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Dell PowerFlex vs FlexPod XCS comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 PowerFlex
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
HCI (7th)
FlexPod XCS
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
295
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. Dell PowerFlex is designed for HCI and holds a mindshare of 5.8%, down 10.0% compared to last year.
FlexPod XCS, on the other hand, focuses on Converged Infrastructure, holds 12.7% mindshare, up 10.0% since last year.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerFlex5.8%
VxRail9.6%
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)8.9%
Other75.7%
HCI
Converged Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
FlexPod XCS12.7%
HPE ConvergedSystem11.1%
Dell VxBlock System9.8%
Other66.4%
Converged Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

Serdar De - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at ÜÇGE Shopfitting & Design
Initial setup has been straightforward and it has reasonable pricing
We are new to this, so we are still learning about the valuable features The solution is okay overall. It could be easier to learn. We haven't had any issues. They could have more AI functionality in the future.  I have been using the solution for six months. I have not encountered any problems…
John Kevin - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Director at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
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

"The solution's most valuable feature is the storage space it offers."
"The support is highly responsive."
"The tool's most valuable features are its price and flexibility. It has high performance."
"It is easy to use for management and operations teams because the tools are in one place."
"The solution saves a lot of space in the data center and that is a key advantage for us."
"Dell PowerFlex is a complete hyperconverge that makes automation easy to manage and extremely stable."
"The technical support for this solution is pretty good."
"We've had no issues with scaling the solution."
"Gives us a single point of contact for support."
"The product is very stable and it does what it needs to do."
"The ability to really leverage the 10-Gb connections between the UCS to the Cisco Nexus switch and then to our NetApp really improved performance for us and allowed us to experience a huge amount of growth with no loss of performance."
"NetApp is always coming up with features that I want before I know that I want them."
"Overall, as an entire package, it has everything that we need and support is very helpful when needed."
"My advice to anybody considering this product is to give it a close look because it's a great solution."
"Due to the way the equipment is all together, with its resiliency, typically we have zero downtime."
"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."
 

Cons

"Licensing restrictions can be frustrating."
"They should provide continuous support for data migration."
"The solution is not as scalable as it should be."
"It would be great to get earlier access to beta builds because we have to develop providers on our own. The APIs and enablers for custom automation could also be improved."
"The level of support needs improvement as the front-line support staff lack knowledge when we raise cases."
"The tool is a bit difficult to configure, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The storage capability must be improved."
"The solution is okay overall. It could be easier to learn."
"We have not seen ROI yet."
"I would like to see an easier implementation, but I think that with newer versions of ONTAP and new versions of FlexPod, it's getting better."
"We would like to have more monitoring and reporting, because today some of the reporting, and if you purchase it separately is expensive. We use OnCommand Unified Manager today, which is great, but we are looking for more of that."
"The interface is a little convoluted."
"There is always room for improvement. I believe we can do hot swaps on the fly."
"Stability is a big question mark. We suffered with lengthy downtime, so stability has not been fantastic."
"I would like more support for different platforms, possibly different database platforms. I don't know if it supports Oracle today, but that would be a big improvement."
"I would like to see improvements in the documentation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."
"The product is expensive."
"The price could be improved."
"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."
"The solution's price is medium."
"The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as eight and a half. The tool is expensive."
"It seems very cost effective once it's in place, and it's easy to expand and easy to add capacity without a lot of extra money."
"Coming from a rack and stack server model to FlexPod, it has saved us a lot of time (approximately hundreds to thousands of hours)."
"We have saved time and money for new service deployments."
"Make sure you are buying for performance, not just capacity."
"Licensing can be interesting with the new version because of the Intersight integration. I don't know what that looks like yet. I have seen some of the different licensing models, but with the new purchasing, all customers are going to have to buy some sort of Intersight licensing with the Blades or FlexPod. I am curious to see how that option shakes out. Previous to the UCS X-Series, the licensing was the same."
"The product is kind of expensive even from an entry-level standpoint. I would say FlexPod would be the way to go if you are a larger business or one with large data volume."
"It is cost-effective."
"The pricing and licensing are quite expensive. However, compared to other solutions, it is okay."
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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
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Construction Company
12%
Marketing Services Firm
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise66
Large Enterprise182
 

Questions from the Community

What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?
VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if the user is working with a l...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerFlex?
Dell PowerFlex is a premium software-defined infrastructure solution and while the initial investment may seem higher than traditional SAN or mid-tier HCI solutions, the long-term TCO is competitive.
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerFlex?
Area of Improvement: While PowerFlex Manager is powerful, the UI could be more intuitive, especially for first-time users or non-technical admins. Streamlined navigation, contextual help and guided...
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Also Known As

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Canopy, 8x8Inc., Atos, Canadian Pacific, City of Denton, CenturyLink, BNP Paribas, Asyaport, EDF, CSC, Fox Sports, Insight, Hunter, KPIT, Paetec, Rosetta Stone, Sonda, Xerox
University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Nutanix, Broadcom and others in HCI. Updated: August 2026.
912,565 professionals have used our research since 2012.