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Dell PowerEdge VRTX [EOL] vs FlexPod XCS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 26, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerEdge VRTX [EOL]
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
FlexPod XCS
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
295
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

KA
Systems Engineer at Thakral One (Pvt) Ltd
Enables continued support and efficient data management in IT infrastructure
Dell PowerEdge VRTX is mainly used for virtual environments and is beneficial for IT infrastructure. It offers scalability, allowing customers to scale up as needed, which is crucial for maintaining hardware without purchasing new products. Its integrated storage solutions improve data management by providing the flexibility and ease of scaling up.
John Kevin - PeerSpot reviewer
Deputy IT Manager at MBBank
Enforces standardized setup procedures following Certified Validated Design (CVD) guidelines and offers greater flexibility and control over the system compared to traditional systems
The GUI setup follows the right setup, meaning we have to follow the CVDi.e. Certified Validated Design. Everything is clear, because you can build CI yourself, but without rules, it can be messy. With FlexPod, there are rules to follow, making it more standardized. This helps with troubleshooting and compatibility assessments, simplifying troubleshooting significantly. We also use FlexPod pre-validated architectures to validate the design. It is very, very important to us because we had a bad case in 2015 where separate items integrated poorly due to no version or firmware compatibility certification. Troubleshooting became a nightmare. So, standards are crucial for us, and everything entering production should be verified or at least documented for certification.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We were satisfied after we upgraded to a professional next-day on-site support."
"The main advantage, as I observed, was Dell VMware, which was pre-installed on the device."
"It's a good solution when you don't need a lot of IT."
"The online UA is very good in comparison to others."
"It is simple to use and it's user-friendly."
"It is pretty easy to install."
"Dell PowerEdge VRTX supports a lot of memory which has allowed us to keep our system size smaller."
"The system is very intuitive."
"We save days of work when doing new service deployments. With LUN clones we have a template provisioned for the image of our hypervisor on our NetApps, and we can deploy a brand new hypervisor in under an hour. Everything is scripted. We just clone a template LUN and boot from SAN, so there are no single points of failure."
"Provides unified support: Being able to get a vendor from one company or another company on the line without having to go back through the call queue."
"It is a very well-thought-out solution with great virtualization. A good option we have is mapping a storage LUN onto an ESX cluster. That way, in case a particular ESX is down, it can migrate (using vMotion) to another host in the cluster, resulting in high-availability."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the stability."
"The most valuable features of this solution are efficiency and simplicity."
"Our previous solution used to take 24 hours and now we're down to seven hours. It has really good performance."
"FlexPod has reduced our overall TCO and simplified our operations."
"The product is easy to deploy and use."
 

Cons

"The cost of Dell PowerEdge VRTX is high, making it difficult for small and medium businesses to bear."
"The licensing can be difficult to understand."
"VRTX is a bit simplified to the extent that it is a mainstream type of solution for small businesses. If a company needs a more complex solution or something that is a time saver or has more power or scalability, it is probably not the best solution. However, when a company grows and its needs grow, this type of environment can be definitely migrated towards a lab environment or pre-prod testing, not necessarily production. It can still have a second life for the other types of use."
"The nodes should be synced with the server so that the solution can be used from the cloud when any or all nodes are down."
"When we first started with this product, we had some difficulty with it."
"The problem is with our configuration. We know we can use PowerEdge for hyper-convergence if we have PowerEdge and configure vSAN. We will be able to achieve what VxRail is being able to provide, but we need to migrate it to a new infrastructure instead of changing our existing. It will be much more difficult for us."
"Dell PowerEdge VRTX can improve by providing support for M2 drives."
"It would be better to have a compact version of this solution for customers that have a small office and don't require a proper data center with power or an industrial type HP."
"A progress bar would...be pretty cool."
"They could improve their technical support team. They need to have a specific phone number for you to call in for the FlexPod solution. Some of the partner support knows if it is for FlexPod, they will get you to the right department."
"Hardware stability needs improvement. We replaced a lot of RAM this past year. We had to replace the complete blade once after extensive troubleshooting. Any given time, we have approximately one blade down within the entire infrastructure, unfortunately."
"I would be interested to see more integration with other applications."
"I would like to see more storage-related features."
"The initial setup was complex. UCS is not the easiest thing to configure from the ground up. The networking pieces can get confusing, especially when you are talking about virtual segmentation. It is not as easy as other things now on the market, such as hyperconverged."
"I would like to see increased performance."
"The solution could be improved by including automation for user updates."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution price of Dell PowerEdge VRTX could be reduced. However, when comparing the price of Dell PowerEdge VRTX to other solutions, such as HP and Lenovo, it was the best price for what they offer."
"We are renewing the support and we are purchasing the license for the software."
"On the scale of pricing, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I would rate it as a three. I am familiar with the overall cost, which involves licenses from Dell and VMware, among others, making it a combination of various license types."
"We bought a license for seven years."
"This product is more reasonably-priced than similar solutions by HPE."
"The solution is less expensive than competitors."
"The tool's pricing is fine."
"Fully configured, it costs about $50,000 or $55,000. I did purchase a used one or refurbished one. I have been very happy with it so far. Even if it is an older unit, it doesn't look like its age, and I would say it has been a great choice so far for me. Obviously, I would have thought twice if I had to pay for a brand new one because it is still an older technology with the risk of being discontinued. I talked to Dell, and they're still selling it, but they're not promoting it. They're promoting another line of products right now for hyper-converged, which are much more expensive."
"We can just swap in new equipment or hardware as we need, which has probably saved us several weeks."
"It has saved us hundreds of man-hours by using this converged infrastructure."
"Pricing is always tough. We need to get to a point where the customer's happy. Then, as partners, we are also happy."
"The scalability is very expensive."
"Buy storage based on the solutions you need, the technologies you need, and what will make your life a lot easier down the road."
"In terms of the cost, the last bill I saw was about $3.5 million, from the latest contract. That might have been for a five-year contract."
"The investment has been great. We put our money into it and it has given us something that we have been able to rely on for years."
"Everything is purchased, so we do not do any leasing with this product."
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees
Aug 30, 2015
Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod
Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Marketing Services Firm
31%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Performing Arts
7%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise66
Large Enterprise182
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerEdge VRTX?
The cost of Dell PowerEdge VRTX is high, making it difficult for small and medium businesses to bear. I would rate the pricing as seven out of ten.
What needs improvement with Dell PowerEdge VRTX?
It would be much better for customers if Dell could provide firmware updates even after the end of the product's life, enabling them to manage and keep their hardware for a longer time.
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Dundee, GE Healthcare Japan
University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in Converged Infrastructure. Updated: February 2026.
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