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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

"The catalog of APIs for automation has been most valuable, although they are quite limited."
"We are planning to upgrade this system in three years, but in the meantime, we are happy with VxFlex."
"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 integration with AWS is a valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is integration."
"The solution is scalable."
"Dell PowerFlex improves our latency which allowed us to reduce a lot of our Microsoft Enterprise SQL licenses."
"The solution saves a lot of space in the data center and that is a key advantage for us."
"The amount of time it saved us on the setup, maintaining the system and the fact that we haven't had to do a whole lot of troubleshooting with it makes it valuable."
"The main advantage is consolidating everything into a single rack, which helps optimize power consumption, especially in CRM."
"The most valuable features are the Fabric Interconnect Manager and the UCS Manager."
"Having a proven solution and knowing that it works gives us peace of mind and ease of management."
"It is a very well-thought-out solution with great virtualization."
"We found FlexPod to be innovative when it comes to compute, storage, and networking. We've taken advantage of their storage optimizations to obtain better use out of the space. We upgraded to All Flash FAS (AFF), which has provided a huge performance increase that we haven't barely scratched the surface of. We have plenty of overhead, so that's always nice when taking on tasks which might have otherwise taxed a smaller system."
"Using FlexPod has been simpler than adding in another vendor."
"Software flexibility. Everything is fully configurable."
 

Cons

"The solution is not as scalable as it should be."
"I am not really impressed by the technical support of this solution. The product really needs better and more support."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface."
"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."
"They should provide continuous support for data migration."
"The solution’s automation and pricing could be improved."
"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."
"The initial deployment was complicated and required a lot of data nodes, IPs, internal vLANs, data vLANs, and many other things."
"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."
"If they could reduce some of the complexity at the system manager level for ONTAP. I find it gives a lot of flexibility. You can do as much or as little as you want. But to be able to do as little as you want, you do have to do a lot. So, if they could bring that down to a more manageable effort level, that would be nice and simplify it a bit."
"The only thing that comes to mind is more hooks in the Citrix side for working with Citrix more interactively."
"I was involved in the initial setup. It was pretty complex. There is a steep learning curve on the Cisco side to set up profiles."
"I would like to see more interoperability within FlexPods. This comes into more of how we grow from multiple domains to a massive domain."
"I would like to see improvements in the documentation."
"Our environment does not always require this solution, so we are not reaping the optimal ROI."
"We would like FlexPod to have more power, though it is not lacking in power now."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the solution's pricing an eight 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 product is expensive."
"The solution's pricing could be much cheaper and affordable."
"The cost of this solution is fair."
"The solution's price is medium."
"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."
"The price could be improved."
"It created lower total cost of ownership. Previously, we had disparate storage and servers, and there were bits of kits everywhere. Now, we have two data centers with almost identical setups in both."
"Our licensing costs are about $50,000 per year."
"The FlexPod licensing can adjust to your purse, i.e. there are different levels available for businesses of all sizes."
"We have saved 50 percent on new service deployments."
"We can just swap in new equipment or hardware as we need, which has probably saved us several weeks."
"We have absolutely seen ROI. We have saved between two to four million dollars on travel alone over the past 24 months."
"The total cost of ownership with this solution is good."
"The product's pricing is high and I would rate it a nine out of ten."
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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
9%
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.
913,076 professionals have used our research since 2012.