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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 are planning to upgrade this system in three years, but in the meantime, we are happy with VxFlex."
"Dell PowerFlex is a highly scalable solution."
"It is easy to use for management and operations teams because the tools are in one place."
"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."
"The catalog of APIs for automation has been most valuable, although they are quite limited."
"My overall product rating would be nine out of ten."
"The most valuable feature is high availability."
"The integration with AWS is a valuable feature."
"Without FlexPod, it probably takes about ten hours; with FlexPod, within two hours, we are up and running, so we have seen about an 80 percent time decrease."
"Overall, the support from the NetApp side has been very good, and is quick to respond if there are hardware issues, etc."
"I have never seen a more resilient HA product out there then NetApp's solution. If I want to know that I'm putting my workload on a solution, from a storage perspective, that is going to be up 100% of the time, I'm going to choose NetApp."
"Overall, this is a good solution; it has saved us time on the setup, as well as maintaining the system, and we haven't had to do a whole lot of troubleshooting with it."
"The solution is resilient, because it has good scalability, and other products in the market don't have this. It has scalable storage and service."
"FlexPod is very stable, it has redundant components and the uptime is 100 percent."
"Our return on investment is that the solution has made us more efficient."
"We have had great support, and this is when we have called for any problems, which have been very minimal to start with."
 

Cons

"Licensing restrictions can be frustrating."
"The level of support needs improvement as the front-line support staff lack knowledge when we raise cases."
"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."
"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."
"There should be more functionality available for routing."
"The installation is complex."
"The tool needs to improve its storage. It should also make migration to the cloud easier."
"They should provide continuous support for data migration."
"Maybe in the future, they could include the HCI solution into the mix."
"Initial setup was extremely difficult. It took us a few days to get it up and running."
"The cost may be high compared to other solutions."
"As we do much of the Tier-I support ourselves, and thus don't normally need it, there is time wasted in moving up to the next level."
"Perhaps the automation interface could be improved."
"On the NetApp side, there are definitely things to improve in terms of software updates."
"We use technical support from time to time. Most of the time if we really need assistance we end up having to get above the tier one support. We're able to do a lot of the tier one troubleshooting on our own."
"I'd like to see a little bit simpler management pane."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."
"From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users."
"The cost of this solution is fair."
"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."
"The solution's price is medium."
"The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as eight and a half. The tool is expensive."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"We have saved time and money for new service deployments. Without FlexPod, it probably takes about ten hours. With FlexPod, within two hours, we are up and running. So, we have seen about an 80 percent time decrease."
"The cost is a little high."
"The scalability is very expensive."
"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."
"We definitely saw a lot of operational cost savings using FlexPod. As far as capital outlay goes, that was a little bit too much for us to swallow and we weren't able to recognize enough savings in that area to afford it."
"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."
"It has saved us hundreds of man-hours by using this converged infrastructure."
"We have saved time, money, space, and power consumption on new service deployments. We have a data center in Toronto which had ten racks on one of the new servers. This was all reduced to two racks with six chassis, which is amazing."
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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
19%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
11%
 

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: October 2026.
916,212 professionals have used our research since 2012.