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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 5.9%, down 10.7% 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 PowerFlex5.9%
VxRail9.9%
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.0%
Other75.2%
HCI
Converged Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
FlexPod XCS12.8%
HPE ConvergedSystem11.2%
Dell VxBlock System9.4%
Other66.6%
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

"We have been dealing with them for some time and we are happy with the product."
"The most valuable feature is high availability."
"PowerFlex allows us to scale compute and storage resources independently, which is extremely valuable for optimizing costs and right-sizing infrastructure based on workload demands, particularly in environments with variable AI and database workloads."
"Dell PowerFlex is a highly scalable solution."
"The solution was connected to alternate storage, and it provides great scalability and reliability."
"We're doing a lot of VMware for IT so this solution is really valuable from a VMH point of view. We're trying to assist our customers mainly with management, because that's what they want. The most important aspects are ease of management, as well as ease of configuration, allowing them to attach additional nodes and resources for the applications."
"The resiliency and data protection are the most valuable features."
"We are planning to upgrade this system in three years, but in the meantime, we are happy with VxFlex."
"We have been able to triple our capacity with the same staffing level."
"It definitely gave us a more robust system than our original, old, individual servers."
"The most valuable features are reliability and the ability to give our end-users a reliable system with the performance, the IOPS, and the latency that they want."
"The product is very stable and it does what it needs to do."
"When you open the box, they give you a very nice diagram. Which was my initial guide through setting up any NetApp SAN. It worked itself out pretty well."
"That it works. That it does exactly what it says on the tin."
"UCS Profiles enable recovering a physical server in less than 15 minutes."
"From the integration standpoint, it is a lot easier to integrate than a lot of people initially felt. Being able to leverage either block or file capabilities of the storage is something that has been beneficial."
 

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 solution’s automation and pricing could be improved."
"The tool is a bit difficult to configure, making it an area where improvements are required."
"I think that stability is good for small and mid-level environments, but I don't think that it is suitable for high-end."
"The solution is okay overall. It could be easier to learn."
"They should provide continuous support for data migration."
"I am not really impressed by the technical support of this solution. The product really needs better and more support."
"Licensing restrictions can be frustrating."
"We would like one-click upgrades."
"The technical support for this solution is ok, although we dislike using the online robot."
"If there were going to be any improvements, they should probably be UI improvements, overall. It can get a little kludgy sometimes when trying to figure out what to do."
"This solution is very hard to maintain and keep up."
"We are currently struggling with what to do for a solution moving forward."
"I would to see a little bit more in the FlexPod interface."
"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."
"At the beginning, there was a little bit of confusion among the support folks on how to open up tickets with the others."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."
"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."
"The solution's pricing could be much cheaper and affordable."
"The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."
"The price could be improved."
"The product is expensive."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The solution's price is medium."
"We would like everything in one piece of hardware. This way we can just sell the product like a silo by putting everything in a stack together."
"Because the solution is now stable, we are saving about $100 million USD a year."
"We have a lease for approximately $10,000 USD per month."
"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."
"As a whole, it is inexpensive, and it uses the least amount of parts."
"It is expensive. My company is small. When you look at the price point, this is a big thing for us to invest in."
"We have seen our data center rack space collapse about 90 percent. We have a data center which only has two racks now out of the 20 that were there previously."
"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."
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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
15%
Construction Company
13%
Marketing Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing 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 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: July 2026.
910,564 professionals have used our research since 2012.