Dell EMC Unity XT reviews

I work as an integrator and this is one of the products that I have implemented in different locations. Most customers choose this product because they want to have faster storage. The XT series is all-flash, so it's fast.

I recommend it for ERP systems and for people running Oracle Database. I have implemented both of these. Most applications these days are implemented in a VM environment with a Hypervisor, and this product is well suited for virtualization.

The setup and installation procedures are easy.

The management is done using a single console, which is good. You don't have to use a separate VM to manage the storage.

The most valuable feature of Dell storage systems is the tiering. However, with an all-flash system, there is no tiering.

The monitoring capabilities should be improved.

The reporting should be better. In other systems, you can create many different kinds of reports but this is not the case with Dell.

Dell Unity is going out of support soon, which is bad. They should continue to support it, rather than have it end after five years.

I have been working with the Dell EMC Unity XT series for three years.

Unity had a lot of trouble with stability in the beginning, but it is stable now.

This is a scalable product. I have set up the device in a lot of different locations.

The Unity technical support is very good.

I have also implemented Dell EMC PowerStore and Unity is better. The PowerStore had a lot of issues when I deployed it.

I also work with HPE 3PAR and I find that it has better monitoring capabilities, a better GUI, and better reporting. Reports with different views can be exported. In Dell products, the reporting is not as good

With 3PAR, there is another appliance required to operate the storage but with Dell, it's good because you can manage it from the same console. You don't need another VM to manage the storage.

The initial setup is very easy to do and there are no prerequisites.

Installing the license is easy. You just have to download it from the portal.

Upgrading the product is also easy to do.

This is a great storage solution and a product that I recommend. That said, it's not perfect. More can be done from Dell to improve the Unity series.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We currently have three Dell EMC Unity XT units, all used for different applications.

The primary use case is general, all-around storage. We use it for both unstructured file and unstructured block storage and a lot of it is attached through a few systems to VMware.

The applications are databases and other similar products.

One of the units is used for diagnostic imaging, and another is used for file services such as the Hospital Management System (HMS).

I don't have metrics but this product benefits us because of its reliability. It's like a black box that sits in the background and just runs. It works great and does everything that's asked of it.

The most valuable feature is reliability. At the end of the day, it just runs.

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

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

I have been working with Dell EMC Unity XT for approximately four years. It has been at the company for five years.

We have not had any issues with stability.

We haven't really had to scale it too much. Whatever we've had to do, it's been able to accommodate what we need. We know that it can grow more but we just don't need it to. Also, we're shifting away from it because it's being replaced.

Dell's technical support is great for 99% of things.

There have been a few problems but I understand because the product was not mainstream. The unit was an FS8600 and there were only about 12 people in all of North America who knew it well. That's why we got rid of it.

Overall, I would rate their technical support a nine out of ten. I don't give anybody a ten because there is always room for improvement.

The organization did not have a previous solution. The original two devices were brought in specifically for the tasks that they perform. The third one is dedicated to the new HSM software.

We have other storage, on-premises. We have different storage for different things. For example, we have two Dell Compellent units, as well as Isilon. We run the gamut of everything.

We are retiring two of our Unity XT units because we bought a Dell EMC PowerStore. We're updating everything as part of our refresh cycle. We will be keeping the last Unity XT for at least two more years because it's a fairly new system. It will probably be replaced by a PowerStore as well.

I was not with the company when it was initially set up but I have set up other ones. This product is straightforward and easy to set up. It is almost set-and-forget, where you get it on the floor and away you go.

It took me less than a day to deploy, from unboxing to putting it on the raised floor to powering it on and having my first system attached to it.

I deployed it myself. I have been working with storage products for more than 20 years.

It is myself and two others that are responsible for the maintenance. All of us are backup and storage engineers. I am the primary and the other two are my backups. We all take different approaches and handle different things.

For purchases, we have always dealt with Dell through a third party because until recently, Dell did not do direct sales. The company we used was Techni-Core and they're okay. We've had some issues with them including some improperly configured Isilons and other systems that were not done correctly. Back when I first joined, I had to go in and spend four months debugging a system that was set up wrong.

I think that they had a couple of people that were poor at doing installs but I'm pretty sure they are now gone because I don't see their names anywhere.

We see a return on investment because this product just runs. We don't have to spend hours maintaining it. It needs less intervention from us which means that we can spend time on other things.

This solution is a good price for what you get.

We are a Dell customer so we did not evaluate options from other vendors.

Everything that we have is Dell unless it is something that is vendor-issued or vendor-specific.

We only touch the edge of what this product can do. It can do more than we use it for, such as file replication between two units.

There is not much needed in terms of improvement. It is a rock-solid product.

My advice for anybody who is considering the Dell Unity XT is to just enjoy it. It's a great system that is easy to maintain. Right out of the box, it's a good system. It's not the best that I've ever used but it's pretty close.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We use it for user shares and VMs.

We have 200 people using it in our organization.

The snapshotting is slick.

I like how it separates the iSCSI drives from the standard shares. It has two different routes to it. I know most of the other solutions do this, but I just like the way that Dell EMC does it.

I like the dashboard, which gives me a quick reference on my monitor as to what is using what bandwidth.

It could go faster. Make it bigger, better, and faster at a lower price, and I am there.

Our solution is four- to five-years-old. We use it every day.

I have never had any stability issues. It has been solid and stable. The dual platform, i.e., how it sits one head on top of the other, has been rock-solid. I have never had an issue with it.

I have noticed there is another version that has come out.

I haven't scaled it yet. The way that I set it up was half the drive bays are being used. When I do need to scale up, I am just going to duplicate the other half of the drives, stick them in there, and then spin them up.

The technical support is good and quick.

I would like a little faster response, but I don't think that their response is really that slow. They respond fairly quickly, at least fast enough for most issues. If it was an emergency issue, it might be different, as they probably would move it up the ladder anyway.

It is a little bit of a pain at first to set up the snapshotting. However, once it is set up, and you figure it out, it is not that bad.

I needed one of the specialists to set it up initially, which is not surprising because the solutions are a pain in that way. Some of the menus, and how it is at first, are a little awkward. It takes a little while to get used to, then it all starts to make sense.

I liked the price point when we purchased it.

I don't know what other units have that Unity doesn't have. Though I would say to them, "Keep up with your competition."

Look at it online. If you can get a demo version in-house, give it a shot.

If you need to keep data safe and make sure it doesn't go anywhere, Dell EMC Unity is a good way to go.

I would rate them as nine out of 10.

Unity is utilized primarily for our vSphere/vCenter environment. It is where we keep all of our data stores and all of our LUNs and anything to do with our vSphere environment. We really don't usually assign any LUNs directly to servers.

We have a large cluster environment and these are active clusters. There are times where the SQL cluster environment starts to get full and it's really easy to add a LUN or space without interruption. The customer is not even aware that the volume is about to run out of space. We can always just add more space and do data recovery for DRs without the customer's knowledge.

One of the features that I find most valuable is that it is easy to access. We're able to access it from just about anywhere, as long as we have access to a browser. That feature is really neat because sometimes we will go to a different data center or a different site, and if we need to access it to see a LUN or to see any type of storage, we can do that. That's one of the big takeaways with Unity.

The solution has been around in our environment for about five years. I've only been exposed to it for the past year and a half.

My impression of the stability is all positive.

We can always add more storage or more devices or more disks. There's always room for growth and it's easy to implement.

This is our primary source of storage and we plan to increase our usage. There's an objective coming in 2022 to increase storage. We have several terabytes and we are constantly chewing that up so there is an effort underway to expand.

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.

Once we are able to get in touch with someone, and we have an engineer working with us, it's great the way they follow up. They constantly keep in touch with us whenever we have issues. They help schedule any type of upgrades and get them implemented. Overall, support has been very helpful.

And anytime there are notices of updates and upgrades, support keeps us involved and engaged.

Positive

We went to the Unity because of cost. I wasn't involved in the purchase of it, but the VPLEX maintenance was getting costly and it felt like the Unity was newer technology. The technology was better, the interface was better, interacting with it was better. It is a lot easier to use than the VPLEX. We figured it was a better solution than what we had and one that gave us more flexibility

The initial setup was straightforward. It was very easy to set up.

Ours was a pretty large deployment. The Unity replaced our VPLEX environment so when we put the Unity in we had to do a lot of migration conversion from VPLEX to Unity. That was a process because we had a lot of VMs and data stores move. It took us about a day and a half to do everything.

We have five engineers who work on it, or who actually touch it or provide hands-on support for it. As far as the end-users go, we have about 500, and they have no idea they're on a Unity. What they know is that when they pull their machines up, they have storage and data.

We used CDW. Our experience with them was outstanding. They're great. I have no issues at all. CDW just did an outstanding job.

The return on investment is in the fact that it meets all of our storage needs and in the ease of expanding it. It's also seen through the fact that we can work on the environment without interruption to the end-user.

Do your due diligence. Check it out to see if Unity is something you can use for your environment. It is definitely worth looking into. Give it a try.

As far as the solution's functionality goes, I see no areas in need of improvement. Everything is functioning completely adequately. I have no complaints and no issues. I have no negative feedback. The implementation was easy and straightforward. Doing our recovery points is pretty straightforward. It is easy to access through a browser. We can add and remove LUNs on-the-fly with no impact at all to our environment.

The product is stable. Its most valuable feature is the storage alarm.

Dell Unity XT’s price needs improvement.

We have been using Dell Unity XT for five to six years. We are using version 380.

I rate the product’s stability nine out of ten.

We have 8000 Dell Unity XT users. I rate the product’s scalability an eight out of ten.

The product has an easy setup process. It requires two people to execute it and takes a day to complete.

I rate Dell Unity XT’s pricing a nine out of ten.

We evaluated HP and NetApp.

I rate Dell Unity XT an eight out of ten.

I provide support for these storage products.

I like that the performance is very good.

It would be better if there were more integrations.

We have been using Dell Unity XT for two and a half years. 

Dell Unity XT is a stable solution.

Dell Unity XT is a scalable solution. 

Technical support is very good. The response from technical support was very good.

Depending on the hardware, it takes about three to four hours to deploy this solution. 

We sometimes use third-party help because we are facing many hardware issues.

We have to apply for a license for each system. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Dell Unity XT a nine.

I provide support for customers in their use of Dell Unity XT.

The most valuable feature of Dell Unity XT is the GUI, it is very good. End users can manage using it. Additionally, the documentation is of high quality and it integrates well.

Dell Unity XT could improve the compatibility of some of the features. Some of my customers had some problems. Additionally, it would be beneficial for the solution to have advanced AI and ML features.

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

The stability of Dell Unity XT is good.

Dell Unity XT is scalable. We have one customer who has an enterprise company using this solution.

The support from Dell Unity XT is good.

I was working with HPE 3PAR StoreServ previously. If I compare Dell Unity XT to HP 3PAR, they are similar.

The customer we have has approximately 10 administrators support.

I rate Dell Unity XT a nine out of ten.

We use this solution for customers who are looking for a cost-effective option that provides an end-to-end solution for servers, backups, and storage.

The unified storage feature is valuable because it means my customers don't require the setup of a separate mass. They can use the existing storage system as a mass.

Using this solution has meant that I do not need to look for different partners to provide me with solutions like a backup service. Dell provides end-to-end solutions.

This solution could be improved by offering containerization. This is something many of my customers are looking for. 

I have a limited budget for IT solutions so it would be great to provide Dell's solutions at a lower cost. 

I have been using this solution for five years. 

This is a scalable solution. 

I would rate the customer service for this solution an eight out of ten. 

Positive

I have previously used HPE. HPE only offers hardware and so we needed to find a cloud-based solution. 

From a pricing perspective, this solution is comparable to others on the market. 

This solution requires regular maintenance from a dedicated team. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.