Dell EMC Unity XT reviews

We use Dell EMC Unity XT as our primary storage, mostly for VMware, the tier-one storage of our VMs. We use it for SaaS and corporate. We do replications with it. I hate to call Unity your standard, basic storage, but it's your standard, basic, old-school, tried and true, reliable, classic storage. Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done, has all the features you need, and is easy to use.

Performance-wise, we actually use ScaleIO for the high-performance stuff. But Unity, as your classic storage, does a fairly good job.

We actually use it just about everywhere because, in the majority of the use cases in our company, there is a need for a lot of storage but they don't have a lot of IOPS. Unity fits that use case well. For the areas that need high performance, the high IOPS, it doesn't fit. But that's okay. That's why you have multiple SAN solutions.

One of the benefits it brings is the value for its price. It has saved us a lot of money. It does the job. It just works. We just bought a bunch of new Unity's that allowed us to do a lot of consolidation. Those four Unity's replaced 13 VNXs and older Unity's. 

In terms of simplicity of ownership, I think we still have somewhere in the neighborhood 20 Unity's and they're managed by four storage guys. So, from a simplicity perspective, you can manage a lot of Unity's across a lot of data centers with a very small staff.

In addition to the price point, you factor in all the features, like replication, and that it works great.

Like most newer SANs, the interface is very simplistic. I'm still used to the old-school SAN where you need a PhD to be able to configure it. I'll pick on NetApp as an example. To work on a NetApp, needing a certification isn't a recommendation, it's a requirement. You don't want someone who hasn't had all the required training working on NetApp. On a Unity, you can throw it in a remote office and tell whoever is there, "Hey, go click on these buttons." And you really don't have to worry about them clicking on the wrong thing. 

Or if I even need them to rack and install the Unity, it's a handful of cables here and there, where it's called out and easy to follow. There is just no complexity to it. A lot of SANs are easy to use these days. Unity was - if I recall correctly, especially on the VNX line, before they changed the name to Unity - one of the first to really lead in having that simplistic interface; the "why make this hard?" mindset.

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. 

It's more like, "Hey, we have a new code. Let's deploy it," and we have a situation where we can deploy it in a given location first. So we deploy in that location. Oops, it has an issue. Roll back and get Dell EMC engaged and resolve it and move on.

It hasn't really been that big of a deal. As a great "for instance," with ExtremeIO - which we bought starting about two years ago, and deployed in one of our divisions as their primary storage because we needed performance there - it's had so many issues that upper management has essentially banned us from ever buying an ExtremeIO again, because of the downtime. Either because of compatibility or just straight up code problems, it's just not a stable SAN. And the one thing you want out of a SAN is that it has to be stable.

So as long as Unity remains good and stable, that will be a primary reason that we use it.

It scales decently to 100,000 IOPS, maybe 150,000. But as long as your IOPS requirements are below that, it does a great job.

With the nature of the architecture, there's a limitation to its total, possible throughput. So if you need IOPS above that 150,000 mark, your Unity engineer will say something like, "Oh, we just need to cluster it and do that." That's a very old-school approach. If you need more IOPS than what Unity SAN can provide, clustering is not a great option. The better option is to go with a SAN with better IOPS. Unity is good at what Unity does, so don't try to make it do what it doesn't do. It's great for bulk storage, up to a certain performance level. If you use it for that, it works great.

On a per-SAN basis we could have 3,000 to 6,000 VMs connecting to it.

Technical support is responsive, of course. If it's obviously a Unity issue, it's usually a pretty simple and straightforward fix.

It's when they say, "Well, no, the Unity's fine. It must be an issue with the host. Or it must be an issue with the VM," where you get a little bit of that finger-pointing going on. Then it becomes that struggle of stopping the finger-pointing. It's all one company so let's all get on the same phone call and figure out where the problem is.

That is usually something we have to start, whereas from a Dell EMC/VMWare/whatever-else-is-involved perspective, they're not the ones to start that bridge or that conversation.

Especially if it's a production outage, I don't care about finger-pointing. I don't want to hear about it. No one does within the organization. They want it fixed. If you don't think it's a SAN problem but it's clearly an issue with the SAN, let's get everyone involved who needs to be involved and fix the problem.

So it would be great, in terms of future support calls that fall under that finger-pointing category, to have them say, "Okay, we need to now engage so and so. Let's get them on the call."

We had a lot of VNXs that we retired and we moved over to Unity. But that's just a natural progression of the product line. We also replaced a lot of old VMAXs with Unity. It might not be the sexiest box but its performance has grown through the generations to the point where it can do the job we used to have to buy VMAXs for.

We replaced the VNXs due to multiple factors. End-of-life was a big aspect; end of service contracts. It's cheaper to install a Unity than to renew the maintenance on an old SAN. That's where it's at. 

We were able to reduce our monthly spend significantly enough by doing that consolidation that we were actually able to buy the ScaleIO's we needed for another division.

When I look for a vendor to work with, I care more about the product than the vendor. Personally, I am most happy with a mixed environment. A mixed environment tends to be typically configured to best practices more frequently, with fewer proprietary aspects. Those proprietary aspects are typically what box you in or prevent you from doing something as technology changes. By running a mixed environment, you have more flexibility and ability. With that being said, I run all things VMWare. So it's a relative thing.

From a SAN perspective, storage-wise, I look at storage as a commodity. That's really what it is. Give me a server. I don't care what it is. Give me a SAN. I don't care what it is. Make it cheap, let it hit the performance marks I need, and make it reliable. If it's those three things, what it is doesn't matter to me. Whether it's a Unity or something else, I don't care. I'm not buying the brand, I'm not buying the vendor. I'm buying a commodity.

Like I said, Unity wins on ROI. As long as it wins on ROI, as long as it wins on uptime, as long as it does the job it's doing, it will continue to be the one that gets installed. When it fails to meet those, we'll switch.

We used to have a lot of NetApp. We've always bought BMC. But we have had no problem changing vendors. We buy a lot of Cisco. We don't care what the server is. The Dell EMC servers are cheaper, so that's what we go with. It's all about satisfying the base requirements and getting the job done.

I've installed Unity’s, but it's been a few years. The setup is a piece of cake. It's super easy: click, click, click, done.

Regarding upgrades, the guys who take care of that do so on a very regular basis with no real issues. They do it through maintenance windows. But at the end of the day, they really haven't had too many problems; a few of those minor problems I've mentioned, but overall, it works well.

From an ROI perspective, I'll put it this way: When we've tried to buy other SANs, the Unity ROI makes it impossible to buy them. So usually, the only time we buy another SAN is when the ROI isn't a factor, when Unity can't do the job. From an ROI perspective, it's great because it beats out everything else.

We've tried to look at other options but, at the end of the day, when you price it out, the Unity wins.

Its biggest valuable feature is its price point for the amount of storage and performance you get. It's a sweet spot. It's cheaper than the other SANs out there, but performs well enough. It fits that nice, middle-ground portfolio.

If your small office or data center needs a couple petabytes, or just lots and lots of storage, it works great. Or if you need just a couple of hundred terabytes worth of storage, it works great. The price point hits that right spot.

As for advice to someone who is interested in this type of solution, I would simply say, "Talk to so and so, because that's what they do, and have fun." We use it across the board. So if someone needs a Unity for their project and they want their own SAN for some reason, they just have to go through the approval process. There's no fight to buying a Unity, because again, from an ROI perspective, no one argues.

In terms of the buying process, I'll start with getting a quote. I find it's pretty easy, mainly because I worked as a consultant, so I actually would build those BOMs (bills of materials); the pre-quote build. For me, it's super easy - because I've done that career-wise - to build a BOM for a SAN, Unity, or otherwise. Typically you have your BOM. And from the BOM you get your quote. From the quote you get your invoice. The BOM is the first step. You get your approvals, that this is the configuration I want.

So it is easy for me but not necessarily for your "Joe Average" person, for the rest of the storage guys. Their typical response is, "Okay, I need a new Unity with these IOPs and this capacity. Go." And they just have our partner, through whom we buy this stuff, build the BOM. The partner sends it to us and says, "Hey, this is what we're doing for you." We say, "Okay, it looks great." And it moves forward. The struggle is after you get past that point, on our side, where it goes through our approval, what we call the CAR process. That's where it takes some time. That's not necessarily a Dell EMC issue or even an issue with our partner. That's an internal logistics and political issue.

I would rate this solution at eight out of 10 because, at the end of the day, it is an old-school SAN. It really doesn't take advantage of any of the modern-day advances in SAN technology.

We use it for storage for our ESXi hosts at our smaller sites.

It increased our uptime because we switched from physical stuff to virtual stuff, and being able to have that we could do the high-availability and failover.

I like the ease of configuration, the quick setup, and the fact that it seems to be hardened. We haven't had any issues with them. In terms of simplicity of ownership, once they're running you don't have to touch them.

They're also simple to manage. We came from the VNXe 3200s so it's very similar.

We integrated it with vSphere but that integration was "iffy". It was okay but we had a few challenges with it.

It's very solid. No issues at all. The only issue we have is that the power supply ramps up and down and makes some noise on SPA. But other than that being a nuisance, we haven't had any reliability issues at all.

Scaling is easy. Just add drives, extend the space. It's super simple.

We called them and put in a service ticket on the power supply issue. We tried a few things and then they sent us another one, but other than that we haven't had any issues. They've been easy to work with.

The initial setup was straightforward. Coming from the VNXe's, it was almost identical, just has a different GUI platform. It was very easy.

The price is up a little bit from what we used to pay so I'm hoping that it's a little bit of a better system than the VNXe was. But I still think it's a good value. It's new, so I'm sure there's room for the pricing to drop.

We did have an issue with licensing once but we were able to reach out to the licensing group and do an online chat. They helped instantly, so that was nice.

My advice is to follow the installation guide, it's pretty straightforward, step-by-step.

In terms of the purchasing process, after we had figured out what we wanted, it became easy. But we had to get into our first set of standards. The first one that we ordered had the SFP module cards in it, which we didn't need. We just use the 10-gigabit copper. After figuring out our standard template, it has become super simple every time.

What I look for when selecting a vendor to work with is somebody who

• is big
• guarantees their product
• has good support; somebody who is going to answer their phone 24/7.

So far, I rate the Unity a nine out of 10. It has been easy to set up, we've only had a few small issues. Once they're set up, they're running, you don't have to touch them. The one point I held back is because we're new to them. The version we're using is the 300 and it's also new out there so there has been a little bit of a struggle here and there with some small things; for example, the fans ramping up and we have one right now that's not responding after updates.

It fits what we're trying to do. It has everything and more. There are some features that we're not even using yet.

It has improved the environments for many customers who have transitioned from other vendors storage platforms to Unity, due to technical proposals and offerings defined by us.

• The ease of management and “user-friendly” management environment (GUI).
• Simplicity for deploying and controlling storage elements.
• Ability to redefine storage policies and improve performance (adding dynamic cache and “Auto-tiering”).
• Hardware simplification (e.g., not requiring NAS dedicated hardware).
• The true “Unification” (to have a fully-flexible solution combining multiple technologies and protocols in 2U of rack space).

There are features still to come, like compression and deduplication on hybrid platforms, VDM improvements to be developed for NAS environments, and also improvements in the “self-migration” tools to push or pool information (to assist the migrations to and mostly from third-party arrays).

It has evolved from what it was one year and a half ago, but there are more features incoming with the scheduled “UnityOS” updates (planned on roadmap) that will provide the product with new features only available in VNX2, but most important, all newly added features will have no additional cost for the customers, because the platform is fully-licensed from the base configuration.

Very few (some NAS related issues with early “UnityOS” versions, prior to 4.1).

None. Data-in-Place Conversions are available, for “scaling-up”. This feature may be driven online, in the next “UnityOS” release (4.2 SP1).

With the new support options offered with Unity, this support is always offered on a 24/7 basis (if the customer allows it, the system will be permanently monitored for issues). In this case, the system will be “two-way” connected remotely to Dell EMC proactive support via an ESRS gateway. Now, with the option to add a feature called “CloudIQ” that consists of an online portal offering (totally free, without additional fees) to access online and watch the system health and behaviour (in real time, from a customer point of view).

This does not apply directly to us. I had a very close contact with all “EMC legacy” storage platforms from the times of Clariion and Celerra. Thus, I have experienced the evolution and consolidation of these products, first on VNX, and later on in Unity, that is the pinnacle of this unification.

The initial configuration is guided by an “Initial Configuration Wizard” that is completely straightforward.

Absolutely. We offer Dell EMC solutions to partners who always work with several offerings from various manufacturers, targeting the same scenario (mostly NetApp, Huawei, HPE and IBM).

When implementing this product, be careful while configuring “Virtual Pools” (on hybrid platforms), in order to assure optimum performance. The proper disk raid choice is critical and may impact directly in the performance of a “Storage Pool” dedicated for a specific purpose or environment.

Dell EMC Unity is actually one of my market focuses, from the understanding that Dell EMC has redefined the core of their mid-range storage portfolio, focusing on two main products: Dell EMC SC (Dell legacy Compellent) and Dell EMC Unity (the last mid-range storage solution developed by the former EMC, just prior to committing the fusion with Dell).

In the Spanish market (which is totally different compared with US), it is considered the “premium” Dell EMC mid-range storage choice for those SMB customers who wish to acquire a full integrated solution, combining “multi-protocol” physical topologies (FC/10GbE) but also combining multipurpose storage (SAN/NAS and “Virtualization Optimized Storage”).

From this point of view, I consider it a “well-thought out” solution who was born from the principles that EMC established with the development of the VNXe Storage Series (considering that VNXe3200 is, in many aspects, the mother on Unity). It has inherited a full refresh regarding the “microcode” that characterized the VNX Series, while retaining all the benefits developed in the VNX MCx codes (optimized for true multi-core processing) and foremost developed (is the case of Unity AFA solutions) as a true “All Flash” solution, from their very foundations.

We are network service providers, and we use the server storage to create our own cloud or use it for our own internal applications.

Dell Unity XT is a unified box, and it is integrated with VVOL, our software-defined storage.

The challenge we face with Dell Unity XT is availability in some African countries where we operate. In some countries, spare part availability is an issue for us. Dell needs to find some local warehouses. We provide network services in countries like Uganda and Tanzania. If the server fails in those countries and you don't get spare parts, replacing it takes a very long time.

We buy the tool in bulk for some countries, and it becomes a big challenge for us if there is an issue and we get no support.

I have been using Dell Unity XT for eight months.

Dell Unity XT is a stable solution.

We buy vertically scalable boxes because we know how much we want, and we refresh it every five years.

The solution’s initial setup is easy.

We outsource the solution's deployment. It is easy to deploy since our outsourcing partner deploys more than 50 servers per week.

We see a return on investment with the solution in around two years. Compared to other tools, we have seen 30% to 40% time saving with Dell Unity XT.

The solution’s pricing is competitive. Since we buy in bulk, we get equally good prices.

We use the solution's built-in features, like Data at Rest, for data security.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We are using it as a unified storage solution for different workloads, databases, and data backup.

It provides simplified deployment, monitoring and management of storage resources. It is very user-friendly. 

Facilitated optimization of the storage utilization is a really good benefit. 

One of the major challenges we faced with this solution was regarding DPE. When the failure of DPE happens, it needs to be replaced with another part as Dell Unity XT offers a single data processor. Finding the replacement can be a complex task because it's hard to search for the exact part number since that information is not as public as other solutions, such as HPE, provide. Also, since it requires extensive research of the product, it's not very secure. Working on the complexity of these issues would be helpful.

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

We are highly pleased with the level of the stability so I am rating it ten out of ten. 

Dell Unity XT offers good performance in general with minor limitations regarding mid-level storage. I don't think it's suitable for large enterprise models. I rate it seven out of ten.

Dell Unity XT offers reasonable support, but due to political reasons, my company is under sanctions, so I rate it five out of ten.

Neutral

When I started working with databases, I immediately started with Dell EMC. Later on, I discovered different solutions and choices such as Fujitsu, HPE, Hitachi, NetApp, and Sophos, but it is not possible to implement any of the mentioned solutions due to geopolitical reasons and issues with licensing. 

The initial setup was very easy. This solution is a good fit due to its user-friendly nature regarding implementing and managing the operations. It took approximately two hours to complete the whole process.

The deployment process went really easy with two specialists from our IT department. It is important to note that the efficiency and effectiveness also depend on the expertise of the people operating the solution. 

The pricing structure offers a favorable balance between the cost and the variety of features offered.

I am fairly satisfied with this solution. It is a good choice for small or medium enterprises. I rate it seven out of ten. 

We use it as block storage for a couple sites. 

The performance is fine for what it does. It is flash and spinning media.

For sites that we use it on, it gives us more flexibility and high availability solutions. It is easier to expand the site, if needed.

It is simple to use and easy to manage. We don't touch it after we set it up. It is not something you constantly have to go in everyday and tweak, which makes it beneficial.

• Ease of use: The GUI management is very easy to use.
• The management is easy for us. We rarely touch it now. It just runs.

I would like the UI to look better.

Stability is very good. It has been running for over a year now without problems. We haven't had any dropped layers.

The growth is difficult to forecast, but it's easy for the unit to grow when needed. It is very scalable.

The technical support does alright.

We didn't have a solution in place for the size that we needed to have a high availability solution. Dell EMC is our preferred storage provider, so we went out and worked with them to get a solution where we have a cluster environment to VMware and a failover with the other node along with shared storage.

The initial setup was very straightforward. This was not our first SAN array, so I just racked and stacked it, and they gave us the IPs and turned it over to us. 

The purchasing has been simple. When you do need storage, you spec it out. Then, you receive a quote back and make a decision from there. 

The last purchase was in China, so I was more on the config, less on the purchase side.

The solution should be cheaper.

We evaluated NetApp. We decided on Dell EMC because we are more familiar with them.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor:

• Reliability
• Price.

We use this solution for block storage delivery to the cloud.

This solution provided us with the capability to manage expiring equipment that we didn't have before.

This is a tier-three solution and it gives us what we need for archiving and backups.

We have used this solution for less than one year so I don't have any improvement suggestions yet.

I have used this solution for less than one year. 

The technical support for this solution is good. I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

Positive

I have previously used HPE 3PAR 7400. We switched over to Dell Unity because 7400 was being retired and did not offer two-factor authentication. The biggest difference between the two solutions is security and Dell is offered at a lower price point. 

The initial setup was straightforward. Deployment took less than two days. However, to get all the paperwork through the government officials took about six weeks.

We evaluated HPE Nimble.

Generally, one person is required to do the maintenance. There are eight of us that can do the maintenance in our company. Overall this solution provides exactly what we needed, which is fiber channel block storage in the cloud.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten. 

The speed and performance that we get through the SSD hard drives. That's a big factor for us.

We have a date warehouse server. Prior to being on Unity, we could get about one or two data warehouse refreshes a day. After standing that up in VMware and using Dell EMC Unity, we are able to get four data warehouse refreshes, which gives our finance and accounting group more information to react to throughout the day for inventory and purchasing.

I'm able to manage it very simply. The interface is a lot easier than the couple of VNX2s that we have. At least to me, Dell EMC Unity has a quicker responsive web GUI for management.

The quick integration with VMware. The ability to stand up a data store in one place, where you don't have to go and rescan for the data store through the vCenter Client, as well as SMB shares. This ended up being a big selling point for us.

I don't know where the hybrid cloud might be going or what connectivity there is between what was recently released as far as AWS and being able to manage both of them. Maybe there is an on-prem and an AWS instance in the same window, like a single pane, but I would like to see something along those lines, where there wouldn't be two locations to manage storage.

Stability has been 100%. We have had zero failures.

We have added one additional shelf to one of the two Unities. As far as I can tell, it went really well. It was not something I was involved with, but we may have had Dell EMC assist us with that.

In the SQL Server instances in our data warehouse, we immediately saw a great return on investment.

We purchased our Unity in September 2017. It was a simple process. We budgeted for it in the prior year. Then, we had the funds to take care of what we wanted to purchase.

I did bring up other vendors that I have worked with: NetApp and HPE SAN. Comparing them to my previous work and working with Unity now, I find Unity a lot easier to work with. For example, the NetApp seems to be more complex in just the ease of setting it up.

Do a little research into how you will create your storage groups. Ensure they have all lined out prior to going in and making one single storage group take up all the hard drives which we've seen some individuals do before and have to break it back down and start over. Definitely manage out what you want to place on the SSDs or on that Unity for your quickest response time. We've made sure that all of our high availability productions devices are on the Unity.

We have Hyper-V and VMware running on the Unity. We have moved Exchange off into Exchange Online onto the cloud. We did most of the integrations in-house. The big thing that we have done on it is running SQL Server. We have quite a few different SQL Server instances running on the SSDs.