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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

"It is more stable, more powerful, and has more integration features."
"The tool's most valuable features are its price and flexibility. It has high performance."
"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 catalog of APIs for automation has been most valuable, although they are quite limited."
"The support team responds quickly."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the storage space it offers."
"Dell PowerFlex improves our latency which allowed us to reduce a lot of our Microsoft Enterprise SQL licenses."
"The solution is scalable."
"NetApp with cDOT is a scalable, performing solution for us, so it has been awesome."
"Provides unified support: Being able to get a vendor from one company or another company on the line without having to go back through the call queue."
"We went from having somewhere around three to five outages every year to us not having had any outages in the past four or five years."
"It just gave us everything in one box."
"The solution is innovative. It handles virtual networking. Also, it can upgrade blades and continue working seamlessly, which is excellent."
"If you need a refresh on the whole infrastructure, it helps immensely."
"The initial setup is straightforward. It is all interface-based, so point and click."
"We got the product and we have a small environment, but it was able to be scalable to when we started to grow."
 

Cons

"I am not really impressed by the technical support of this solution. The product really needs better and more support."
"The solution must be more flexible."
"We're also running Hyper-V virtual machines. But we recently discovered that migration of the Hyper-V virtual machines is a bit challenging. Maybe if Dell EMC can come out with a tool that will make it very easy for us to migrate the Microsoft Hyper-V machine, that may be an improvement."
"The support of containers needs to be improved. At present, it is limited to VMware. There needs to be direct communication with the hardware rather than through a hypervisor."
"The tool is a bit difficult to configure, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The solution is not as scalable as it should be."
"They need to work on improving the overhead for protecting the data."
"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."
"Parts of the initial setup were complex, especially on the networking side."
"It is a solution, but it has stops at a certain point. It is not a complete solution."
"Currently, the only issue we have is with our backup solution."
"Most of the implementations that I've seen don't take advantage of its features. Where I work now it's been more costly to implement it."
"I think that allowing faster certification times on newer codes on both Cisco and NetApp sides could be good as this is a pain point."
"The integration between both companies, Cisco and NetApp, is very good but it still needs to be enhanced in terms of visibility and observability."
"Surprise me with something I haven't thought of. Maybe it's out-of-the-box and can configure itself."
"When we initially installed it, the automation piece really wasn't available."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as eight and a half. The tool 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 could be improved."
"The solution's price is medium."
"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."
"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."
"It is not cheap, but there is a return on investment in time saved and efficiency."
"As a whole, it is inexpensive, and it uses the least amount of parts."
"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."
"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."
"Because the solution is now stable, we are saving about $100 million USD a year."
"You get better management and orchestration, but it still costs you money."
"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."
"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."
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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
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