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Dell PowerFlex vs Red Hat Ceph Storage 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
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
HCI (5th)
Red Hat Ceph Storage
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (2nd), File and Object Storage (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Dell PowerFlex and Red Hat Ceph Storage aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Dell PowerFlex is designed for HCI and holds a mindshare of 12.6%, up 8.7% compared to last year.
Red Hat Ceph Storage, on the other hand, focuses on Software Defined Storage (SDS), holds 20.6% mindshare, down 20.9% since last year.
HCI
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

Serdar De - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
ANDRE VINICIUS HAMERSKI - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers cost-effective scalability through open-source storage integration
Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage. We appreciate the scalability of the open-source solution, allowing us to address our growing data needs without encountering major issues. Having used it as a pilot system in Brazil, we gained significant knowledge and the ability to manage our infrastructure as code.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"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."
"Dell PowerFlex is a complete hyperconverge that makes automation easy to manage and extremely stable."
"The support team responds quickly."
"The program is stable."
"The most valuable feature is high availability."
"The resiliency and data protection are the most valuable features."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the storage space it offers."
"It was easy to deploy."
"Most of the features are beneficial and one does not stand out above the rest."
"The solution is pretty stable."
"Ceph was chosen to maintain exact performance and capacity characteristics for customer cloud."
"It has helped to save money and scale the storage without limits."
"Most valuable features include replication and compression."
"The high availability of the solution is important to us."
"I really like that Red Hat Ceph Storage can be used as a total solution without any storage area network components."
"Without any extra costs, I was able to provide a redundant environment."
 

Cons

"The solution’s automation and pricing could be improved."
"We've had some issues around the licensing."
"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 storage capability must be improved."
"They need to work on improving the overhead for protecting the data."
"The installation is complex."
"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 solution is okay overall. It could be easier to learn."
"It would be nice to have a notification feature whenever an important action is completed."
"An area for improvement would be that it's pretty difficult to manage synchronous replication over multiple regions."
"What could be improved in Red Hat Ceph Storage is its user interface or GUI."
"I've heard the integration with OpenShift is great, however, the licensing cost is excessively high."
"I would like to see better performance and stability when Ceph is in recovery."
"It takes some time to re-balance the storage in case of server failure."
"Please create a failback solution for OpenStack replication and maybe QoS to allow guaranteed IOPS."
"It took me a long time to get the storage drivers for the communication with Kubernetes up and running. The documentation could improve it is lacking information. I'm not sure if this is a Ceph problem or if Ceph should address this, but it was something I ran into. Additionally, there is a performance issue I am having that I am looking into, but overall I am satisfied with the performance."
 

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 cost of this solution is fair."
"From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."
"The solution's pricing could be much cheaper and affordable."
"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."
"The solution's price is medium."
"The other big advantage is that Ceph is free software. Compared to traditional SAN based storage, it is very economical."
"There is no cost for software."
"The price of this product isn't high."
"Most of time, you can get Ceph with the OpenStack solution in a subscription​​ as a bundle.​"
"The operational overhead is higher compared to Azure because we own the hardware."
"We never used the paid support."
"If you can afford a product like Red Hat Ceph Storage then go for it. If you cannot, then you need to test Ceph and get your hands dirty."
"I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
I don't know the cost of PowerFlex. I understand it is reasonable.
How does Red Hat Ceph Storage compare with MiniO?
Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This solution allows for multiple copies of replicated and coded pools to be kept, ea...
What do you like most about Red Hat Ceph Storage?
The high availability of the solution is important to us.
What needs improvement with Red Hat Ceph Storage?
I have not identified any drawbacks, however, the response to public platform inquiries could be faster.
 

Also Known As

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex
Ceph
 

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
Dell, DreamHost
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