No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Dell PowerFlex vs FlexPod XCS comparison

 

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 (5th)
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 6.0%, down 12.1% compared to last year.
FlexPod XCS, on the other hand, focuses on Converged Infrastructure, holds 12.8% mindshare, up 9.3% since last year.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerFlex6.0%
VxRail10.6%
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.2%
Other74.2%
HCI
Converged Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
FlexPod XCS12.8%
HPE ConvergedSystem10.9%
Oracle Private Cloud Appliance8.3%
Other68.0%
Converged Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

MS
System & Network Specialist at Alfaisal University
Has supported seamless integration and offers fast implementation
This needs to be checked for the most valuable features in Dell PowerFlex for data management. It is more stable, more powerful, and has more integration features. The scalability is very good and is one of the key features of Dell PowerFlex. Its flexibility and scalability are the main reasons we can use Dell PowerFlex.
John Kevin - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Manager 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

"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."
"Dell PowerFlex improves our latency which allowed us to reduce a lot of our Microsoft Enterprise SQL licenses."
"Dell PowerFlex is a highly scalable solution."
"The integration with AWS is a valuable feature."
"The technical support for this solution is pretty good."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is integration."
"Dell PowerFlex is a complete hyperconverge that makes automation easy to manage and extremely stable."
"It has reduced downtime. Before, on our previous solution, we used to have downtime on some of the servers because of the sort of convention. But currently I've not experienced any downtime on any of the servers, and there is no more resource congestion."
"FlexPod is the primary solution we recommend for clients with high-availability server requirements. Our clients find FlexPod's management helpful. You can manage everything via plugins."
"For FlexPod, it is always trustworthy. I had previously never seen flex machines from other brands or associated with other products. FlexPod is a large investment and they are good enough to support it."
"Because it's all based off of mature hardware with UCS and NetApp and Cisco across the board, it's a very stable platform, it's very quick."
"It is extremely stable and well-supported because of the leadership and partnerships put in place."
"The biggest lesson that I have learned from this solution is the ease of actually setting it up and learning it."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to integrate different products into one validated design, which allows customers to understand and get the value out of the hardware as it was designed."
"The benefit is the speed, it's the performance. That's what it comes down to is the performance of the solution."
"The most valuable feature is the one call number for support and the fact that all the documentation comes with it. They have all of the preprepared plans for the deployment model and we can just choose which one we want for VMware, etc. The hardware is all listed. We buy that and away we go. It's called validated design."
 

Cons

"The initial deployment was complicated and required a lot of data nodes, IPs, internal vLANs, data vLANs, and many other things."
"The tool is a bit difficult to configure, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The biggest issue with the solution is that it doesn't support Hyper V. It's a big problem."
"The tool needs to improve its storage. It should also make migration to the cloud easier."
"The solution is not as scalable as it should be."
"They should provide continuous support for data migration."
"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 installation is complex."
"The graphical interface could be made easier to use and more intuitive."
"We would like them to have better features to integrate with the cloud."
"The other big annoyance I have with Net App is the fragmentation of all the software."
"Some of the define features could use improvement."
"The last two calls that I have made to NetApp support have been handled too casually. People are too lax, not quite as professional as I would have liked."
"Upgrades are always scary because you just don't know."
"With the next solution, if there is a virtual Flex part where we can deploy it to private clouds or in public clouds rather tying up the hardware, it would reduce costs and complexity."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of this solution is fair."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"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."
"The product is expensive."
"From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users."
"The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."
"The solution's price is medium."
"The solution has saved our customers' organization in terms of CapEx. E.g., with the cloud availability, it's turned into sort of a hybrid CapEx/OpEx model."
"We can just swap in new equipment or hardware as we need, which has probably saved us several weeks."
"If your company really needs to be up 100% of the time, and you need to do a private data center, I don't know if I could realistically actually recommend another blueprint."
"Sometimes you may end up spending a little more to get it in the first place, but you gain it back in terms of infrastructure upgrade costs and troubleshooting costs. The solution also lasts a surprisingly long time."
"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."
"We have saved time and money for new service deployments."
"I have saved time on new service deployments. I've done deployments in under a week, and if it's a cloud-based deployment, it's even faster."
"We have a lease for approximately $10,000 USD per month."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which HCI solutions are best for your needs.
892,943 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Marketing Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise15
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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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, Broadcom, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: April 2026.
892,943 professionals have used our research since 2012.