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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 (18th), 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, and fast storage."
"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."
"The tool's valuable features are speed, security, data compression, and reliability. Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen. It helps us to save money and resources."
"Overall stability is very good."
"The latency is good."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"We were able to save a ton of data center space with density ratios we've never seen before with hardware, and with Pure, we immediately saw value in the density ratios that we would be able to achieve, the performance, the scalability, and the support."
"The replication is big for us. We use file services on Unity and it has a really nice file services interface. It's also easy to manage. It's really easy in terms of provisioning, replication. There are no real tricks to it. It's just easy."
"The all-flash feature is really boosting up the VMware. It is helping our virtual machines to perform better."
"Using this product has helped us to improve the security of information."
"VMware integration: Grants both the Storage and Virtual Administrator the ability to create and mount datastores, or even to check how much space each VM is consuming."
"The product has met all our expectations."
"Once it is set up, it is definitely easy to manage."
"This solution is easy to work with and easy to maintain."
"After migration to Unity 300F, we were able to put more DBs on flash, reducing latency, and the results were visible in the front-end systems, as all users noticed the improvement and productivity increased because users were able to perform more in the same amount of time."
"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."
"FAST (auto-tiering): Doesn't require configuration and is managed by the array itself."
"VNX 5200 works well with a medium VMware cluster, has good performance, and enables hardware disk replication."
"Technical support is fast and always fixes the issues."
"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 stability of the hardware, and its ability to manage millions of IOPS, provides great comfort to system administrators, IT managers and CIOs."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"The software layer has to improve."
"I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert."
"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"I'd like to see more of the NVMe back-end for the flash. And the big deal with the PowerMax is that they've used all U2 drives so that they can avoid having to take it down. I see using M.2 and modular sections as being a real nice alternative that could be implemented in Unity at a fairly low cost."
"The Dell/EMC merger has been challenging across the board."
"Yes, sometimes the DNS does not work out properly."
"The monitoring capabilities should be improved."
"We had some issues recently because of a bug in the system. We were presenting LANs to the Unity array but I think it caused a disruption to the host. EMC did acknowledge it and provided an alternative way to do it."
"It's not as reliable as it should be, I think it was probably released a little early. We've had production problems with customers, and there are still some challenges at scale as well. Compression is a problem for the system. Once you enable dedupe and compression, the performance of the system, the capability, halves... It has to be right-sized and sized for compression, but even with that, because there are only two storage processors, you're ending up at almost 40 percent usage."
"We have only used tech support to replace drives that have gone bad. But our experience has not been so good."
"This product lacks deduplication and compression at the current version 4.1.0. LACP is not available for iSCSI either."
"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."
"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."
"With this product, the licensing software and capacity are very expensive."
"I do not recommend the Gen 1 VNX to anyone in this day and age."
"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."
"I think one area where we would like to see improvement is better deduplication and compression."
"They may change the disks from NL-SAS to Flash, but it would be costlier for customers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"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 tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."
"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."
"There is an annual charge for the license of this product. It has better pricing than its competitor: Pure Storage."
"We checked both HP and Dell and we determined that Dell EMC was a better option."
"Obtaining a warranty is easy."
"The price of Dell Unity XT could improve. However, it is a one-time purchase."
"Most licenses for the solution are free but upgrades are available when adding additional software or storage."
"While Dell EMC is costly, I don't have any complaints about their licensing model."
"The pricing is reasonable. We're using the Flex on Demand pricing. It's really good for us when we pay for what we use. It made it easy to get it inside since it's an OpEx and instead of CapEx expense."
"The pricing was quite okay compared to others. We probably got it cheaper because we were the first ones out of the gate, but I would say that it's good value for the money."
"​Reducing dependency on JavaServer Pages​ (JSP) could improve the administrative overhead.​"
"The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable. Yearly EMC is more expensive."
"The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable, the yearly EMC is more expensive"
"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."
"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."
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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%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Marketing Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
 

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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