Unity series is re-engineered VNX, so the Unity is newer … it makes better use of flash, active – active , dual controller mode; better price point , configurations solid upgrade from the VNX
Senior Cloud Design Engineer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Nov 1, 2017
Unity is the new generation of VNX boxes, some refer it to as VNX3. The old VNX 2500 is already EOL since Dec 2014.
So in this case Unity 400 is newer and better.
Business Development Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Oct 31, 2017
Both systems are good middle storage systems but the unity family is latest.
The unity 400 is an hybrid flash where you can install classic HDD and
SSD. So you can reduce costs and optimize your storage for your
requirement.
Some function (that will be available in 4Q17) are interest like :
* support for inline compression,
* deduplication
* zero detect.
Deduplication is an expensive cycle system and I suggest to use it with
SSD. These function deduplication and zerodetect produce an hard
reduction of user space and if you need to reduce it without lost
performances I suggest an all-flash system and not an hybrid. Zerodetect
can give benefits, for istance in VmWare enviroment, for istance when
you inizialize a volume; or when you copy data from an old storage
systems to this one.
This systems can grow up 16 PB
VNX family is an old architecture, but has good point for use it. Has a
low cost, you can install some SSD. This system scale up to 0,5 PB
Which is better storage system for you ? It depend where you use this
storage system.
In other words if this storage system is the core of your IT
architecture and you are thinking :
* that you need of high performances,
* that it will grow in a couple of mounth, but you do not know when,
* that on this system there is the virtual server workload
So use Unity!
If this storage system is one of more storage systems in your storage
enviroment where you need to a lot of performances but it will not grow.
Use VNX!
IT Operation Infrastructure Virtualization Specialist at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Dec 3, 2017
With Dell EMC, you can continue to work with the midrange and ensure high performance. Dell EMC Unity 400F environment SAN and high performance for NAS. Dell EMC Unity 400F Performs Replication operations on Snapshot (Snapshot), Local Area Network and Remote Network. In addition, systems such as VMware, Microsoft and OpenStack can work.
Pre-Sales Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Consultant
Nov 2, 2017
First of all, DELL EMC will announce the end of life of VNX in JAN so take in consideration this point.
Secondly, UNITY is better than VNX in terms of performance, scalability and price. However my advice to you is to be “modern” and go for Unity 350F ALL FLASH, from now on consider the all flash in everything in case of using virtual san or SAN storage. Unity 350F is the same cache 96GB as unity 400 hybrid and scalability is more and more better than 400 because nowadays the single SSD capacity up to 15 TB so it will scale more. In addition to, All Flash models contains unified, deduplication, compression and dynamic pools and this is the best option in All flash because goodbye for the traditional way of building a pool with a hot spare and a parity, now you can put the exact capacity you want by adding one disk or 2 or whatever you want not like the old days build the same pool as the previous one installed in the storage box.
To sum up, please reconsider your choise and put the ALL Flash unity as option 1.
Storage Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Nov 1, 2017
EMC VNX 2500 or EMC Unity 400. Which one is the newer and better Storage and why?
Which Storage is the latest and which one functions better and Why?
Unity is the newer box and I think it will replace the Vnx family eventually.
Unity support SAN, NAS and ISCSI also Flash and Standard disks .
The only drawback I know of is that Unity uses TLC for the flash disks
As a new purchase, the Unity will have a longer support life as the VNX line will gradually be phased out.
The management software in the Unity is newer and easier to configure and manage, which is often important in a smaller organisation that does not have SAN skills. If you decide to take an EMC Unity array there is a new HMTL5 GUI versus the VNX 5200 which uses now out of date Java versions.
Both the Unity 400 and VNX5200 arrays are widely installed, reliable and both make excellent storage platforms for production applications and virtualised environments.
Account Manager at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Reseller
Top 20
Oct 31, 2017
I’m not the expert on latest EMC storage platforms as we also specialize in IT Infrastructure in general, but I do have a customer with the EMC VNX e3100 which is becoming end of support so we’re looking at helping them with a replacement Nutanix (pdf attached) or other brand in addition to EMC.
www.dellemc.com/en-us/storage/unity.htm
I believe the Unity is the newer product for EMC and we might offer this depending on our Customers needs.
I hope this helps!
Senior Storage Sales Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Consultant
Oct 31, 2017
It is important to understand the use case before determining which will be the better solution. Cost is always a factor and though Unity is much newer, VNX can often be a suitable solution. Third Party Maintenance is available for these aging solutions and vendors can even grow EOSL from the OEM solutions. With unlimited capital, go all flash Unity if choosing between these two, but that is not always the best solution when value architecting a solution.
Manager Technology Services at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
User
Oct 31, 2017
I wouldn't go with either. If you are looking for purpose-built hybrid, go with Nimble. We evaluated EMC, HP 3Par, Kaminario and Nimble for our latest SAN purchase and the best bang for the buck was Nimble followed closely by Kaminario. EMC didn't even come close to the performance of any of the others and they were three times as much.
I had concerns about support issues with the VNX and ExtremeIO platforms (read the forums). The Unity platform was formed when Dell acquired EMC and rebranded their Dell-Compellent storage, which was also an acquisition that happened about 7 years ago. Compellent was and still is a direct competitor with what is now the HP StorVirtual platform as they were built on the same tech around the same time. They were great solutions when they were new 10 years ago, but there are much better and cheaper solutions to both of them now.
Our experience with Nimble has been great from start to finish and the thing runs like a top. If you haven't talked to them yet, you should before you make a decision with EMC.
If you are not as concerned about brand names, Kaminario is a really good solution too. They take the approach that fast is once size fits all. Great performance, but not much selection for performance sizing.
Director, Systems Engineering, Central Area at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Vendor
Oct 31, 2017
Neither is new or better that storage that’s been created within the last 8 years, since Flash storage was created and is now mainstream. You cannot retrofit an old architecture with Flash and call it “new”. The legacy operating system has many inherent bottlenecks which prevent it from performing with Flash. A very simple example is that many legacy architectures (such as with VNX and Unity), they force Flash storage to perform as if they were rotating disk, and in doing so, throttle the Flash’s potential. Unless an architecture can eliminate the serial nature of the IO process and take advantage of thousands of lanes of IO, there is no way to perform at the level of architectures which were built for Flash. Going forward, every architecture needs to incorporate a plan to work within an NVMe direction. NVMe will provide for 64,000 IO paths into and out of each Flash module, as opposed to 2. Just imagine the potential which this new architecture can evoke within your environment! Food for thought.
I think it should be VNX 5200 vs Unity 400. Attached is the file showing
their comparison. Clearly Unity 400 is latest and has more Cache, CPU
performance.
Unity family are brand new with a totally different Operating System. Block and File services are native without other box than a 2U DPE enclosure of 25x2,5inches disks capacity. DAE can be added for more capacity. As it's a 2 controllers device it remains "mid-range" with some limitations.
Full-Flash "F" models are an interesting choice with 15TB disks allowing 300TB usable in a 2U DPE enclosure. Definitely much more attractive than old VNX models.
The VNX is being phased out. The Unity 400 line is the next generation SAN. It offers better support for flash. The unit has active/active controllers, can be configured as all Flash, Hybrid or VSA.
Senior Customer Engineer at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Consultant
Oct 31, 2017
Like "reviewer291888" says yes I think they mean VNX5200, which is approaching EOA but will still be supported by DELL-EMC. Nevertheless, UNITY Storage offers flexibility of Unified storage (SAN/NAS) on top of what "reviewer291888" has commented on
Business Development Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 20
Oct 31, 2017
The VNX range is older and is being phased out. I think you mean VNX 5200? That said the Unity 400 is the better investment as it is newer, cheaper to support, faster, and with higher capacity and bigger supported file system size.
All-Flash Storage offers high-speed data access and reliability required for enterprise applications, significantly reducing latency and enhancing overall system performance. This technology uses flash memory architecture to provide faster data retrieval compared to traditional storage, making it an essential component for data-intensive and transactional workloads. Its energy-efficient design means lower operational costs and reduced data center space. What key features define All-Flash...
Unity series is re-engineered VNX, so the Unity is newer … it makes better use of flash, active – active , dual controller mode; better price point , configurations solid upgrade from the VNX
Unity is the new generation of VNX boxes, some refer it to as VNX3. The old VNX 2500 is already EOL since Dec 2014.
So in this case Unity 400 is newer and better.
Go for Unity. It’s the newest model and the base software is now better than VNX.
Unity is newer. Go with newer of the 2 if these are your only options.
Both systems are good middle storage systems but the unity family is latest.
The unity 400 is an hybrid flash where you can install classic HDD and
SSD. So you can reduce costs and optimize your storage for your
requirement.
Some function (that will be available in 4Q17) are interest like :
* support for inline compression,
* deduplication
* zero detect.
Deduplication is an expensive cycle system and I suggest to use it with
SSD. These function deduplication and zerodetect produce an hard
reduction of user space and if you need to reduce it without lost
performances I suggest an all-flash system and not an hybrid. Zerodetect
can give benefits, for istance in VmWare enviroment, for istance when
you inizialize a volume; or when you copy data from an old storage
systems to this one.
This systems can grow up 16 PB
VNX family is an old architecture, but has good point for use it. Has a
low cost, you can install some SSD. This system scale up to 0,5 PB
Which is better storage system for you ? It depend where you use this
storage system.
In other words if this storage system is the core of your IT
architecture and you are thinking :
* that you need of high performances,
* that it will grow in a couple of mounth, but you do not know when,
* that on this system there is the virtual server workload
So use Unity!
If this storage system is one of more storage systems in your storage
enviroment where you need to a lot of performances but it will not grow.
Use VNX!
With Dell EMC, you can continue to work with the midrange and ensure high performance. Dell EMC Unity 400F environment SAN and high performance for NAS. Dell EMC Unity 400F Performs Replication operations on Snapshot (Snapshot), Local Area Network and Remote Network. In addition, systems such as VMware, Microsoft and OpenStack can work.
First of all, DELL EMC will announce the end of life of VNX in JAN so take in consideration this point.
Secondly, UNITY is better than VNX in terms of performance, scalability and price. However my advice to you is to be “modern” and go for Unity 350F ALL FLASH, from now on consider the all flash in everything in case of using virtual san or SAN storage. Unity 350F is the same cache 96GB as unity 400 hybrid and scalability is more and more better than 400 because nowadays the single SSD capacity up to 15 TB so it will scale more. In addition to, All Flash models contains unified, deduplication, compression and dynamic pools and this is the best option in All flash because goodbye for the traditional way of building a pool with a hot spare and a parity, now you can put the exact capacity you want by adding one disk or 2 or whatever you want not like the old days build the same pool as the previous one installed in the storage box.
To sum up, please reconsider your choise and put the ALL Flash unity as option 1.
EMC VNX 2500 or EMC Unity 400. Which one is the newer and better Storage and why?
Which Storage is the latest and which one functions better and Why?
Unity is the newer box and I think it will replace the Vnx family eventually.
Unity support SAN, NAS and ISCSI also Flash and Standard disks .
The only drawback I know of is that Unity uses TLC for the flash disks
As a new purchase, the Unity will have a longer support life as the VNX line will gradually be phased out.
The management software in the Unity is newer and easier to configure and manage, which is often important in a smaller organisation that does not have SAN skills. If you decide to take an EMC Unity array there is a new HMTL5 GUI versus the VNX 5200 which uses now out of date Java versions.
Both the Unity 400 and VNX5200 arrays are widely installed, reliable and both make excellent storage platforms for production applications and virtualised environments.
I’m not the expert on latest EMC storage platforms as we also specialize in IT Infrastructure in general, but I do have a customer with the EMC VNX e3100 which is becoming end of support so we’re looking at helping them with a replacement Nutanix (pdf attached) or other brand in addition to EMC.
www.dellemc.com/en-us/storage/unity.htm
I believe the Unity is the newer product for EMC and we might offer this depending on our Customers needs.
I hope this helps!
It is important to understand the use case before determining which will be the better solution. Cost is always a factor and though Unity is much newer, VNX can often be a suitable solution. Third Party Maintenance is available for these aging solutions and vendors can even grow EOSL from the OEM solutions. With unlimited capital, go all flash Unity if choosing between these two, but that is not always the best solution when value architecting a solution.
I wouldn't go with either. If you are looking for purpose-built hybrid, go with Nimble. We evaluated EMC, HP 3Par, Kaminario and Nimble for our latest SAN purchase and the best bang for the buck was Nimble followed closely by Kaminario. EMC didn't even come close to the performance of any of the others and they were three times as much.
I had concerns about support issues with the VNX and ExtremeIO platforms (read the forums). The Unity platform was formed when Dell acquired EMC and rebranded their Dell-Compellent storage, which was also an acquisition that happened about 7 years ago. Compellent was and still is a direct competitor with what is now the HP StorVirtual platform as they were built on the same tech around the same time. They were great solutions when they were new 10 years ago, but there are much better and cheaper solutions to both of them now.
Our experience with Nimble has been great from start to finish and the thing runs like a top. If you haven't talked to them yet, you should before you make a decision with EMC.
If you are not as concerned about brand names, Kaminario is a really good solution too. They take the approach that fast is once size fits all. Great performance, but not much selection for performance sizing.
I am sorry we don’t have either storage array. But I believe the Unity line is newer than the VNX line of storage array.
Neither is new or better that storage that’s been created within the last 8 years, since Flash storage was created and is now mainstream. You cannot retrofit an old architecture with Flash and call it “new”. The legacy operating system has many inherent bottlenecks which prevent it from performing with Flash. A very simple example is that many legacy architectures (such as with VNX and Unity), they force Flash storage to perform as if they were rotating disk, and in doing so, throttle the Flash’s potential. Unless an architecture can eliminate the serial nature of the IO process and take advantage of thousands of lanes of IO, there is no way to perform at the level of architectures which were built for Flash. Going forward, every architecture needs to incorporate a plan to work within an NVMe direction. NVMe will provide for 64,000 IO paths into and out of each Flash module, as opposed to 2. Just imagine the potential which this new architecture can evoke within your environment! Food for thought.
I think it should be VNX 5200 vs Unity 400. Attached is the file showing
their comparison. Clearly Unity 400 is latest and has more Cache, CPU
performance.
Unity 400 is newer. It support up to 4PB Raw Capacity.
Unity family are brand new with a totally different Operating System. Block and File services are native without other box than a 2U DPE enclosure of 25x2,5inches disks capacity. DAE can be added for more capacity. As it's a 2 controllers device it remains "mid-range" with some limitations.
Full-Flash "F" models are an interesting choice with 15TB disks allowing 300TB usable in a 2U DPE enclosure. Definitely much more attractive than old VNX models.
The VNX is being phased out. The Unity 400 line is the next generation SAN. It offers better support for flash. The unit has active/active controllers, can be configured as all Flash, Hybrid or VSA.
Like "reviewer291888" says yes I think they mean VNX5200, which is approaching EOA but will still be supported by DELL-EMC. Nevertheless, UNITY Storage offers flexibility of Unified storage (SAN/NAS) on top of what "reviewer291888" has commented on
Hope this helps:
virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2016/05/emc-world-2016-unity-the-story-behind-the-story.html
The VNX range is older and is being phased out. I think you mean VNX 5200? That said the Unity 400 is the better investment as it is newer, cheaper to support, faster, and with higher capacity and bigger supported file system size.