Dell EMC Unity XT reviews

We use it for virtualization. We have all of our servers virtualized on the entire unit.

The performance has been outstanding. It's amazing.

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.

We have integrated Dell EMC Unity XT with VMware, Exchange, Microsoft SQL, and all types of Windows servers running on it. It outperforms any other physical hardware that I have ever had. We had to purchase the licenses for the Exchange and SQL servers. We also had to purchase VMware, and that could be cheaper.

We are also using it with our Veeam solution for our backup. Everything is just integrated so seamlessly. It is great.

The ease of use. Being able to configure it was easy, which I liked. 

It is easy to manage. Managing it, I get alerts if there are any type of issues. I had a hard drive go bad, which had never caused any issues. Dell EMC contacted me, and said, "We are a shipping a new one out." My response was, "Why?" He told me that hard drive was bad. So, I went and looked, and it was. This was almost immediate. I never even knew anything had happened.

As frequently as updates come in, it has far more updates than anything else, Dell does it for you, which makes it simple to do them. I just sit back and watch them do it, so it's nice. It keeps us up-to-date and secure.

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

It might be nice to have more integrated features instead of having everything as a separate module, like the networking. The networking is attached separately in the back. It would be nice if that was more integrated with less ports.

One to three years.

Stability is perfect and consistent. We have had no downtime. It is reliable.

As far as hardware goes, we haven't had to scale up at all. We're staying pretty steady. 

As far as users go, I have about 1000 users on it right now, and it's not even at 50%. It's amazing as far as utilization goes.

Technical support is top-notch. I have talked to them a couple times. They definitely seem to know what they are talking about. They are pretty quick to get parts out, and getting a tech out there to replace them.

This is our first time that we moved into virtualization. We are largely an HPE shop.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. I had a technician do it for me, then I looked over his shoulder because I had never done it before. He told me that he would do it this one time, and next time I would set it up because it was not that hard. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't impossible.

It was very easy to order. We went through and spec'd it out internally, then went through a Dell EMC partner and spec'd it out through them. The parts were here quickly, assembled, and all we had to do was mount it. We didn't have to do any configuring nor assembly, which was good.

Dell EMC did setup number one. Then, they shadowed me when I did the next setup. It's not simple, but it's doable. It's doable with the right guidance.

Deployment with the product is great.

When I first got the Dell EMC Unity system, I converted all of our physical machines to virtual, which:

• Eliminated the need for a $300,000 cost upfront to extend warranties.
• Eliminated the electricity that was being used along with other inadvertent items, such as cooling. The AC doesn't run as much in the data center now. 
• We went from about 45 servers down to one, which is amazing. 
• As far as purchasing additional servers, there is no need to buy hardware. It's all right there. Since we have deployed, this has easily saved us close to about $300,000 easily.

The time to set up has definitely improved. That is ROI for us. We save time spinning up a new server. If you ask me today for a new server, I can have it ready by the end up the day. When we were using hardware, it would take us about three weeks. We would have to provision a server. We would have to spec it out, buy it, assemble it, install the OS, back it, then we were finally ready to go. Whereas now, by the end of the day, I have a very nice server.

Simplicity of ownership is a no-brainer:

• Obtaining a warranty is easy.
• The price is very reasonable.
• As far as licensing goes, I love how VMware works with Dell EMC Unity. It's great. They work hand in hand. They have made it so simple.

We looked at VxRail, IBM, and Nutanix. Dell EMC Unity work out financially. VxRail was nice, but a lot more expensive and robust. Price-wise, Dell EMC Unity was right where we needed it to be.

Make sure to shop around to make absolutely 100% certain that it is what you want. You will want to come back to this particular model. 

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

• Pricing
• Knowledge: They know what they are talking about. 
• Aggressiveness: Are they vested in the pricing and product?

We are customers of Dell and I'm head of the team.

I like that you can add volume and it is automatically registered in VMware. It's easy to integrate XT with other solutions.

It's not a feature, but I'd like to see licensing costs reduced. 

I've been using this solution for a year. 

The solution is stable. 

I haven't tried scaling it because my work is a fixed requirement but it seems to be scalable.

I previously worked with Sequel Logic and a little with NetApp. We switched because it was a natural upgrade. I don't think either of those solutions is better than XT. I like it a lot although I think Unity does a pretty decent job as well.

The initial setup was straightforward and I think it took a couple of days. 

I think everything is overpriced in the storage area so it's difficult to know what reasonable means for these products. 

I rate this solution nine out of 10. 

The primary use of the solution is 80% block storage and 20% file storage.

The most valuable feature is that the solution is a hybrid system, so you can do both block and file storage.

The solution can use improvement with the patch cluster like the Synchron and Active replication.

I have been using the solution for five years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable.

Technical support for the solution is good.

The initial setup is straightforward.

As a partner, we provide the implementation service for our customers.

I give this solution an eight out of ten.

Only one admin person is required for maintenance. 

This robust solution fulfills block and file storage as it is designed to do. I 100% recommend this solution for block storage. There are some limitations with the file storage.

This solution will eventually be changed to a newer solution called PowerStore which will have a new range of storage options.

I mainly use Unity XT as a unified, hybrid storage system.

The most valuable feature is the fast cache with functionality rewrite. 

Dell could improve Unity XT by adding support for NVMe.

I've been using first EMC Clariion since 2003 and we can say that Unity XT is the last in the generation with significant improvements over time

Unity XT is stable.

Unity XT can be scaled up.

Dell's technical support is at a very high level, though it's not quite as good for organizations outside of Europe.

I previously worked with Fujitsu and IBM and would say Unity XT is very good compared to them.

The initial setup was straightforward - I would rate it five out of five.

There is no capacity license for XT and no additional costs for expansions. I would rate its pricing as four out of five.

I would give Unity XT a rating of nine out of ten.

Dell EMC Unity XT is a storage solution. It is used to store data.

Dell EMC Unity XT should present a path or a roadmap on how they could put their products on the cloud. This would have some value for their current customers.

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

Dell EMC Unity XT is reliable.

The support for Dell EMC Unity XT is great.

We are happy with the way we have Dell EMC Unity XT configured.

The price of Dell EMC Unity XT is not reasonable. They should lower it because the trend is to move to the cloud. They have to protect their market by giving commercial or financial incentives.

My advice to others wanting to implement Dell EMC Unity XT is to start small because it's not commercially viable to maintain large data centers anymore. If you can downsize to the right size and try to offload the data. However, if you have critical applications, then it would require an on-premise solution. The best is still Dell EMC Unity XT.

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

We are a solution provider and the Dell EMC Unity XT series is one of the products that we implement for our clients. My role is in pre-sales and I help to design the solutions.

It is primarily used to provide our customers with an on-site, high-availability production server. It is also used to provide disaster recovery

Using this product has helped us to improve the security of information. It is shared storage and as such, we have the ability to create an architecture that is resistant to server crashes. It allows us to minimize downtime and secure usage of services.

The most valuable features are its performance and simplicity.

The price of this product can be more cost-effective.

Dell EMC Unity XT

This is a stable product and we don't have a lot of incidents with it.

The Unity XT series is very scalable.

The support is very reactive.

We offer solutions from different vendors.

In cases where customers need a more cost-effective storage platform than Unity, we have possibilities to offer them.

The initial setup and deployment are easy. It can be completed in an hour.

We have an in-house team for deployment. We have five engineers that work with it in our organization. As a system integrator, we install and configure this product for our clients.

The price in our country is very expensive and some of our customers opt for lower-cost alternatives.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We can use Dell EMC Unity XT for backing up SAN and NAS drives. Mainly for databases and for file servers.

The most valuable feature is the dynamic cache of this product. It is very important. We have the physical cache and we can boost this cache using disks. All the products are mainly flash now and this is one of the main characteristics which our customers like.

I have a problem because between the Unity XT and the PowerMax, sometimes we need another product between these two products. There could be better integrated and the capacity of the size could be larger.

In the future, if NVMe disc could be used on the Dell EMC Unity XT it would be beneficial.

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

Dell EMC Unity XT is very reliable.  I used to use legacy EMC products, such as VNX. This product has a long story.

The solution is suitable for Medium-sized companies. When you talk large, it's relative. Our customers here in Algeria are the largest here but they are only medium-sized compared to other countries.

The technical support is good. Opening the ticket, the management of the ticket is good. However, when we have to use or change parts, it can be more difficult because of the customs rules of the disposability and availability of the parts. We have problems delivering them in the time the parts are needed in some cases.

We previously used Fujitsu and IBM products.

When comparing Dell and IBM they are very similar. Fujitsu is a good product too. However, when comparing them all in their strengths for implementation, the lifecycle of the product, and the support they provide, I would rank Dell number one, IBM second, and third would be Fujitsu.

The initial setup is simple. The time it takes for the implementation depends. From scratch, a new implementation takes approximately three days. If you have to migrate a node storage array, the time can increase, I am not able to give an exact time because it depends on the volume and the nature of the data. We can take one week to three weeks to migrate. However, generally, it takes approximately 10 days when we have to migrate and without migration, it's about two and three days.

We provide implementation service to our customers.

The maintenance is done by the Dell representative in our country.

The solution is very expensive. 

There are a lot of advantages with EMC Unity XT, there's no limitation. When you bought the product, the software is included and there's no limitation of the terabyte in the licenses.

I would firmly recommend this solution to others.

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

The most valuable feature that Unity had at that moment was the ability to communicate with the previous family, the Clariion. So, the migration and all the data transfer was really easy.

In terms of what could be improved, I would say the deduplication part, because for large deduplications, you need an extra appliance to do it in order to avoid having problems in performance. I think that could be improved, because everything should be included in the product, not with an appliance from the outside.

I have been dealing with Dell EMC Unity XT for something like 20 years.

The oldest implementation I have done for Unity was about six, seven years ago and it's been working pretty good. No problem so far.

I have had no problem at all. I think this is one of the most important things. It is very good. Maintaining it and deploying updates require very low maintenance. We haven't had problems. We had to replace a couple of disks in all these years, but it was pretty straightforward.

We switched to Unity because of the price, but that was for the migration from IBM to Dell Clariion. And when replacing the Clariion to the Unity, it was an easy migration of the data.

The initial setup was simple. The main problem is that you need an extra appliance outside of the disk - you need extra hardware.

My advice would be the same thing as the Data Domain - it is important that there is good sizing at the beginning. It makes a difference.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Dell EMC Unity XT a 10.