated business-based model; instead, it is application-centric. Their investment in solutions is geared towards specific needs, such as the banking or information system, acquiring smaller storage units individually.

I have been using this solution for 15 years. 

The discussion revolves around the Ports program, which has been implemented and operates as a single system based on my direction. Additionally, adherence to government requirements is necessary.

The preference for Unity arises from its investor-driven segmentation, specifically tailored for application data systems, eschewing any consolidation. Despite possessing numerous units, there is doubt whether it is feasible to invest exclusive authority for each application separately, eliminating the need for consolidation.

The consideration of scalability introduces the ability to simply add on hardware, particularly with SaaS and HTTP. However, certain aspects, such as metadata or previous HTTP pages, present challenges that necessitate careful attention.

The initial support for the second job from PA in Vietnam is highly commendable and competes well. Moreover, my NDA has proven to be exceptionally effective.

We are currently undergoing a conversion involving the installation of hardware and configuration. Initially, the focus was on infrastructure areas, specifically addressing endpoint agents. Subsequently, the emphasis shifted towards application-centric operations. I oversee the configuration and setup, encompassing both hardware and software aspects. 

The hardware setup is primarily based on production, involving tasks such as TCDR for the production environment. They initially acquired storage from Zero Ten, utilizing EMC. Over time, they transitioned to HTTP storage, and presently, they are considering a comprehensive replacement of their storage solution. The ongoing shift is towards a more advanced data system, albeit not classified as high-end.

It is an average priced solution.

I would rate it 8 out of 10. 

We primarily use the solution for storage. 

The interface is very good. It's user-friendly and easy to navigate.

It is easy to set up the product initially.

The product has helpful local technical support.

It is very scalable.

It is stable and reliable. 

Its replication technology could be better. There is no option to postpone the replication after a failure. 

I've been using the solution for about three years. 

It is a stable product, and it is quite reliable. I haven't come across any bugs or glitches. It does not crash or freeze. I'd rate the stability nine out of ten. The downtime is literally zero.

We have found the solution to be scalable. I'd rate the solution nine out of ten in terms of the ability to extend. 

We have about four people directly working with the solution. They are system administrators. 

I've dealt with technical support in the past. They are helpful. We've worked with a local engineer, and he has been helpful and responsive. 

The initial setup only took one day. The initial setup itself was straightforward. 

We handled the deployment ourselves with the help of Dell. We did a standard deployment. 

I'm not sure of the exact cost of the solution. 

I'd recommend the solution to others. I would rate the solution nine out of ten. We've had a good experience with eh solution. The only issue for us has been the replication technology.

We primarily use the solution for storage for our online services.

The response time is good. It is suitable. 

The product is easy to use. It's not complicated at all.

We do have some sanctions in our country, and this solution is one of the options we have available to us. 

It is easy to set up the solution. 

You need to self-study. We'd like, however, to get professional training. It would be ideal to have some online sources available to us to help us understand its capabilities.

We cannot connect directly with Dell due to sanctions. We'd like to be able to connect to the distributor directly as sometimes we sometimes get the wrong information. It would help with transparency.

I've been dealing with the solution for about six months. 

It has been really stable up to this point. There are no bugs or glitches. It does not crash or freeze. 

There are three of us using the solution. We have more than 3,000 customers using the product. 

It's scalable. Everyone has been pretty happy with its capabilities. 

I've never dealt with technical support in the past. 

The product is not complicated to set up. The implementation is simple. 

It is quick to deploy. It took us about three weeks. 

We gathered the hardware, and we used the servers to connect to the host. It was pretty simple. 

We handled the deployment in-house with instructions or by looking at YouTube for direction. 

We have not witnessed an ROI at this point. That said, we do see that it is worth the money.

I'm not sure of the exact licensing cost of the solution. 

We are a broker. We're users. We are medium-sized, not enterprise-sized. 

I'd recommend the solution to others. It is easy to use, scalable, and easy to set up.

I would rate the solution eight out of ten. 

We are resellers and deploy the solution for our clients as a guard for storage on virtual machines, databases, and their VDI. 

The solution allows for easy, useful replication with good features for VPLEX and VIVO. 

The solution should include a free process in the HPE portal that uses serial numbers to verify that hardware is genuine. We find Chinese hardware easily but it is difficult to determine if it is genuine which causes problems. 

The solution should allow for connection and replication with other storage models such as HPE, IBM, and Hitachi.

I have been using the solution for two years. 

The solution is very stable and I rate it a ten out of ten. 

The solution is scalable within the storage limitations for each model.

For example, category 380 allows for one device. To scale up, you need to add additional software or hardware like VPLEX.

I rate the scalability a ten out of ten. 

Our company handles software issues but uses technical support for hardware replacements. 

Due to sanctions in Iran, I am not permitted to contact technical support directly but must submit issue tickets through authorized agents. I am unable to rate technical support because I do not have direct access to them. 

The initial setup is very easy. 

Depending on the size of the project, we assign two to ten engineers for setup and deployment which can take a total of one to three hours. 

We also provide six hours administrative training to our customers via small, on-the-job courses we have created. 

Most licenses for the solution are free but upgrades are available when adding additional software or storage. 

The solution little or no cost so I rate it a ten out of ten. 

Supply of genuine hardware is challenging and there should be more availability in the market. I rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

Dell Unity XT is used for data storage at a data center.

Dell Unity XT has improved our organization's performance. We have seen reduced management times.

The most valuable feature of Dell Unity XT is data duplication. Additionally, the management interface is simple, and is not a hassle using it. You don't need too much to learn or to be familiarized with it.

Dell Unity XT could add a unit-to-unit replication. We haven't seen that because we don't have an additional one to test. However, it is not an improvement, but something that we would like to have visibility on how it's done or how it works.

I have been using Dell Unity XT for approximately two years.

Dell Unity XT is a very stable and reliable solution. We can leave the solution alone for a month without needing to check on how the unit is operating, or if there are problems. We realized the benefit of using the solution in approximately one year of use.

The scalability of Dell Unity XT is good because during the period of one year we noticed we had the need to add more and more systems, and more components to it and we were able to do it with no hassle. We do not plan to increase our usage.

We have approximately 500 endpoints using this solution.

The support from Dell Unity XT is good. They actively monitor the units. They have called us up when they have lost connection to one of the units to then take action. We have not had any issues to have needed to contact the support directly.

I rate the support of Dell Unity XT a nine out of ten.

Positive

I was previously using HP High-Performance Unit Storages. There was a need to purchase a new unit because we were struggling with the resources, performance, support, and other aspects. The best solution that was on offer that came to us was Dell Unity XT. The company decided to move to it and buy the full flash version to support all the applications that we have on-site.

The initial setup of Dell Unity XT was straightforward because we had Dell representatives involved with our team. 

We had to do a migration because we wanted to ensure that there was no downtime during the migration process from the old solution to the Dell Unity XT.  To complete everything live without the business noticing that something is going on in the background. 

You cannot have two groups of equipment that are deployed at the same time. For example, the host, storage, and switches. We had to ensure that everything is deployed, updated, and then do the connections between the two solutions and start with the migrations.

We use Dell representatives for the implementation of the solution. We ended up doing the configurations ourselves without needing the support. 80 percent of the deployment we did ourselves. We had two people involved in the deployment and the solution has not required any maintenance so far.

We deployed not only the one Dell Unity XT but a bunch of them. It took us approximately one week for everything to be finished. Additionally, we deployed some hosts, switches, and other systems.

We have received a return on investment using Dell Unity XT.

We were able to solve the performance issues we were having. Our core communications and infrastructure is dependent on these units. The fact that all of the systems that we have improved significantly in terms of performance. The organization has benefited or is happy with the investment they've done at this point.

We have received a full return on investment from using the solution for three to four years.

The price of Dell Unity XT is reasonable. However, if you are buying a custom solution, it can come at a considerable price. 

If you want to scale or add additional components, this is where the price starts to spike or become very complicated and expensive. If you purchase the components separately they can cost a lot.

We did not evaluate other solutions before choosing Dell Unity XT.

My advice to others would be for them to purchase the solution urgently if they need a backup solution.

I rate Dell Unity XT a ten out of ten.

This solution is used for primary storage. We have a single installment with many units throughout our on-premises environment. We only have one XT unit and it is used for one of our core environments. It provides critical services such as DHCP and DNS.

This solution helped us reduce our physical footprint and power consumption. 

The inline deduplication and data reduction capabilities have been the most valuable.

I have been using this solution for five years. 

This is a stable solution.

Scalability of this solution could be improved. 

I would rate support for this solution a six out of ten. A few years ago, I would have rated it an eight or nine out of ten. The biggest challenge is responsiveness and getting to speak to someone who really understands our challenges. 

Neutral

We previously used VNX. We switched solutions to have an updated platform and integrated NAS services.

The initial setup was very straightforward. It is a plug-and-play deployment. It took half an hour to deploy and required two people. It requires routine updates for maintenance. 

We have experienced a return on investment using this solution. 

This solution offers great pricing. 

We evaluated NetApp before choosing Dell. We are more familiar with Dell's products which is why we decided to use this solution. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

We are using Dell EMC Unity XT for our Oracle EBS on-premise ERP solution for storage. Primarily, for our database needs. We are quite happy with the performance of our SQL Server. 70% of OLTP and 30% reporting is the workload on that particular storage.

The solution overall has high performance.

Dell EMC Unity XT improvement point should be in the area of enhancements or innovation. It would be a benefit to have some kind of intelligence built into the solution with respect to the workload of their firmware. For example, if Dell EMC Unity XT is running an Oracle load or SQL application, we have to do other functions on it, find self remedies, or find self alerts to allow the administrator of the database to good insight into what exactly is happening in the storage layer. We are using different tools to retrieve partial information from the storage.

Having more artificial intelligence tools built into the solution would be a great benefit. This would allow us to see more about the workloads and higher visibility, such as performance degradation. 

I have been using Dell EMC Unity XT for approximately 20 years.

The Dell EMC Unity XT 450F is in production in our organization for the last three years, we have not faced any problems. The new version has been quite stable.

We are quite happy with the performance. The workload we are receiving on this storage solution is 70% for OLTP and 30% for reporting.

We have found the solution to be very scalable. We are in the process of receiving more enclosures that to increase the storage capacity.

We have approximately 1,500 users across the country that are using Dell EMC Unity XT and an additional 200 indirect users using it.

The technical support team from Dell EMC Unity XT has a proactive approach. We don't need to worry about what is going wrong we have them to support us. We have not to need to contact them frequently. They contact us in case of any alert that comes.

We have not used a solution previously.

The installation of Dell EMC Unity XT is not difficult. You only need to do the rack mounting and plug it into the environment. However, configuring it for the application is quite tedious because it doesn't have any built-in templates for different workloads. Installation is plain and the solution is not a challenge but configuring it for the workload is the challenge.

The time it took for the implementation to have the solution to a level we can use for production was approximately 48 hours.

We had support to do the implementation, we did not do it ourselves. We had a couple of engineers from Dell do the implementation and we managed the solution using our onsite team.

There is not a license required for the use of the solution. We purchased a maintenance contract.

We did a thorough evaluation of other solutions and it was clear after the performance evaluation, Dell EMC Unity XT was the best choice. We did a migration of Oracle Storage to different storage. There are other commercial advantages with Dell.

I would highly recommend Dell EMC Unity XT to others. I have experience with several sorts of workloads.

I rate Dell EMC Unity XT a nine out of ten.

We use it for block storage for our entire VMware environment, which runs Windows, Exchange, and SQL Server. The Unity also provides block storage for bare metal Windows Server that run our backup software. We also use file storage primarily to store images.

I use it with three projects that I directly work with. Each of those projects has 80 to 100 virtual servers. We have sysadmins who are dedicated to each project and do all the admin tasks, like checking VMs, servers, storage, etc. There is a larger team of five or six systems engineers who backstop all three of those projects. We focus on architecting and configuring any servers, storage, and networking. We may also be called in to resolve performance concerns.

Unity/Unity XT is significantly more user friendly than VNX.

We can do both block and file storage on one unit. For our projects, we use both of those functions. This is a key feature for us, along with very solid, predictable performance.

We use VMware in a number of projects but there isn't very good visualization of the storage from VMware or vice versa. I'm hopeful this improves in the follow on product, PowerStore.

I have been using this solution for the past seven years, previously at Dell and three years with my current company.

Stability has been very good, even the older models of Unity are quite good. The non-XTs and the XTs have been absolutely stable. We have had a couple of small hardware glitches, e.g., I have had to replace an LCC. That is literally it over the last three years.

This is a newer model for us. Out of the three projects that I have worked on, two of them are using the older model and the XT is primarily in another project. We have tons of scalability in it. We have a whole rack dedicated to Unity, and it is pretty much empty. We have probably close to a petabyte of storage in there, and it is still pretty much empty. Scalability looks really good.

Where we would run into a scalability problem, we are going to do a lot of image storage, and that doesn't compress well. So, flash drives wouldn't really help us. We need a big, scalable object storage system. That is where Isilon comes in. We have about three and a half petabytes of Isilon at each of that project's sites.

The technical support has been really great. I have never had a problem that they were not able to get to the bottom of pretty quickly.

Positive

We do have Dell EMC SC storage, which is very simple and straightforward, which is good for our small remote locations. However, it doesn't have the performance or features that the XT would. As far as block storage, Unity XT is probably the best bank for the buck for us because we can get block and file storage in one package. We don't have to buy a separate Isilon for object storage.

Including VNX, SC, and Unity/Unity XT, Dell EMC has provided all the storage solutions at the company for the last 20 years. 

The initial setup was super easy for the most part. 

I will note one issue. This might be on the sales team, but we had a need for encryption that I am sure we mentioned. However, the Unity that showed up at our data center did not have the licenses for encryption at rest. I would love to see Data At Rest Encryption (D@RE) be just the default since I can't imagine anyone wouldn't want it at this point. It would have made life easier for me. I definitely had to completely wipe out an array three days after we set it up, because it didn't have encryption, then redo it with a new license.

Vendor did initial install. I reinitialized it and did the final install.

There are cost savings from having a single solution that does both file and block storage.

Pricing could always be better. Dell likes to charge a premium price for these products.

I would say the major complaint with pricing is that Dell EMC comes to us and gives us a an initially high price. We usually need to go back and forth to negotiate the price to a more reasonable level. We are not going to just say, 'Yes,' because we are out of time." 

I don't know if the discounting structure needs to be better or more consistent. 

Having worked at Dell EMC previously, I know they have discount floors, etc. I just wish they would note, "This company gets a 55% discount." Just be consistent with it. Company-wide, we buy all our storage from them. They should be able to give us something a little more structured.

In one project, we needed more scalability that the Unity can provide so we are using Dell EMC Isilon for it. In that case, I needed multiple PB of object storage.

Otherwise, we have not looked at much else. In the future, however, we will probably transition to Dell PowerStore.

I would rate it as nine out of 10. 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 wonderful for my piece of mind.