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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 5.7%, down 9.3% compared to last year.
FlexPod XCS, on the other hand, focuses on Converged Infrastructure, holds 12.6% mindshare, up 10.3% since last year.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerFlex5.7%
VxRail9.4%
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.0%
Other75.9%
HCI
Converged Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
FlexPod XCS12.6%
HPE ConvergedSystem11.1%
Dell VxBlock System9.5%
Other66.8%
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
Data Scientist Assistant 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

"We have been dealing with them for some time and we are happy with the product."
"Dell PowerFlex is a complete hyperconverge that makes automation easy to manage and extremely stable."
"The tool's most valuable features are its price and flexibility. It has high performance."
"This product offers stability and easy management."
"The support is highly responsive."
"The solution has the benefits of any hyper-converged infrastructure but also has good hardware integration."
"The most valuable feature is high availability."
"All of the features are useful, and we found that the issue we were having in our previous environment, which was high latency on the storage, we are not experiencing anymore because the high IOPS on the storage are very good for us."
"The ease of set up is probably the most valuable feature for us."
"It is very stable. We have had absolutely zero problems."
"The storage efficiency and performance are valuable."
"Centralized administration with Cisco UCS Director allows you to perform all administrative functions from a single interface, as well as automate tasks."
"The solution has granular scalability."
"Prior to FlexPod, we only had a physical environment; from a physical environment, we were able to work into the FlexPod where we leverage all the virtualizations, and it provides us with a lot of agility, on-demand or through orchestrations, as we deliver hundreds of servers."
"I can leverage its multiple storage abilities. We have various kinds of storage in our environment, like IBM or NetApp. We can mix those types of storage with the FlexPod environment."
"With the all-flash array, I think it did improve application performance in our organization."
 

Cons

"For customers with a budget, it is a ten out of ten for the product, though it becomes challenging for those with mid or low budgets since it is very costly compared to other solutions such as PowerStore."
"The biggest issue with the solution is that it doesn't support Hyper V. It's a big problem."
"They should provide continuous support for data migration."
"There should be more functionality available for routing."
"The level of support needs improvement as the front-line support staff lack knowledge when we raise cases."
"We've had some issues around the licensing. There were some issues in terms of using the VMware license."
"Compared to similar solutions, Dell PowerFlex is not cost-effective and has room for improvement."
"The solution’s automation and pricing could be improved."
"Storage and compute could be better managed. Right now, there are two separate consoles for NetApp and Cisco components."
"The service catalogue and gallery. I find it difficult to go through documentation, and I would like to see user cases we can refer to."
"There’s a lot of talk about security, but very little action."
"We haven't seen ROI yet."
"I would like to see better operations, a single pane of glass to manage and monitor the entire design across VMware, Cisco, etc. I would also like the upgrade process to be a little smoother."
"From its prime competitor, seeing some sort of an architecture around cloud built into the solution would be great, whether that's UCS Director or vRealize Automation, something that's got a validated architecture that's ready to go for that solution would be useful."
"The user interface isn't as friendly as I would like it to be."
"Product price is always a concern."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing could be much cheaper and affordable."
"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as eight and a half. The tool is expensive."
"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"The price could be improved."
"The solution's price is medium."
"The cost of this solution is fair."
"Storage is very expensive. To buy MIC cards and additional storage either on-prem or in the cloud, the IT department does not have money for it, so you need a more niche product or a more flexible way to store your data. That is the benefit that you get from this product."
"Make sure that you engage as much with whom you are buying from as a partnership, not just as a purchase."
"Make sure you are buying for performance, not just capacity."
"We have saved time and money for new service deployments."
"Buy storage based on the solutions you need, the technologies you need, and what will make your life a lot easier down the road."
"We have saved money using FlexPod. We have saved time and money for new service deployments."
"We purchased FlexPod though Datalink."
"We immediately saw a return on investment due to the fact that replacing our legacy storage arrays with the new AFFs reduced the footprint and maintenance costs. Overall, we saw an almost immediate ROI."
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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
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
 

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 Business35
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: October 2026.
919,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.