Dell Unity XT vs VNX [EOL] comparison

Why PeerSpot?

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.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

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, Everpure (formerly Pure Storage), Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in All-Flash Storage.

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

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

October 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 921,523 peers since 2012

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.

See all answers

Featured Reviews

Cristian Ion

Senior Information Technology Engineer at Eta2u

All-flash storage has unified my clients’ workloads and has reduced TCO through efficient data services

The pricing and licensing of Everpure FlashArray is a problem because Everpure is considered more expensive than competitors. IBM, Lenovo, and Dell are more aggressive on prices. It is a very complicated market, especially now, and I understand the prices are higher at Everpure because of the software and all the enhancements it has. However, in this competitive market, we have a big problem selling to customers that are on a tight budget. A product with better pricing would be a win in the end. The RC or C20, for example, was a very good product that I could sell more easily than other options. Everpure FlashArray//C is sufficient for most workloads and virtualization workloads if you do not have very large databases. A product like that helps, and perhaps a new product in the future that is a little cheaper than the current options would be a possibility to gain more market share. I see the return on investment clearly from using Everpure FlashArray, but the challenge is selling it to customers for the first time. There are many customers who fall in the sweet spot where they are too small for an X or even a C model. They need something a little cheaper, they have the money for a cheaper version, and they need the performance of a Pure system. These customers could be more easily approached if Everpure offers a version of a local device in the future that is even cheaper than the C-class. I am trying now to help customers understand the concept behind AG1. I know that AG1 is not profitable if capacity is less than 50 terabytes. However, some customers would be very willing to pay for 25 terabytes in a cloud operated by Pure and to have it accessible with very good speed. We will see what the future brings.

Read full review

Taj Hussain

Team Lead, Technology Support & Services at ibl-unisys

Managing data protection has become consistent and analytics now drive reliable performance

The most valuable features I find in Dell Unity XT include its robust performance and reliability. My thoughts about its in-line deduplication feature are positive. I would assess the value of Dell Unity XT multi-cloud support for my IT environment as highly beneficial. I do utilize Dell Unity XT data protection features. These features have assisted in ensuring data integrity by providing reliable backup and recovery options. Dell Unity XT integration with VMware helps scalability and availability through seamless operations and enhanced performance. My opinion on its Cloud IQ analytics is that it delivers insightful data that aids in operational efficiency.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"The seamless integration into the public cloud has improved my organization."

"Pure Storage FlashArray's overall speed is its most valuable feature."

"This solution is very scalable."

"The most important feature of any storage array is its reliability, measured by its uptime."

"It’s easy to set up and support is excellent."

"We're getting good performance, and the compression ratio is also very good in Pure Storage FlashArray."

"It is the SAN backbone for our company."

More Everpure FlashArray pros

"The most valuable feature is the integration with vCenter."

"This product is perfect for small, and mid-range customers who need to pay less, but still, get enterprise-level capabilities."

"The Unisphere management interface: We are very familiar with it. It manages all the EMC devices that we have. Management is easy because it is part of Unisphere, which is self-learning."

"I think Dell Unity XT is one of the best options on the market at the moment, although there is some good competition."

"Given the performance of the Unity array, we've been able to do more with less."

"We just started doing a bunch of automation where, if an end-user's home directory or departmental share gets filled, I can set certain things through a Unity API so that if it reaches 95 or 98 percent full, it will automatically expand. Now, instead of our getting a ticket and having to go in and do it manually, it does that for us."

"It’s helped with the overall stability of our VMware environment."

"Moving also from a hybrid to an all-flash array helped us to minimize footprints in our data centers."

More Dell Unity XT pros

"In a banking environment, on which we required a very high throughput for our database, we have used this product and our desired response was received."

"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."

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

"One thing I would like to explicitly mention here is the EMC support; it is by far one of the best supports you will ever get in comparison with any vendor."

"Customer Service: It's great. Technical Support: It's great."

"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."

"The most valuable feature is the auto-tiering, which helps in the speed of data access."

"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."

More VNX [EOL] pros

Cons

"They are doing some stuff with containers and an object search. These could be improved, because containers is one of the main topics that we are talking with our customers about."

"It doesn’t provide enough information on performance analytics. For example, Nimble Storage has Infosight, which provides data; Pure Storage doesn’t have an equivalent."

"They should work on their upgrades, they're not smooth."

"I'd like to see a move towards individual VMs for what the performance of each VM is in a VD infrastructure. I can see the overall volume, but I would love to see things in a more granular level on the VM side."

"We have not had a good experience with the IBM device."

"The solution is expensive."

"The way Pure Storage does the controller storage warranty or replacement has been an issue for some people who just replace the controllers every couple of years, and that's where some of the confusion with pricing and support has come in. They should be clear on the way the controller replacements happen, as it is important to know whether or not you can get a good return on them, because it can be a little confusing."

"I would like to see support for NVMe, end-to-end."

More Everpure FlashArray cons

"I would like to see more integration with other products."

"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."

"Dell EMC Unity is not sexy. It doesn't have all the flash and pizzazz of some of the other storage vendors."

"The solution should allow for connection and replication with other storage models such as HPE, IBM, and Hitachi."

"Dell EMC's competitor has a clustering technology. In the next release, it would be nice if they could build that into the product."

"We'd like to see a cheaper version of an all-flash array in that footprint."

"To the best of my knowledge, migration from VNX to Unity without VPLEX/RecoverPoint is not available right now."

"The upgrade process needs improvement. I should be able to swap it out, with zero downtime, with another array, down the road. I don't think Dell EMC has anything in the roadmap for this product line. I just don't want to have to deal with that anymore and all of our customers are pretty much the same."

More Dell Unity XT cons

"Oracle is never the cheaper solution. Compared to others, it is always among the most expensive."

"Due to very complex structure and sophisticated architecture, it needs experts for trivial troubleshooting also."

"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."

"EMC pricing is too expensive, like the Apple brand iPhone in the cellphone market."

"EMC VNX needs to support bigger SSD and the Next Generation EMC Unity does this."

"Poor connection to FC."

"I do not recommend the Gen 1 VNX to anyone in this day and age."

"The migration process was very complex."

More VNX [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pure Storage has not helped us to reduce our licensing costs."

"No storage device is cheap, but Pure Storage is fairly priced and offers what you pay for. You get all the licenses in the future when you purchase a license."

"Pure Storage has not helped to reduce our HANA licensing costs."

"There are no licensing fees or other costs."

"The price, in general, is around $100,000, however, I know it costs more."

"Our costs are around $100,000."

"I'm good with the licensing. Of course, pricing can always be less... It's actually not a bad pricing model, considering I don't have to rip-and-replace."

"Pricing is moderate. It is neither cheap nor expensive."

More Everpure FlashArray pricing and cost advice

"There is an annual charge for the license of this product. It has better pricing than its competitor: Pure Storage."

"With the large Unity that we bought, it has saved us about one and a half rack space. That's our return on investment on our flash array. We also need less Fibre Channel connectivity."

"From an ROI perspective, I'll put it this way: When we've tried to buy other SANs, the Unity ROI makes it impossible to buy them. So usually, the only time we buy another SAN is when the ROI isn't a factor, because Unity can't do the job. From an ROI perspective, it's great because it beats everything else out. We've tried to look at other options but, at the end of the day, when you price it out, the Unity wins."

"The pricing of Dell Unity XT is good."

"While it has a good price to start, they could always make it cheaper."

"It is shipped with all licensed, included for this product range, no need to buy additional licenses"

"There is no capacity license for XT and no additional costs for expansions. I would rate its pricing as four out of five."

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

More Dell Unity XT pricing and cost advice

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.

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.

Read full answer

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

Manufacturing Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Outsourcing Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Construction Company

16%

Outsourcing Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	74
Midsize Enterprise	38
Large Enterprise	161

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?

When comparing cost, I find that the cost is either the same or slightly higher, but that is returned by the ease of ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?

The only thing I think could be improved is price. The price is the main concern for our customers.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

NetApp AFF vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 10% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 9% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 6% of the time

VAST Data vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 5% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 4% of the time

More Everpure FlashArray Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 24% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 9% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 5% of the time

Tintri VMstore T7000 vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 5% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 4% of the time

More Dell Unity XT Competitors

Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance vs VNX [EOL]

Compared 26% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs VNX [EOL]

Compared 23% of the time

HPE MSA vs VNX [EOL]

Compared 23% of the time

NetApp FAS Series vs VNX [EOL]

Compared 15% of the time

More VNX [EOL] Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Everpure FlashArray

November 2026

Download Everpure FlashArray product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell Unity XT

November 2026

Download Dell Unity XT product report

Buyer's Guide

VNX [EOL]

October 2026

Download VNX [EOL] product report

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray

EMC Unity, Dell EMC Unity

VNX

Overview

The FlashArray family delivers consistent, high-performance data services across block, file, and object workloads. As part of the Everpure Platform, it provides the foundation for a unified data plane, enabling applications to reliably access, protect, and manage data across environments with simplicity and predictability. With built-in capabilities such as inline data reduction, snapshots, replication, and ransomware resilience, FlashArray ensures efficient operations, protected data, and consistent application uptime.

As the foundation of the (unified) data plane, FlashArray enables policy-driven automation, monitoring, and centralized management while integrating across cloud and on-premises environments. Built on an Evergreen architecture, it supports non-disruptive upgrades and continuous performance improvements over time while simplifying operations at scale.

What Key Features Does 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, 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, Everpure (formerly Pure Storage), Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in All-Flash Storage. Updated: October 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.

We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.