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Dell Unity XT vs VNX [EOL] 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

Everpure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (17th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Dell Unity XT
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
198
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (5th)
VNX [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user752949 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Architect with 1-10 employees
Dec 03, 2017
 

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at Lambda256
Supports efficient storage management through volume snapshots and offers reliable non-disruptive upgrades
I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, but it does not show the performance by 4K byte unit. It displays IOPS and bandwidth, but IOPS is about real use, and I want to know how many IOPS are currently running in 4K byte units. I cannot see that IOPS because most storage systems report their performance by 4K byte unit. I want to see Pure Storage performance by 4K byte unit to compare with other storage or other internal NVMe SSD.
DK
Sales Account Manager - BFSI Sector at Frontier Business systems
Customer needs are addressed effectively with collaborative sales and service support
Recently, customers have been asking for a cloud tiering option in storages. Some Dell storages do not have cloud tiering, which is an optional commercial feature. NetApp's FSA model 2750 comes with an inbuilt cloud tiering option. In the future, if Dell storages include this option, especially for Unity, it would help us target SME or medium enterprises for quicker closures and support the sales team.
AZ
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"Overall stability is very good."
"If a company is looking for an All-Flash Tier and they need extreme performance for individual workloads, Pure's the way to go, over something like a SolidFire."
"Its speed is superior to our existing Unity x00 model and it has performed substantially better than our x00 model and a little bit better than our x50 model."
"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."
"Everything works well, and it is very fast."
"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."
"After the testing, it was clear to us that the Pure FlashArray X NVMe was the easiest to manage and configure and had the best performance that we had seen in all the arrays."
"Inline data reduction is pretty impressive."
"To be programmatically administered is huge, it is one of the key features that we like about it."
"Snapshots provide a unique feature for testing and make management more comfortable and easy."
"This product is perfect for small, and mid-range customers who need to pay less, but still, get enterprise-level capabilities."
"It is easy to manage. A lot of the system manages itself."
"For our customers, the benefits are that it's not too expensive and it has almost all of the features from the beginning."
"It is completely reliable, the plugins for it are quite mature, and I don't really have any issues with the interactions with vSphere, they all work as intended."
"It is scalable. We can add additional tools if we need to expand it."
"It is very stable, even during multiple power failures."
"I really value deduplication and compression to save space."
"Since implementing VNX, we achieved a 10 times increase in the performance for its end users."
"The most valuable feature is the auto-tiering, which helps in the speed of data access."
"The VNX 5700 provides a large number of features including the ability to work for both file and block as a unified array."
"It is very stable even during multiple power failures."
"Multi-tiering, positively affects the efficiency of the storage space."
"If you are looking for a stable, powerful and effective entry level SAN that you can provision on your own for a small environment or a small office/remote office situation - this is definitely the product for you."
 

Cons

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"The software layer has to improve."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."
"The price of Dell Unity XT is reasonable. However, if you are buying a custom solution, it can come at a considerable price."
"We would like to see more advanced integration capability added to this solution."
"The application's administration needs improvement and become better."
"I would like to see better compression, better dedupe. It's not nearly as good as what is built into the XtremIO. I understand why that is the case, but if they can take some of that technology and leverage that a little bit better in the Unity array, that would be great."
"The support team is well-versed in the AMG solution, having received comprehensive training. They also boast strong partnerships in both VNAM and Korea. The system's user-friendliness is a primary consideration in their choice of solution, emphasizing the importance of service. They place a strong emphasis on service, occasionally requiring approvals. However, with full installations, they have achieved almost uniformity. Their storage approach differs from a consolidated business-based model; instead, it is application-centric. Their investment in solutions is geared towards specific needs, such as the banking or information system, acquiring smaller storage units individually."
"Support Responsiveness & time to fix bugs should be improved."
"They can certainly improve in terms of monitoring. The monitoring could be improved, and more features could be added."
"The EMC VNX Virtual Data Mover (VDM) software needs more improvement."
"With this product, the licensing software and capacity are very expensive."
"It is not the easiest product to implement and manage, especially on the NAS side, but that is now fixed in its successor product from Dell EMC called Unity."
"Over time, VNX has become pricier than its competitors, and we have turned enthusiastically to Unity."
"As an entry level array, this is just right, but adding support for FAST-VP would be beneficial although that feature is available on the higher end VNXe3200."
"VNX can improve by offering flexible upgrade options. It's not possible to add a single HDD to a current array and there are fixed rules to make upgrades."
"EMC wasn't able to fix the issue, so they had to stop using snapshots."
"Based on our workloads, we see repeatedly in performance reports that the built-in controller (SP) cache of our VNX model is not sufficiently large, resulting in forced cache flushing."
"Intel Xeon processors with under 2 GHz processing speeds could be replaced with more recent ones."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"For costing, you have to have a budget in mind because SANs can be fairly expensive and EMC offers a wide range of products."
"It's the performance combined with the gig-per-dollar value. That combination is superior to other storage options."
"One of the most valuable features is its cost. It was inexpensive compared to other arrays that we were looking at."
"What they really like is the easy licensing now - Dell EMC has caught up to a lot of their competitors - based on not having to charge for everything, and they can get everything in one bundle."
"It is priced at around or under $50,000."
"Pricing for this product is manageable, though slightly higher than comparable products."
"The price of Dell EMC Unity XT is higher compared to other solutions. The price should be less expensive."
"The product’s pricing should be improved."
"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."
"Over time, VNX has become pricier than its competitors, and we have turned enthusiastically to Unity."
"The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable. Yearly EMC is more expensive."
"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, the yearly EMC is more expensive"
"​Reducing dependency on JavaServer Pages​ (JSP) could improve the administrative overhead.​"
"Pricing is somewhat higher, especially in Zambia, perhaps due to the low sales volume."
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Answers from the Community

it_user752949 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Architect with 1-10 employees
Dec 3, 2017
Dec 3, 2017
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
CT
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.
it_user281856 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Marketing Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise49
Large Enterprise94
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise23
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could ...
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...
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...
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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Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X, Pure FlashArray X NVMe
EMC Unity, Dell EMC Unity
VNX
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Draper, Rio Grande Pacific, Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre
Samsonite, Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Kindred Healthcare
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