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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

"The technical support for this solution is pretty good."
"The solution is very scalable."
"The tool's most valuable features are its price and flexibility. It has high performance."
"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."
"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 API catalog helps us use Ansible automation."
"The setup was very straightforward."
"The solution has the benefits of any hyper-converged infrastructure but also has good hardware integration."
"Stability is great, never had it go down in the entire four years."
"Peer organizations have recently purchased SolidFire and have seen a tremendous increase in their performance, not only just with speed, but with reliability."
"The overall versatility and validate designs are great. We previously used a different platform, but we gained a lot of utilization with FlexPod."
"Having VMware, Cisco and NetApp on the call when there is an issue is very valuable to us."
"FlexPod is definitely easy to deploy and go with."
"Overall, it's really suited our needs."
"FlexPod’s prevalidated architectures are very important to our organization; especially in healthcare, it is absolutely critical that we have a validated performance platform and FlexPod has to work every time."
"We have significantly less latency now with our imagery."
 

Cons

"They should provide continuous support for data migration."
"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 tool is a bit difficult to configure, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The initial deployment was complicated and required a lot of data nodes, IPs, internal vLANs, data vLANs, and many other things."
"The level of support needs improvement as the front-line support staff lack knowledge when we raise cases."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface."
"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."
"The tool needs to improve its storage. It should also make migration to the cloud easier."
"One of the things that I've wanted would be availability of a health status, similar to Active IQ from my converged platform, on an app. I have dashboards so I can see the health of the system when I'm in the office, but when I'm not in the office I can't."
"We actually had to replace two of them because of some sort of corruption that was on them."
"They could improve their technical support team. They need to have a specific phone number for you to call in for the FlexPod solution. Some of the partner support knows if it is for FlexPod, they will get you to the right department."
"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 cost may be high compared to other solutions."
"The performance could be improved. Because it's over network, I don't know if they have to improve something on the NetApp end, because over the network it slows down when it's compared to the fiber channel network."
"In terms of improvement, I would focus on cost. It can be a little bit expensive."
"Maybe the migration tools for all of the environments could be improved."
 

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."
"The price could be improved."
"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."
"The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."
"From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The product is expensive."
"We purchased FlexPod though Datalink."
"We have a lease for approximately $10,000 USD per month."
"I find the licensing and pricing structure to be favorable."
"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."
"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 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."
"The product is kind of expensive even from an entry-level standpoint. I would say FlexPod would be the way to go if you are a larger business or one with large data volume."
"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."
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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
18%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
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 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
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Nutanix, Broadcom and others in HCI. Updated: October 2026.
919,088 professionals have used our research since 2012.