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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 5.8%, down 10.0% compared to last year.
FlexPod XCS, on the other hand, focuses on Converged Infrastructure, holds 12.7% mindshare, up 10.0% since last year.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerFlex5.8%
VxRail9.6%
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)8.9%
Other75.7%
HCI
Converged Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
FlexPod XCS12.7%
HPE ConvergedSystem11.1%
Dell VxBlock System9.8%
Other66.4%
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

"Our primary use case of this solution is for storage nodes and compute nodes and I like that it is all in one box."
"The API catalog helps us use Ansible automation."
"The support team responds quickly."
"The resiliency and data protection are the most valuable features."
"It was easy to deploy."
"Dell PowerFlex improves our latency which allowed us to reduce a lot of our Microsoft Enterprise SQL licenses."
"PowerFlex offers us more IOPS, improving the application performance. It also helps us reduce our storage and eliminate redundancy. The primary thing is that we work 24/7, so we shouldn't have operational issues."
"My overall product rating would be nine out of ten."
"Once it is in place, we do not touch it, so it is more stable than other solutions."
"The virtual environment is a lot more efficient than physical boxes."
"The main advantage is consolidating everything into a single rack, which helps optimize power consumption, especially in CRM."
"The product is uniquely valuable for the industry because we've had some experience with a competing solution from another storage vending solution, and it was not nearly as stable."
"FlexClone allows you to create copies of volumes in seconds, and without occupying physical space."
"It is absolutely resilient. It has built-in redundancy and multipathing. If there is an issue with one part, it doesn't fail automatically."
"The Cisco Validated Designs are the most valuable feature along with the Industry-leading technology, put together; and the fact that it just works."
"It is a very well-thought-out solution with great virtualization. A good option we have is mapping a storage LUN onto an ESX cluster. That way, in case a particular ESX is down, it can migrate (using vMotion) to another host in the cluster, resulting in high-availability."
 

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."
"We've had some issues around the licensing. There were some issues in terms of using the VMware license."
"For customers with a budget, it is a ten out of ten for the product, though it becomes challenging for those with mid or low budgets since it is very costly compared to other solutions such as PowerStore."
"The solution is not as scalable as it should be."
"The solution’s automation and pricing could be improved."
"In terms of improvements, I think it would help to have easier access to the cost of installing VxRack infrastructure."
"The biggest issue with the solution is that it doesn't support Hyper V. It's a big problem."
"Exporting data from the dashboard is not very user-friendly. It's just designed in a way that it's going to cover let's say 90%, 80%, of the end-users needs. If you need more sophisticated reporting it's not easy to have."
"The price is something that we are still working on. At some point, it's a bit more expensive than the solution that we had before, as far as I know."
"Sometimes, when the newer versions of any of the partners’ firmware or software come out, there's still sometimes a lag of the partners to support all of those new components."
"In the config advisor tool, it could be more specific in pointing out or letting you know what to fix when it confronts issues."
"NetApp needs to improve the user interface to make it easier to work in this environment; the older version is poor."
"We are currently struggling with what to do for a solution moving forward."
"A progress bar would...be pretty cool."
"Performance management: NetApp has some tools that you can purchase to do performance management, or you can go with another vendor and buy a product which does the same thing. It would be nice if there was more of these features with the product, not add-ons."
"Parts of the initial setup were complex, especially on the networking side."
 

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."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"The cost of this solution is fair."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The product is expensive."
"The solution's pricing could be much cheaper and affordable."
"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two 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 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."
"Sometimes you may end up spending a little more to get it in the first place, but you gain it back in terms of infrastructure upgrade costs and troubleshooting costs. The solution also lasts a surprisingly long time."
"The product's pricing is high and I would rate it a nine out of ten."
"We pay approximately $1,400 USD in total for between five-thousand and ten-thousand ports."
"We have saved time with Snapshots, SnapMirrors, and backup and DR capabilities versus other platforms that we have looked at in the past."
"The cost is a little high."
"I find the licensing and pricing structure to be favorable."
"The total cost of ownership with this solution is good."
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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%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Construction Company
12%
Marketing Services Firm
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: August 2026.
914,322 professionals have used our research since 2012.