Dell PowerEdge VRTX vs FlexPod XCS comparison

Dell Technologies and NetApp are both solutions in the Converged Infrastructure category. Dell Technologies is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.2, while NetApp is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.4. Dell Technologies holds a 20.8% mindshare in CI, compared to NetApp’s 9.4% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerEdge VRTX

Read 20 Dell PowerEdge VRTX reviews

1,585 Views
502 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

FlexPod XCS

Read 295 FlexPod XCS reviews

500 Views
228 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Dell PowerEdge VRTX

FlexPod XCS

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

FlexPod XCS and Dell PowerEdge VRTX compete in the integrated IT solutions category. FlexPod appears to have the upper hand due to its robust scalability and integrated management across multiple vendors.

Features: FlexPod XCS focuses on integration, flexibility, and unified management, excelling in scalability for large-scale deployments. Dell PowerEdge VRTX is designed for affordability with a compact design, offering easy setup and efficient resource usage, ideal for small to mid-sized organizations.

Room for Improvement: FlexPod users seek more streamlined support processes, unified management interfaces, and enhanced cloud integration. Dell PowerEdge VRTX could improve by adding advanced networking features, scalability options, and support for emerging storage technologies.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: FlexPod XCS provides a consistent deployment experience across on-premises and hybrid cloud environments, supported by vendor collaborations, though multiple vendor support can be challenging. Dell PowerEdge VRTX is praised for simple setup and management with generally positive customer service, although response times may vary.

Pricing and ROI: FlexPod XCS is costlier but perceived as a worthwhile investment for its comprehensive features and favorable long-term ROI, especially in large deployments. Dell PowerEdge VRTX offers an affordable, practical solution for midsized enterprises, considered cost-effective compared to competitors.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerEdge VRTX vs. FlexPod XCS Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerEdge VRTX vs. FlexPod XCS

April 2025

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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

Ranking in Converged Infrastructure

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

FlexPod XCS

Ranking in Converged Infrastructure

6th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

295

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Converged Infrastructure category, the mindshare of Dell PowerEdge VRTX is 20.8%, down from 21.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FlexPod XCS is 9.4%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Converged Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

Lakshmanan A

IT Manager at Heat and Control

A very good online UI and fit for lower budgets but nodes don't sync with the server

Our company uses the solution for 15 mediums with virtual machines. The online UI is very good in comparison to others. 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. I have been using the solution for five years.…

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Chris Haight

Sr. Solutions Architect at CDW Canada Inc.

Integrates everything so you are using fewer tools

The traditional UCS Blades do not take much storage internally. You would be challenged to create an HCI (Hype converged Infrastructure) solution on FlexPod / UCS or any other solution that pools internal storage. Now, with UCS X-Series, you can carve off an HCI solution, software defined pooled solution if you want. This was one area of improvement that I wanted to see and can now realize with the refresh of the Cisco UCS infrastructure. With modern modular infrastructure, RESTful API has been added, there are more integrations, ServiceNow and vCenter along with tighter plug-ins. There is cross-user interface launching, for example with Windows Admin Center. The solutions are using Ansible and Terraform for deploying infrastructure as code. All the improvements that I wanted from the last gen are here or coming. With modern workloads and GPU use on the rise, adding GPUs to modern modular infrastructure will have some pros and cons. Typically, you can add one or two GPU's to a blade with no or little trade off. With the UCS X-Series, if you are doing a GPU farm, then you may have to sacrifice compute blades in the front slots to put in a GPU tray / module. A chassis holds eight compute blades, but if you are adding a ton of GPUs, a single GPU tray or more will reduce your blade count by as many GPU trays you add. This is not just a Cisco UCS X-Series problem. It is an industry problem with modular infrastructure and one that I would like to see get solved! I am looking into one such solution, VMware BITFUSION where you can send CUDA requests over the network to a BITFUSION server with the results sent back to the requestor, early stages here and only scratched the surface thus far. With Cisco UCS X-Series, I would like to see the fabric interconnects built into the chassis instead of being external. With the fabric interconnects, the real footprint of UCS X-Series is 9U, where some of the competing solutions are 7U and have collapsed the network fabric into the chassis. This is another thing that I would like to see from Cisco, though, not really on the NetApp side of the fence, NetApp is solid storage.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The security is very good on the solution."

"The system is very intuitive."

"The solution is stable."

"Dell PowerEdge VRTX supports a lot of memory which has allowed us to keep our system size smaller."

"It is pretty easy to install."

"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."

"With Dell PowerEdge VRTX, there are fewer points, and it is easier to troubleshoot and find your way around it."

More Dell PowerEdge VRTX pros

"It is the overall collaboration between NetApp and Cisco to come up with a product that is best in class and best in breed. You are bringing together the best things about UCS and NetApp, as well as you are tying it together with the Nexus fabric."

"The solution can be innovative when it comes to compute storage and networking. FlexPod is very flexible and innovative. We can design it as we like."

"When our clients choose to call NetApp or Cisco directly, the cooperative support model means they can get passed back and forth between the two organizations freely. It works really well."

"It is absolutely resilient. It has built-in redundancy and multipathing. If there is an issue with one part, it doesn't fail automatically."

"The Validated Designs are very good because they act as a reference to see whether we have done things properly."

"Going from the old monolithic server and silo storage that they used to use is an improvement. With the FlexPod solution, just being able to manage and monitor the overall environment helps."

"Technical support has been good when we have contacted them in the past. They have been helpful."

"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."

More FlexPod XCS pros

Cons

"The storage can be improved."

"A disadvantage could be the price."

"Dell PowerEdge VRTX can improve by providing support for M2 drives."

"Management of storage and networking is web-based, slow, and difficult."

"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."

"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."

"I'd like to be able to increase capacity."

"When we first started with this product, we had some difficulty with it."

More Dell PowerEdge VRTX cons

"I would like to have the installation of the top virtualization on its own rather than doing it through the admin. For example, if FlexPod is configured after the configuration of the host, the ESXi is installed also, but it should be part of it rather than doing it as a separate system."

"Sometimes, it can take awhile for support cases to get to the right people, especially if it's not a P1 case."

"The tool is obsolete and we are migrating to HPE. It should improve the pricing."

"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."

"The biggest thing that I would like to see is more cost-effective FlexPod solutions."

"They should cram more space in there and find a way to compress things more; dedupe better."

"Both NetApp and Cisco need to do improvements in their day-to-day operations management upgrades."

"You must build each block separately, that's a disadvantage sometimes."

More FlexPod XCS cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We bought a license for seven years."

"This product is more reasonably-priced than similar solutions by HPE."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"FlexPod has saved data center costs, due to the fact that we reduced our footprint for storage in a big way. We went from three complete racks down to a 2U storage array for more than 300 terabytes of storage."

"Buy storage based on the solutions you need, the technologies you need, and what will make your life a lot easier down the road."

"It is not going to save you money, but that is not the point. The opportunity to stay competitive in the marketplace is not a cost."

"It has saved us hundreds of man-hours by using this converged infrastructure."

"We have saved time and money for new service deployments."

"Our licensing costs are about $50,000 per year."

"The total cost of ownership with this solution is good."

"Coming from a rack and stack server model to FlexPod, it has saved us a lot of time (approximately hundreds to thousands of hours)."

More FlexPod XCS pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user244362

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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

21%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

21%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Educational Organization

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell PowerEdge VRTX?

The system is very intuitive.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about FlexPod?

The system is designed for easy scaling. Because we define everything clearly. So when we plug the system in, we apply the profile, and it scales easily.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FlexPod?

The pricing is not cheaper, but stability is more important for us now. We focus on business gains, not static numbers. Following XCS rules ensures a stable environment, which is crucial. For me, C...

See all answers

What needs improvement with FlexPod?

FlexPod should focus more on automation. Integrating an automation tool with FlexPod would enable customers to leverage automation capabilities. More automation would be helpful. Currently, we cont...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 68% of the time

IBM PureSystems vs Dell PowerEdge VRTX

Compared 11% of the time

Dell VxBlock System vs Dell PowerEdge VRTX

Compared 10% of the time

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Dell PowerFlex vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 27% of the time

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 12% of the time

HPE Hyper Converged vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 11% of the time

Dell VxBlock System vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 10% of the time

VMware vSAN vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 9% of the time

More FlexPod XCS Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerEdge VRTX

April 2025

Download Dell PowerEdge VRTX product report

Buyer's Guide

FlexPod XCS

April 2025

Download FlexPod XCS product report

Overview

PowerEdge VRTX modular infrastructure platform integrates servers, storage, networking and management together in a single compact chassis.

Dell Technologies

FlexPod XCS is the secure platform your applications need from edge to cloud. Easily manage your suite of cloud-native, edge, and enterprise apps. Integrate advanced cloud services without compromising performance, security, reliability, or scale.

NetApp

Sample Customers

University of Dundee, GE Healthcare Japan

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerEdge VRTX vs. FlexPod XCS

April 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerEdge VRTX vs. FlexPod XCS

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