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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've had no issues with scaling the solution."
"We're doing a lot of VMware for IT so this solution is really valuable from a VMH point of view. We're trying to assist our customers mainly with management, because that's what they want. 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."
"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."
"My overall product rating would be nine out of ten."
"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 resiliency and data protection are the most valuable features."
"The support is highly responsive."
"The solution is very scalable."
"The FlexPod solution is one of the easiest solutions to implement, maintain, and scale."
"It is a very nice solution because, traditionally, we used to spend more time administrating and managing, but now we put it in a self-service mode for the developer community."
"Implementing this solution has made our staff more efficient because once it is built, it's a matter of provisioning additional VMs."
"FlexPods allow us to go through and roll out compute, having a converged infrastructure with the same level of simplicity that you would expect of a hyper-converged."
"Backup, restore, and ease of deployment are the most valuable features."
"The application that is running on the FlexPod that we are working with runs better on FlexPod because of the technology itself."
"Our top customers are very happy with this solution."
"For us at that time, and today, it is the best solution on the market when it comes to converged infrastructure."
 

Cons

"We are still hoping for better ways to incorporate AI. We have to extend third-party access to PowerFlex by calling the API. It would be easier if the product had built-in AI integration. If PowerFlex can contribute more to AI, it would be more useful."
"They need to work on improving the overhead for protecting the data."
"Including instrumentation would be a helpful improvement."
"The solution is not as scalable as it should be."
"The level of support needs improvement as the front-line support staff lack knowledge when we raise cases."
"The tool is a bit difficult to configure, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Licensing restrictions can be frustrating."
"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 biggest complaint I have from customers is the cost."
"The management interface of the UCS part of it is a little bit clunky. It uses Java, so when we're managing it, if I have a computer that doesn't have Java on it or has the wrong version of Java on it, there's some iterations that have to happen to get into the manager of it."
"I think the support has been our pain point, the hardware and setup are pretty good and solid but the support could be improved."
"We do feel with the whole FlexPod solution that we were actually sold more than we needed as far as extra parts."
"The majority of the time, if we need more storage, then we need to work with customizing the NetApp deployment."
"NetApp is a bit more complicated to set up than everything else."
"Make it easier to refresh hardware. We got to the point where we couldn't fix vulnerabilities without refreshing the hardware, then that became a little too expensive for us to do."
"The GPU based VDA solutions could use improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"The cost of this solution is fair."
"The solution's pricing could be much cheaper and affordable."
"The price could be improved."
"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."
"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."
"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."
"It is not going to save you money, but that is not the point. The opportunity to stay competitive in the marketplace is not a cost."
"The investment has been great. We put our money into it and it has given us something that we have been able to rely on for years."
"We have absolutely seen ROI. We have saved between two to four million dollars on travel alone over the past 24 months."
"We have seen a five to ten percent savings on new service deployments."
"Everything is purchased, so we do not do any leasing with this product."
"The scalability is very expensive."
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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.