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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 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

"The tool's most valuable features are its price and flexibility. It has high performance."
"The solution is quite stable."
"The most valuable feature is high availability."
"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 support team responds quickly."
"It is more stable, more powerful, and has more integration features."
"Dell PowerFlex is a highly scalable solution."
"The most valuable feature is the overall integration and just seeing the three different layers which make up the machine software. Altogether, it's something that I would say is much better than any other solution that I have experienced before."
"Performance-wise, it is actually doing quite well; the end users are very happy with it."
"All of our main applications run on this solution, and it has done a stellar job."
"It has been very stable, and there has been no downtime."
"The solution simplifies infrastructure from edge to core to cloud, definitely simplifies it and aids in going to that journey, with cloud as the last piece of that route and this gives a seamless way to do this."
"We have seen ROI; we have saved time, money, space, and power consumption on new service deployments."
"I like the combination of the brands that they decided to include, in terms of its compatibility, e.g., they integrated UCS into this solution."
"For the management side of our UCS, it is a single pane of glass for multiple people, whether it is data center, sysadmin, or server deployment."
"Because we use it everywhere, it is standard to set up. Therefore, if you can manage the set up in one place, then you can manage the whole infrastructure."
 

Cons

"The tool is a bit difficult to configure, making it an area where improvements are required."
"It could be easier to learn."
"The biggest issue with the solution is that it doesn't support Hyper V. It's a big problem."
"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."
"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."
"The solution’s automation and pricing could be improved."
"I think there might be some room for improvement when it comes to pricing, because although I know how to convert customers, at the end of day, it's quite expensive. Sometimes your feature architecture is still coming out much cheaper than hardware costs for your infrastructure."
"They just announced that they are going to move it along with Intersight from Cisco. That can be a private or public cloud, which is one of the areas where it can grow more and has a lot of potential."
"I would like to see easier day-zero setup. We're having to get other tools to try and set up everything."
"One feature we would like to see is SSD with the Cisco UCS Mini already available."
"There are apparently some new products coming around the whole FlexPod side of things with regards to auditing, to ensure everything is configured correctly."
"For the next release, because I know that we are using Pure Storage, what I want to see is the GUI interfaces on this UCS monitor."
"I would like to see more storage-related features."
"Sometimes, it can take awhile for support cases to get to the right people, especially if it's not a P1 case."
"The procedure for contacting technical support could be simplified."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's price is medium."
"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 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 pricing could be much cheaper and affordable."
"The cost of this solution is fair."
"In terms of the cost, the last bill I saw was about $3.5 million, from the latest contract. That might have been for a five-year contract."
"We purchased the solution through CDW. They are a partner and knowledgeable."
"It created lower total cost of ownership. Previously, we had disparate storage and servers, and there were bits of kits everywhere. Now, we have two data centers with almost identical setups in both."
"Our licensing costs are about $50,000 per year."
"The NetApp portion was a $5 million investment five years ago. That has served the customer well over five and a half years."
"The cost is a little high."
"We fear high availability so we can't buy from different providers."
"Pricing is always tough. We need to get to a point where the customer's happy. Then, as partners, we are also happy."
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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
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...
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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, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: April 2026.
892,943 professionals have used our research since 2012.