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, Pure Storage and others in All-Flash Storage.

To learn more, read our detailed All-Flash Storage Report (Updated: March 2025).

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All-Flash Storage

March 2025

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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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

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

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature

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. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.

Read full review

Syed Habib

Head of Infrastructure Security (S.A.V.P) at EXIM Bank Ltd

Efficient data replication and fast IOPS have improved operational performance

Dell and a partner jointly implemented this solution in Auvink. We installed the Flash, which makes our IO operations fast and efficient. Replication is available, allowing us to replicate data simultaneously from one site to another. All-flash technology and vTXT enhance speed, and the IOPS are faster. The cache's IOPS are much better. Snapshots provide a unique feature for testing and make management more comfortable and easy. The platform is multi-supported and certification is more convenient and easy to manage.

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RESC

Storage Solutions Architect at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

The VNX 5700 provides a large number of features including the ability to work for both file and block as a unified array.

Once you establish a replication job, when the file system is synchronizing its data to the target file system, it tends to create a balloon effect where it creates a file system that grows as the new data is synchronizing. It would be very helpful if the replication job could incorporate a self-cleaning job after the synchronization job completes to reduce the size of the file system in the target automatically. Very often, we have to run a script called “SavVolReclaim” to clean up space consumed while the replication is in progress. If the replication job hits its maximum capacity of 16TB while synchronizing, it stops the replication job. By adding this reclaim process natively, it would eliminate additional unnecessary work for the storage administrators. It would be very helpful to get an automated report that shows you the size of the checkpoints and get warnings when a checkpoint is reaching either maximum capacity per a file system or hitting the ceiling on the SavVol pool consumption.

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

"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."

"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."

"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."

"The latency is good."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"It is easy to manage. Managing it, I get alerts if there are any type of issues. I had a hard drive go bad, which had never caused any issues. Dell EMC contacted me, and said, "We are a shipping a new one out." My response was, "Why?" He told me that hard drive was bad. So, I went and looked, and it was. This was almost immediate. I never even knew anything had happened."

"The performance combined with the gig-per-dollar value is a combination that is superior to other storage options."

"Purchasing; We worked with a sales rep to purchase our Unity."

"It is very stable."

"We just recently started using the Dynamic Pools, so while it's scalable, we actually find it valuable that we can just pop in one or two drives when we need to, instead of having to add a whole RAID set. That has actually been very handy for us."

"Scalability is good."

"Compared to older generations of arrays there is quite an improvement, compared to the older VNXs, for example. It depends on you use it, but for our purposes, we find Unity simple to use."

"Via a click, we can deploy a data store or LUN to the ESX host. We can also deploy VVOLs to the ESX server."

More Dell Unity XT pros

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

"I really value deduplication and compression to save space."

"Good performance for VM environments"

"FAST (auto-tiering): Doesn't require configuration and is managed by the array itself."

"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."

"From my point of view, the configuration that I can sell is restricted to the EMC best practices. It is hard to make a mistake in a solution. It means the configuration has good performance and scalability options."

"High availability including non-disruptive updates: We cannot afford downtime windows."

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

More VNX [EOL] pros

Cons

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."

"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."

"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."

"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."

"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."

"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."

"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."

"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"Data replication needs improvement as the future roadmap for RecoverPoint appliance is not there."

"You can't use every feature, because it costs in performance. Therefore, you have to choose which features to use to achieve a better environment. That is why customers do not use every feature in Unity."

"Firmware Upgrades in EMC Unity require you to manually download OS and Drive firmware, this should be integrated (Nimble does this). When you order an EMC Unity, you have to specify the block size. This is weird for me and even weirder that you cannot change this afterwards, you should be able to specify per LUN/datastore (Nimble does this as well)."

"We cannot connect directly with Dell due to sanctions."

"This solution could be improved by offering containerization. This is something many of my customers are looking for."

"The Host LUN ID is sequential by access in the hosts. When one LUN needs access by many hosts (for cluster purposes), in some cases the Host LUN ID remains different on each host."

"I would like it to be a little bit easier to contact support. We can contact support, but we have to go through a phone tree. We get routed to different places. I might call support to say that I need a drive replaced and get transferred to three different groups before I get to the group I actually need."

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

More Dell Unity XT cons

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

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

"EMC VNX needs to support bigger SSDs. Next generation EMC Unity will do this."

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

"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."

"It would be very helpful to get an automated report that shows you the size of the checkpoints and get warnings when a checkpoint is reaching either maximum capacity per a file system or hitting the ceiling on the SavVol pool consumption."

"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."

"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."

More VNX [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

"The product is expensive."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The solution is extremely functional for the price that we pay for it. It is worth the investment."

"There is not a license required for the use of the solution. We purchased a maintenance contract."

"All the licenses are included from day one of your purchase of the product, so you don't have to buy licenses separately. There are no additional costs to be paid for the maintenance of the solution."

"One of the most valuable features is its cost. It was inexpensive compared to other arrays that we were looking at."

"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."

"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."

"We purchased a five-year warranty."

"For costing, you have to have a budget in mind because SANs can be fairly expensive and EMC offers a wide range of products."

More Dell Unity XT pricing and cost advice

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

"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."

"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."

"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"

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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 EMC

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

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Educational Organization

72%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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.

See all answers

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

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...

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...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 34% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 7% of the time

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Dell PowerStore vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 40% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 12% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 6% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 5% of the time

NetApp FAS Series vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 4% of the time

More Dell Unity XT Competitors

No data available

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

February 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell Unity XT

March 2025

Download Dell Unity XT product report

Buyer's Guide

VNX [EOL]

February 2025

Download VNX [EOL] product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

EMC Unity, Dell EMC Unity

VNX

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

Pure Storage

Dell EMC Unity XT is one of the best all-flash storage arrays on the market today. Dell EMC Unity XT arrays are designed for performance, optimized for efficiency, and built for a multi-cloud world. In addition, they support digital transformation, enabling businesses to reach the full potential of their data capital quickly and easily. Dell EMC Unity’s All-Flash and Hybrid Flash storage platforms provide the performance, efficiency, enterprise-class software, and virtualization integrations required for running a wide range of virtualized applications.

Dell EMC Unity XT Features

Dell EMC Unity XT has many valuable key features, including:

Unified storage flexibility: With Dell EMC Unity XT you can consolidate separate storage platforms into a single Unity XT unified storage system via a simple and intuitive (HTML5) management GUI that also connects you to CloudIQ.
All-inclusive data protection: Dell EMC Unity XT offers a reliable way to protect application data with all-inclusive data protection services, including snapshots, data-at-rest drive encryption, replication, thin clones, and dynamic pools.
Software-defined solutions: Dell EMC Unity XT provides software-defined storage and HA for on-prem and in the cloud solutions.
Multi-cloud alignment: With Dell EMC Unity XT you have the ability to build and manage an effective data-first multi-cloud strategy. It allows you to consolidate public and private cloud resources that align with your business goals.
Metro node: This feature enables automated business continuity with zero RPO and RTO. It also provides greater flexibility through multi-platform support and replication to any array and has zero performance impact on the storage array.
Scalable file system: Dell EMC Unity XT is built with a robust 256TBu file system. The UFS64 file system includes up to 256 independent VMDK clones, 16 thin clones, space efficient snapshots with a simple space reclaim and low IO impact, file system shrink that can reclaim free blocks, simplified Quotas for User, and much more.
DevOps integrations: Dell EMC Unity XT supports the Container Storage Interface (CSI) plugin to run Kubernetes workloads.

Dell EMC Unity XT Benefits

Some of the benefits of using Dell EMC Unity XT include:

High-speed data access
Low latency
Dual-active controller architecture
Multi-cloud
Intuitive user interface
Cost efficient
Solid performance

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Dell EMC Unity XT users.

A Systems Engineering Manager at a manufacturing company says, "It is definitely one of the most robust, solid, well-performing products that I have dealt with. It is set it and forget it, which is pretty amazing." He also mentions, “We can do both block and file storage on one unit without purchasing a separate device.”

Peter S., Senior Technical Specialist at a healthcare company, states, “The most valuable feature is reliability. At the end of the day, it just runs. This solution is easy to work with and easy to maintain.”

PeerSpot user Melvin T., Senior Systems Engineer at Prosperity Bank, explains that the solution is “easy to use and we can add LUNs or space without interruption to end-users. We're able to access it from just about anywhere, as long as we have access to a browser. That feature is really neat because sometimes we will go to a different data center or a different site, and if we need to access it to see a LUN or to see any type of storage, we can do that. That's one of the big takeaways with Unity."

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

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

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, Pure Storage and others in All-Flash Storage. Updated: March 2025.

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