Dell Unity XT vs VNX [EOL] comparison

Dell Unity XT and VNX [EOL] are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Additionally, 96% of Dell Unity XT users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of VNX [EOL] users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell Unity XT and VNX [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in All-Flash Storage.

To learn more, read our detailed All-Flash Storage Report (Updated: April 2026).

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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

Everpure FlashArray

Q&A Highlights

it_user752949

Principal Architect with 1-10 employees

Dec 03, 2017

EMC VNX 2500 or EMC Unity 400. Which one is the newer and better Storage and why?

Unity is the new generation of VNX boxes, some refer it to as VNX3. The old VNX 2500 is already EOL since Dec 2014. So in this case Unity 400 is newer and better.

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Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV

Technical Lead at Wipro Limited

Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades

The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.

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Dhandayudapani C

TSG Manager at Navigator Systems

Ease of implementation and robust performance enhance multi-OEM support experience

We are limited only to hardware replacement, not administration tasks. We work on AMC products through Annual Maintenance Contracts. We provide support up to the 680 model. The XT680F is a newer model, and we support from 380F to 680F. The FlashSystem 8000 series is all-flash, and there is also a 5000 series flash model. We can compare IBM DS series, including the 8000 series for recommendations. For NetApp, we can recommend the FAS 8000 series.

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Alireza Zabihi

Works at AIT

The Nimble CS-Series has proven to be reliable with 100% uptime

When we started the process of looking for a SAN vendor I had four primary criteria: reliability, performance, cost, and simplicity. We were really looking for a unicorn and were fully expected to have to make compromises in one of those areas. The Nimble CS-Series was recommended by our solutions provider, and we were blown away. Not only was it the most affordable option, but it was the easiest to deploy, had the best performance, and has proven to be reliable with 100% uptime.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Running on Pure has given us the ability to scale out our SQL environments."

"I have seen a huge increase in speed and performance on our databases."

"The most valuable features would be its performance, retrieval, recovery, and backup, and it meets the customer's expectations."

"The availability and ease of use are the big features."

"All our junior partners can administer the storage arrays. It is simple and easy to use. We don't have to dedicate a whole team of full time people to work on it."

"Data deduplication is one feature I found to be the most valuable in the tool...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"It is an SSD array that has awesome performance, low submillisecond latency, and does what it is supposed to do."

"The performance of the storage is just unbelievable."

More Everpure FlashArray pros

"The Unity XT box is very strong. It doesn't break. The MTBF time is very large so you don't have to worry about faults or outages in your operations."

"This product does bring a ROI, as I have seen it helps them to protect their investment since it is future-proof and scalable, so they don't have to change products every year or so."

"It is very user-friendly to read and determine the exact problem, unlike HP where different tools and L3 team support are needed."

"I can't say enough about the Flex on Demand because it gives you the agility you need."

"The inline deduplication and data reduction capabilities have been the most valuable."

"For our environment just having a solid, running box is really sufficient."

"All-flash performance, Snapshotting capabilities and replication are all valuable features."

"Quick Snapshots and cloning are key features."

More Dell Unity XT pros

"Stability has been rock solid, as we have been running both units for over two years with no major problems."

"The most valuable feature is the tight VMware integration, due to the migration from bare metal to virtualized environments and then on to the cloud."

"It’s amazing, you can add and stack, and add more elements."

"We moved from CX with FC/SATA to VNX with SSD, SAS, NL-SAS and using SSD as Fast Cache we have seen huge performance gains in certain operations."

"Since implementing VNX, we achieved a 10 times increase in the performance for its end users."

"It is very stable even during multiple power failures."

"Technical support is fast and always fixes the issues."

"VNX 5200 works well with a medium VMware cluster, has good performance, and enables hardware disk replication."

More VNX [EOL] pros

Cons

"One thing I'd like to see in a future release is integration between their main storage array and what they call their FlashBlade product; to be able to snapshot directly from the primary array into multiple different backup copies on FlashBlade."

"The GUI could improve, it could be more intuitive. There is hidden functionality."

"I would like to see the NAS add-on component become more fault-tolerant than just a single virtual machine running inside the array. I'm unwilling to use it for that reason."

"Data reduction is an area that needs improvement. There is a garbage collection service that runs but during that time, system utilization increases."

"A noticeable area for improvement is the support for object storage."

"It would be nice if Pure had something in its portfolio that provided higher deduplication and compression for backups."

"Historical analytics would be useful. At the moment, they don't have any type of application built for historical analytics."

"They could improve the price."

More Everpure FlashArray cons

"It should be lighter. It takes up a ton of rack space."

"The user interface could use improvement."

"I would like to see better compression, better dedupe. It's not nearly as good as what is built into the XtremIO."

"What I'd like to see is a little more detail on the networking side. I can go into where it's showing me the replication, but when I go into the network it just gives me broad-based information."

"In some countries, spare part availability is an issue for us."

"It could be a little easier to attach it to a network file system."

"There could always be improvements to the UI."

"There is a lot of room for improvement on the support side, because of the response time."

More Dell Unity XT cons

"You need a lot of licenses in order to use this product, which makes the product expensive; the maintenance contract price also increases significantly every year."

"We have had some scalability issues. Scalability options are limited due to the supported SSDs."

"The CLI could be better documented, like with VMAX."

"Make major changes to the file services, Celera, do something like a lite version."

"The administrative console (Navisphere/Unisphere) needs some improvement, especially on their Java-based GUI. The updated version of Java is not compatible."

"Intel Xeon processors with under 2 GHz processing speeds could be replaced with more recent ones."

"The management software used for the VNX is Unicenter. While it is an improvement over Navicenter, used in older EMC SANs, it still feels outdated in comparison to other SAN management software."

"EMC products are costly when compared to other vendors such HP, Hitachi, Dell, and NetApp."

More VNX [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pure Storage FlashArray is expensive."

"We have 16 or 18 arrays. We like to do the three-year support model so that we get Evergreen and therefore, we get free upgrades. We pay around more than 1.5 million dollars."

"We have seen a reduction in TCO."

"The price was more favorable than Dell EMC."

"I have had a couple of customers who have complained about the cost. It can be a little more expensive than some of the other platforms. After it has been installed, I have never had a customer say, "I wish we wouldn't have spent all that extra money." They have always been happy with the product after it has been installed. They might be on the fence about it because of the price, but everybody who I have ever seen install it, they are always happy with it."

"For pricing, you have to take into account their performance on deduplication and compression in a $/GB comparison."

"The pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray is reasonable."

"The licensing is $100,000."

More Everpure FlashArray pricing and cost advice

"The price of Dell EMC Unity XT is not reasonable. They should lower it because the trend is to move to the cloud. They have to protect their market by giving commercial or financial incentives."

"Because of the attractive price, we were able to get rid of more expensive arrays, standardize, and get rid of a lot of spinning disks. We also got rid of more expensive flash that we weren't properly utilizing."

"The support you're getting with it is probably an underestimated value that comes with the box you're buying."

"The product’s pricing should be improved."

"At the end of the day, the licensing cost is key, because every customer has a pain point, that the cost of each piece is high. So if they would bundle everything in a package, that is how the competitors are selling their footprint."

"The pricing is competitive. We miss some of the feature functionality that we had with the XtremeIOs but it's certainly suitable for the purpose."

"The price of Dell Unity XT could improve. However, it is a one-time purchase."

"It scales, but then you have to buy additional stuff."

More Dell Unity XT pricing and cost advice

"Pricing is somewhat higher, especially in Zambia, perhaps due to the low sales volume."

"Make sure you understand how the licensing works and that you are getting the right set of licenses if you need array-to-array replication."

"The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable. Yearly EMC is more expensive."

"Over time, VNX has become pricier than its competitors, and we have turned enthusiastically to Unity."

"The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable, the yearly EMC is more expensive"

"While EMC tends to be on the expensive side, the stability and support of their products are top-notch and I feel are worth the cost."

"Reducing dependency on JavaServer Pages (JSP) could improve the administrative overhead."

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Answers from the Community

it_user752949

Principal Architect with 1-10 employees

Dec 3, 2017

EMC VNX 2500 or EMC Unity 400. Which one is the newer and better Storage and why?

Unity series is re-engineered VNX, so the Unity is newer … it makes better use of flash, active – active , dual controller mode; better price point , configurations solid upgrade from the VNX

2 out of 21 answers

Chris Tunnah

Business Development Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Oct 31, 2017

The VNX range is older and is being phased out. I think you mean VNX 5200? That said the Unity 400 is the better investment as it is newer, cheaper to support, faster, and with higher capacity and bigger supported file system size.

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it_user281856

Advisory Systems Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

Oct 31, 2017

Hope this helps: http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2016/05/emc-world-2016-unity-the-story-behind-the-story.html

Read full answer

See all 21 answers

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

15%

Marketing Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	66
Midsize Enterprise	36
Large Enterprise	156

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	62
Midsize Enterprise	48
Large Enterprise	96

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	23

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?

Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?

The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?

Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...

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What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?

I saw that you have doubts about what you chose. I have a lot of experience with the constructor, honestly I can reco...

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What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?

They’re both great solutions and I’ve used both. EMC is being VERY aggressive on pricing which may be the undoing of...

See all answers

What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?

First of all the decision should be taken looking at similar products in terms of capacity and performance. I will sh...

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Comparisons

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VAST Data vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 7% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Everpure FlashArray

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Dell PowerStore vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 27% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 12% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 5% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 4% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 4% of the time

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HPE MSA vs VNX [EOL]

Compared 42% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs VNX [EOL]

Compared 35% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Everpure FlashArray

May 2026

Download Everpure FlashArray product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell Unity XT

May 2026

Download Dell Unity XT product report

Buyer's Guide

VNX [EOL]

April 2026

Download VNX [EOL] product report

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray

EMC Unity, Dell EMC Unity

VNX

Overview

Everpure Storage FlashArray delivers simplicity, speed, and performance with ease of management and data reduction capabilities. Its resilience and seamless upgrades complement its integration with VMware, while predictive analytics and proactive support enhance reliability.

Everpure Storage FlashArray leverages a flash-based architecture for improved storage efficiency, reduced footprint, and outstanding data management through deduplication and compression. Users appreciate its single pane of glass management and Evergreen model. It supports VMware environments effectively, offering predictive analytics for better operational insights. The system is noted for its user-friendly management and proactive support, ensuring minimal downtime while delivering resilient storage solutions.

What Key Features Does Everpure Storage FlashArray Offer?

Simplicity and Speed: Easy management and rapid performance enhancements.
Data Reduction: Effective deduplication and compression.
Flash Architecture: Seamless upgrades and outstanding resilience.
VMware Integration: Excellent compatibility with virtualization platforms.
Predictive Analytics: Strong insights for proactive management.

What Benefits Should Users Consider?

Reliability: Proactive support with minimal downtime.
Efficiency: Reduced storage footprint and enhanced data management.
Performance: Faster processing speeds and low latency.
User Experience: Simplified management with Evergreen model.

In industries like finance, banking, and healthcare, Everpure Storage FlashArray supports high-performance storage needs focusing on virtualization and database environments. Employed for VMware workloads, disaster recovery, and storage provisioning, it ensures application performance in private or hybrid cloud setups while enhancing management of virtualized environments.

Everpure (formerly Pure Storage)

Dell Unity XT is renowned for its ease of use and management, high performance with all-flash arrays, and seamless integration with VMware. It's appreciated for robust data replication, multi-protocol support, inline compression, and deduplication capabilities, ideal for mid-range storage needs.

Known for its advanced HTML5 interface, Dell Unity XT offers unified block and file storage with rapid deployment and efficient storage utilization. Its scalability and cost-effectiveness make it appealing to users transitioning from older systems. The system supports databases like Oracle and SQL, alongside serving as network-attached storage (NAS). While recognized for performance, integration, and reliability in virtual environments, its deduplication, compression, and support quality are areas flagged for enhancement. There's a desire for improved synchronized replication and monitoring capabilities, enhanced VMware compatibility, and active-active controller functionality. Native cloud integration and better pre-sales support are also anticipated by users.

What are the main features of Dell Unity XT?

VMware Integration: Seamless operation within VMware environments.
Data Replication: Reliable and robust data replication features.
All-Flash Arrays: High-performance storage solution with all-flash capabilities.
Multi-Protocol Support: Flexible support for various storage protocols.
HTML5 Interface: Advanced and efficient management interface.

Where can users find ROI when evaluating Dell Unity XT?

Performance Optimization: Enhanced storage performance for demanding applications.
Scalability: Easily scales to meet growing business requirements.
Cost-Effectiveness: Competitive pricing for mid-range storage solutions.
Seamless Integration: Works smoothly with existing IT infrastructure.
Reliable Data Management: Secure and efficient handling of critical data.

In sectors relying heavily on virtualization and data-intensive applications, Dell Unity XT serves as a vital component in data centers. It plays crucial roles in hosting virtual machines, supporting extensive databases, and providing robust network-attached storage. This adaptability makes it a favored choice for organizations transitioning from traditional storage systems.

Dell Technologies

With EMC VNX you'll have the right blend of flash, capacity, and application-aware software. Scale up storage for midrange workloads, optimized for virtual applications and cloud environments.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas

Draper, Rio Grande Pacific, Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre

Samsonite, Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Kindred Healthcare

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in All-Flash Storage. Updated: April 2026.

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