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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 5.6%, down 8.8% compared to last year.
FlexPod XCS, on the other hand, focuses on Converged Infrastructure, holds 12.7% mindshare, up 12.0% since last year.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerFlex5.6%
VxRail9.3%
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.0%
Other76.1%
HCI
Converged Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
FlexPod XCS12.7%
HPE ConvergedSystem11.0%
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've had no issues with scaling the solution."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is integration."
"The solution saves a lot of space in the data center and that is a key advantage for us."
"The resiliency and data protection are the most valuable features."
"The setup was very straightforward."
"The support is highly responsive."
"It is more stable, more powerful, and has more integration features."
"My advice to anybody considering this product is to give it a close look because it's a great solution."
"The documentation alone that NetApp provides can guide anybody through the setup process."
"It definitely streamlined operations. TCO-wise, it reduced cabling in the architecture. So, there has definitely been some savings. There have been a lot of reductions in the IT admin's time: reduced time to troubleshoot, reduced time to inventory the infrastructure, and reduced time to set up a host with templates and storage. The solution is saving easily 10 hours a week in time."
"We can already see that the most valuable features is that everything is tested and certified to work together."
"It is one of the best unified computing architectures out there, and is highly scalable."
"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."
"This solution has helped to make more things consistent within our organization."
"I would say that it gives us more flexibility than an entire VM or bare metal solution."
 

Cons

"Compared to similar solutions, Dell PowerFlex is not cost-effective and has room for improvement."
"The solution must be more flexible."
"We've had some issues around the licensing. There were some issues in terms of using the VMware license."
"The tool needs to improve its storage. It should also make migration to the cloud easier."
"The initial deployment was complicated and required a lot of data nodes, IPs, internal vLANs, data vLANs, and many other things."
"In terms of improvements, I think it would help to have easier access to the cost of installing VxRack infrastructure."
"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."
"Exporting data from the dashboard is not very user-friendly. It's just designed in a way that it's going to cover let's say 90%, 80%, of the end-users needs. If you need more sophisticated reporting it's not easy to have."
"There are certain things that are just hard to do on a physical infrastructure, like for instance you need to make petabytes of data available at high speed."
"As the industry as a whole is moving more toward the simplification of IT, that is something where both Cisco and NetApp could look to improve further. Just simplifying the day to day management, the day to day issues that arise, and building more intuitiveness into the interfaces would help."
"Compatibility issues with replication. The Oracle table formats were not working and storage replications did not work as well, until we had to introduce other components to make it work."
"Licensing for fabric interconnects could be better. If you want to enable more ports, you have to buy licenses which can be costly, and you have to go back to Cisco and start the process again."
"They should have an easier user interface to get it up and running."
"They could improve on the small stuff, like fixing and replacing broken cables."
"I had one problem at the site where I had an aggregate that would not shrink after I had deleted some stuff. It took a few tries to get the right guy on the call. We do have a NetApp SAM with our company, and it really took getting to him to get the solution fixed."
"The solution has not reduced our data center costs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."
"The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."
"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The price could be improved."
"From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users."
"The solution's price is medium."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"Our licensing costs are about $50,000 per year."
"It is cost-effective."
"As a startup, for the amount of budget we have and the amount we spend, we are getting what we expected."
"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."
"We have saved money using FlexPod. We have saved time and money for new service deployments."
"I find the licensing and pricing structure to be favorable."
"Coming from a rack and stack server model to FlexPod, it has saved us a lot of time (approximately hundreds to thousands of hours)."
"The pricing is not cheaper, but stability is more important for us now. We focus on business gains, not static numbers."
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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%
Outsourcing 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, Broadcom, StarWind and others in HCI. Updated: November 2026.
921,714 professionals have used our research since 2012.