Dell EMC Unity XT reviews

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 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.

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.