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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

"The integration with AWS is a valuable feature."
"The solution is scalable."
"The catalog of APIs for automation has been most valuable, although they are quite limited."
"Dell PowerFlex is a one-stop-shop solution. Storage, compute, network, application monitoring, and support cases are all combined into one solution. It's very easy to administer compared to when you have a reference architecture where you need to design and build everything yourself. You would also then have to work with multiple vendors."
"Dell PowerFlex is a highly scalable solution."
"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 solution's most valuable feature is the storage space it offers."
"From the Cisco side, the most valuable features of this solution are the data center density, the deployment, and the management of the servers and the networking."
"FlexPod has helped us reduce our time of deployment because we are really only missing integration with different applications."
"It simplifies the management of our entire system."
"It runs very well lights out. Set it and forget it."
"FlexPod is very stable, it has redundant components and the uptime is 100 percent."
"Honestly, it's making sure that you only have one upgrade path when various patches are released."
"It’s easy to deploy and easy to scale when you need, as it’s a proven architecture that works with tools for virtualization or a private cloud environment."
"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."
 

Cons

"The solution’s automation and pricing could be improved."
"The storage capability must be improved."
"The tool is a bit difficult to configure, making it an area where improvements are required."
"There should be more functionality available for routing."
"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 needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."
"The level of support needs improvement as the front-line support staff lack knowledge when we raise cases."
"The tool needs to improve its storage. It should also make migration to the cloud easier."
"A single pane of glass to manage all of the components. As you know, FlexPod has multiple components from Cisco, to Vmware, to NetApp."
"The technical support for this solution is ok, although we dislike using the online robot."
"It was complex to train people in with it. It was a newer technology for our resources, so it did take some time to get them up to speed."
"This is where I have seen it get a bit distorted."
"I think that a unified dashboard would be beneficial across all three of the components to show you the status of all three components."
"I would like it to be cheaper but other than that nothing to add. As much as I can try to get the price lower, why should I have to negotiate in the first place?"
"Surprise me with something I haven't thought of. Maybe it's out-of-the-box and can configure itself."
"However, for a lot of our customers, the complexity of FlexPod can be a little overwhelming."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's price is medium."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as eight and a half. The tool is expensive."
"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 pricing for this solution is good."
"The product is expensive."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users."
"We have saved 50 percent on new service deployments."
"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."
"We have absolutely seen ROI. We have saved between two to four million dollars on travel alone over the past 24 months."
"Buy storage based on the solutions you need, the technologies you need, and what will make your life a lot easier down the road."
"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."
"We can just swap in new equipment or hardware as we need, which has probably saved us several weeks."
"We immediately saw a return on investment due to the fact that replacing our legacy storage arrays with the new AFFs reduced the footprint and maintenance costs. Overall, we saw an almost immediate ROI."
"Coming from a rack and stack server model to FlexPod, it has saved us a lot of time (approximately hundreds to thousands of hours)."
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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.
910,956 professionals have used our research since 2012.