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Dell PowerFlex vs VMware vSAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerFlex
Ranking in HCI
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware vSAN
Ranking in HCI
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
229
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Dell PowerFlex is 13.0%, up from 7.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSAN is 16.7%, down from 18.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Ayodeji  Oyewole - PeerSpot reviewer
A hyper-converged infrastructure that is like a mini data center of its own
There are two categories, namely, the appliances and the racks. The partners are able to set up the Dell PowerFlex appliances, but not fully. The partners are able to physically set up the appliances, while the OEM will set them up logically. The PowerFlex racks are fully set up by the OEM, both physically and logically. The solution's initial setup is not pretty straightforward in emerging markets at the moment.
Lipaz Hessel - PeerSpot reviewer
Expensive solution that requires professional services for installation and implementation
I'm still using a different solution. I only took two servers with vSAN to support one application that needs one feature that only VMware has. If not for that feature, I wouldn't touch VMware. Now, I'm looking at products like Nutanix, Silver Peak, Flexione, and FortiGate. For products that I choose, I don't need a specialist of that vendor. In VMware, I need a specialist in VMware. That's the issue I have with VMware. It's not like I can take any IT person, and they will know what to do. I need to make sure he will do the call, get the certificate and time to practice.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Dell PowerFlex improves our latency which allowed us to reduce a lot of our Microsoft Enterprise SQL licenses."
"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."
"Dell PowerFlex is a one-stop-shop solution. Storage, compute, network, application monitoring, and support cases are all combined into one solution. It's very easy to administer compared to when you have a reference architecture where you need to design and build everything yourself. You would also then have to work with multiple vendors."
"We've had no issues with scaling the solution."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the storage space it offers."
"The solution is quite stable."
"Dell PowerFlex is a highly scalable solution."
"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."
"The technical support is good. We are always thankful for the technical support from VMware. They are very supportive when we have a technical problem."
"The most valuable feature is the simplification of storage. We no longer need to deal with Fibre Channel and the external storage arrays."
"The solution is stable."
"Easy to deploy and manage."
"The ability to have an HA cluster in the absence of a shared storage device or SAN."
"Very easy to implement in any existing environment."
"We've found the solution to be scalable."
"I like the scalability and the fact that it reduces your total cost for storage over several years."
 

Cons

"The installation is complex."
"I think there might be some room for improvement when it comes to pricing, because although I know how to convert customers, at the end of day, it's quite expensive. Sometimes your feature architecture is still coming out much cheaper than hardware costs for your infrastructure."
"The storage capability must be improved."
"They need to work on improving the overhead for protecting the data."
"The support of containers needs to be improved. At present, it is limited to VMware. There needs to be direct communication with the hardware rather than through a hypervisor."
"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."
"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 is a bit difficult to configure, making it an area where improvements are required."
"I would like a better Hardware Certification List (HCL). The HCL should a little easier to deal with."
"As a software-based product, it requires a lot of system resources."
"The monitoring feature in VMware vSAN could be better."
"This solution would benefit from better collaboration with Cisco for driver updates."
"External storage would be a good thing to have in the next release, something other than iSCZI, something a little more, not HA, a little more production-oriented, than iSCZI."
"The only thing that can be improved is the cost."
"Hackers are able to manage to leak information or data from the product using some corrupt files, making it an area of major concern where improvements are required."
"The technical support, it's not satisfactory. Whenever we raise a ticket it takes a lot of time to have an engineer get involved sometimes, or we receive a less experienced engineer. We then have to repeat the situation to the next engineer which all takes time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as eight and a half. The tool is expensive."
"The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."
"The cost of this solution is fair."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"The product is expensive."
"The solution's pricing could be much cheaper and affordable."
"We did consider other hyperconverged solutions. It usually came down to price. vSan was the most cost effective thing."
"The current pricing needs to meet the customers' expectations, posing significant issues."
"The first 1-2 years of purchasing vSAN will be expensive. Thereafter, the longer you are running it, the more cost savings you will have."
"With vSAN, we didn't find the market that competitive."
"Every product is licensed with full support for a certain number of years. The licensing could be cheaper."
"It could be cheaper."
"The product is quite expensive, regarding the open source solution."
"The cost of VMware vSAN is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
52%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

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?
From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users.
What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?
While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an engineered system. The choice to choose which technology depends on two major fac...
Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?
HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We researched VMware vSAN but found HPE was a better option for us. HPE SimpliVity has ...
 

Also Known As

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex
vSAN
 

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
Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerFlex vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
823,875 professionals have used our research since 2012.