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, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NetApp and others in All-Flash Storage.

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

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All-Flash Storage

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.

See all answers

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

"We've had to use tech support on a number of occasions. They did everything remotely and talked us all the way through. They fixed the issue within 30 minutes. Every single time we contact them, they're perfect. I would give their technical support a ten out of ten."

"I am very satisfied with this solution and I would recommend it to others."

"The best feature is consistently lower latency, even when IOPS crank up to over 75K. The product maintains submillisecond response time, which is incredible."

"All my customers are pretty happy with most Pure Storage solutions."

"The predictive performance analytics is a very good feature, as our system is performing better than before."

"I would definitely suggest this solution to a colleague because of the ease of use."

"Its ease of use is a very big thing for our customers; it's easy to set up and easy to maintain, and the support is automated, which is very good."

"We've been using FlashArray's snapshot for backups. Their replication across sites and response time are also excellent."

More Everpure FlashArray pros

"We can put all the virtualized servers in one place, so our customers can share and manage the devices very easily."

"Snapshots provide a unique feature for testing and make management more comfortable and easy."

"We run about 100 virtual servers on it. We have about 100 users accessing the file shares from there, and I've seen no problem with that. We have about a 10GB backbone. Whatever we throw at it, it hasn't shown any sign of weakness or anything. It's been really good."

"The Unity platform is really easy to use; when it comes to provisioning and management, it has reduced complexity and improved productivity."

"Integration; We use the product with VMware, and also use it with Syft for home directory and departmental shares."

"We are happy with the way we have Dell EMC Unity XT configured."

"The technical support is very professional and provides quick responses."

"The fact that it reduces our downtime gives us incredible cost savings."

More Dell Unity XT pros

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

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

"Multi-tiering, positively affects the efficiency of the storage space."

"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."

"FAST auto-tiering is a great feature."

"One of the best features of the VNX is the ability to combine drives of different types into a virtual Storage Pool. By combining small but fast flash drives, SAS drives, and high-capacity but slower NL-SAS drives, the VNX can intelligently move data to the different tiers of storage based on usage."

"Good performance for VM environments"

"Customer service is top-notch with a dedicated sales and technical resource who are familiar with your environment and spend a lot of time understanding your business needs."

More VNX [EOL] pros

Cons

"Once, before Pure went public, we were a member of their customer advisory board and beta tested replication. One requested enhancement yet to manifest is the scheduling of snapshot replications."

"We have not seen a reduction in our TCO nor have we seen ROI."

"The latest release contains bugs that shouldn't be in a production environment. Two incidents impacted our client, including hardware-related bugs. They need to be more cautious in testing before they release."

"The higher education moves slowly. We are still looking forward to implementing the full list of existing features."

"More cloud connectivity would enhance the solution."

"We did have one hiccup with the integration of vCenter. When we were installing Pure Storage, we were using vCenter 6.7, which defaults to the HTML5 Web Client. The current plugin for Pure Storage doesn't show up in that client at all. You have to go and use the legacy FlexFlash client to see the Pure Storage plugin in vCenter."

"I would like to have support available in Spanish."

"Pure Storage will have issues with positioning in the near future since it's a relatively new company."

More Everpure FlashArray cons

"The support portal needs fixing. Accessing a service request on the support portal seems to be a bit difficult, as opposed to just calling the 800 number."

"We have only used this solution for less than one year so I don't have any improvements suggestions yet."

"The VNX reporting is much more granular, versus the Unity reporting."

"I would like to see more compression and deduplication added to the solution. Today, our compression is about 2:1 and other solutions give us about 4:1 or 5:1."

"I'm not sure if it has a single pane of glass management console. That would be something we would like to see."

"This product needs to have better integration with enterprise backup solutions and archiving devices."

"Dell EMC Unity XT has some scalability issues which they need to address."

"The price of Dell Unity XT could improve."

More Dell Unity XT cons

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

"The scalability is average because the storage has some hardware limitations and, obviously, operating system limitations."

"There is no easy way to defrag a RAID group. It would be nice to be able to reduce the size of a storage pool if the storage is not needed anymore."

"There is an easy replication process between distinct data centers via VPLEX and/or RPA. But I hope in the future that EMC/Dell could replicate this with other types of storage."

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

"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."

"There is no easy way to defrag a RAID group. It would be nice to be able to reduce the size of a storage pool if the storage is not needed anymore."

"HP EVA and once NetApp, but they both had slow performance and a lack of features so we switched."

More VNX [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It was less expensive than some of the alternatives. It's not as though it was a premium price to get that kind of quality. It's a very competitive product from a price perspective..."

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

"I don't know the exact cost but it's around $1,000."

"The licensing is $100,000."

"Pure Storage is expensive. It comes with features, so you get what you pay for. It is expensive compared to our old storage systems, but from the amount of human effort that you have to pay to babysit a storage system, it reduces that. I don't know if the TCO is reduced, but it's not a concern for us."

"It is cheaper than NetApp."

"The license for Pure Storage FlashArray includes the support and there are no additional payments that are needed. This is not an inexpensive solution, you need to understand the value of your data before you use a backup solution."

"My organization has a yearly license, but I believe that Pure Storage FlashArray has capacity-based licenses as well. I'm definitely happy with the pricing."

More Everpure FlashArray pricing and cost advice

"Pricing for this product is manageable, though slightly higher than comparable products."

"It is a good return on investment."

"Its biggest valuable feature is its price point for the amount of storage and performance you get. It's a sweet spot. It's cheaper than the other SANs out there, but performs well enough. It fits that nice, middle-ground portfolio."

"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."

"The solution is very expensive."

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

"Compression is making a difference towards the amount of hardware that we need to purchase."

"The solution is very expensive."

More Dell Unity XT pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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.

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

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

15%

Marketing Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	64
Midsize Enterprise	36
Large Enterprise	148

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	62
Midsize Enterprise	49
Large Enterprise	94

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...

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

I don't really know much about the pricing for Pure Storage FlashArray in terms of the absolute cost. Regarding Everg...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?

Despite liking Pure Storage FlashArray, there is room for improvement in automation. Pure Storage FlashArray needs to...

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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...

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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 26% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 13% 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 3% of the time

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HPE MSA vs VNX [EOL]

Compared 41% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs VNX [EOL]

Compared 37% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Everpure FlashArray

April 2026

Download Everpure FlashArray product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell Unity XT

April 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, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NetApp and others in All-Flash Storage. Updated: April 2026.

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