Dell PowerMax NVMe Reviews

It is for our corporate ERP systems and databases.

We specifically use it for our PowerHA on IBM i. We were able to move away from a middleware solution for high availability, going right to snapshots and data replication on arrays.

Managing and monitoring PowerMax arrays from a performance, capacity and health checks perspective is easy with Unisphere and CloudIQ. I have CloudIQ on my phone, so I could pull it up and see the state of my arrays right now.

• The interface
• Unisphere
• SRDF
• Deduplication
• Compression
• Encryption
• The general physical footprints are pretty small compared to previous systems.

The most reliable part of it is its redundant in frame. My impression is that it is very stable. We haven't had this solution out there for very long, but we haven't had any issues with it yet.

I am impression with the scalability. Right now, we are implementing two three-engine PowerMaxs with about 500 terabytes of data, which will replicate to each other. 

If we need to scale up, it's easy just add another engine and some more drawers. It's non-disruptive, so that is also good.

We haven't really had to use technical support. It is pretty much set it up and let it go, like plug and play. I'm sure if we had any issues that we could get in touch with support pretty easily. We use ESRS for our call-home, and a lot of times, Dell EMC will respond to the issue before we even know it.

We were using generation one of XtremIO, which had some limitations on number of initiators. It didn't have native support for IBM i. There were just a number of limitations with XtremIO that we don't have now with PowerMax. So, we were pretty consolidated on our previous platform XtremIO, then we migrated from XtremIO to PowerMax.

Our corporate ERP systems of databases are all mission critical. We chose to move to this platform from XtremIO because we wanted a smaller footprint with much more capacity with all of the data services that we got out of XtremIO. We also wanted the ability to use PowerMax in our PowerHA environment with its higher availability.

The initial setup was very straightforward. It was almost like set it and forget it. We were very satisfied there.

We were using a process that includes Data Domain. We are not using Open Replicator or any other tools. We are taking images of our data and putting it on Data Domain, replicating it to the new site, then rehydrating the data, which makes it easy.

We went with Dell EMC directly for the deployment.

Our application requires five milliseconds of latency or less. We are seeing about 250 microseconds of response time, so that beats our expectations by five times.

I would definitely give it a shot. It is so easy. Dell EMC has been so good with us in terms of evaluating the product and seeing it run side-by-side against other products and vendors. So, it has been great.

We were pretty satisfied with what we got.

I would like to see more security features and improvements in the platform's ease of management. Sometimes, it isn't straightforward to understand, especially for new users.For example, if there are power issues and the system needs to be shut down, we need to connect with the support team and go through several steps. There are complications to powering down the system.

The backup features need enhancement. 

I have been using Dell PowerMax NVMe for three years.

The product is stable. I rate the stability as nine.

In our organization, three admin executives use the product. Regarding customers, there are many users since we provide municipal services. 

We haven't had much experience with technical support, but we did have some upgrades to the core system and firmware. The support team was very cooperative and responsive. We had some issues with timing, but the team was adaptable and worked to schedule maintenance events to suit our time zone.

We didn't face many challenges during setup, but the implementation team resolved some initial issues. We received some knowledge transfer, basic training, and orientation regarding the technology. Overall, the solution was successfully implemented.

Dell's team implemented the system; some products were configured and installed in our environment. We also received knowledge transfers from them. 

We used to use an HP storage solution. After we switched to PowerMax, performance significantly improved across the whole environment. About 95% of our services run on virtualized servers with Dell containers. With SAN storage, like PowerScan or Microsoft products, we saw multiple performance upgrades on the virtual machine side.

The lead application is the most valuable feature. The reduction of consumed space was significantly higher than with the previous solution.

NVMe technology gave the database servers a huge performance boost compared to the previous environment. Database admins were very happy with the improvement.

I rate it an eight. 

We are most interested in cloud utilization.

We would like to improve the delivery model. They don't have the delivery terms today. If they improve this area, everybody would be happy.

For the Romanian and Eastern European markets, we have long delivery times, and even if we have a solution, we don't have the products, and we don't know what to install. For the time being, manufacturers must enhance the delivery of all items while they have them.

If you go to Pure or you go to NetApp, they deliver in one month. If you go to Dell or HP, they will take up to six months for delivery. This is not a business model for today.

I have been working with Dell PowerMax NVMe for 10 years.

Dell PowerMax NVMe is a stable solution. The performance is good.

Dell PowerMax NVMe is a scalable solution.

It is suitable for enterprise customers.

They are now experiencing problems with Dell's specifications. They have a typical reporting period of five days and nine hours each day till Friday. 

Right now, on the enterprise side, they want 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is not available in Romania, which is why you need to retain inventories or have some replacement components on hand to accomplish this type of integration with other vendors.

I am also working with HPE 3PAR. I am just looking for a place to get some 3PAR components. But nobody has it right now.

We are the HP Platinum partner in Romania, and we are now looking for a place to purchase documents from Europe.

Previously, we worked with Cisco, Lenovo, and Pure. The advantage was their delivery.

We don't an advantage. 

The consumer requests something that they do not have with the brand today. 

If it is storage, a server, or power, and we have it, they will purchase it. 

They do not wait for Dell, HP, or Cisco. It is the same for both. If you have Dell on hand, we will purchase it. If it's HP, they'll buy it. It. They don't care about the brand anymore.

The installation of Dell PowerMax NVMe was easy.

Deployment time depends on the customer's request since if you have a solution with a cluster or include VMware or a solution or disaster recovery, we can provide it in two days. But, in any case, it depends on the project and your relationship with the customer.

The price is on the market. It's not inexpensive, but it's available on the market.

The cost is determined by the solution. It's not the greatest option.

You built the solution and rely on the customer's requirements, on the budget since they know the price of the product, they know the service to the client and it's the same if it's HP, Dell, or Cisco. It is how the solution is created and implemented. 

Today, the client is asking for SLA and uptime for the critical months rather than the important months themselves. This is the most crucial. They don't care if it's from Dell, HP, or Cisco; they just care about this one.

I don't have any requirements. I am now really unhappy with the delivery, therefore I don't have any arguments or recommendations to make. 

If we receive the goods, everything will be okay. When we are working, we have something. We are now dissatisfied with our needs. Simply provide the delivery. It is more important now.

We are partners with Dell.

I would rate Dell PowerMax NVMe an eight out of ten.

We use it for our core banking data.

It has improved storage I/O for our big apps and restores. And the snapshot process and data compression are better.

We like the compression, dedupe, and I/O on the PowerMax. They are better than on the XtremIO.

Snapshots make it easy to deploy production, pre-production, and UAT environments. It is easy to snapshot and reverse snapshot to other environments, compared to other storage vendors.

In addition, we have a lot of users in our core system and the PowerMax performance is very good. The I/O performance is running fine; it's not an issue.

We would like more documentation, a guide to the features of the PowerMax. We needed to use the option to reclaim storage and we had to chat with the Dell EMC team.

We have been using Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe for around one year.

It is stable.

Because we have just started using it, we haven't scaled up yet.

We have opened cases with the Dell EMC team and we have chatted with them. They have provided good, fast support for us. But in some cases they did not explain the solution well.

Positive

We used XtremIO. We switched because we found many of the features and the functions are better on the PowerMax than they are on the XtremIO. An example would be the snapshot. When we would do snapshots on the XtremIO, we could delete a snapshot, even when we were mapping to the host. But with PowerMax, we cannot delete a snapshot when mapping to the host.

The setup was difficult because PowerMax has more functionality, but some of that functionality is still not clear to us.

Four people work with it on my team; all system admins.

PowerMax is a good storage solution for the banking sector. Choose it for your core banking system, because of the dedupe and compression, the I/O, and the high availability for your data.

We have used it for a long time and we have recently been upgrading it. Last month we acquired a PowerMax 2000 and we have just finished the migration. We hope it will help us with performance and through the additional features which are part of the software.

In terms of mission-critical applications, we are running our switch, which is the most critical application that we have in our organization, on the storage box. It is because it is reliable and, in terms of performance, we do not have any issues with PowerMax.

The switch application is very sensitive to IOPs and to the speed of responding and reacting to requests. We went specifically with PowerMax to ensure that we are getting the highest performance, and it has really been exceeding our expectations. We are yet to put it into really demanding tests. We have solutions that we are implementing during the year which will be high-demand in terms of IOPs and performance. We will find out then if PowerMax meets all our requirements.

We use the solution with VMware. It made things easier for us in terms of deployment and implementation.

• Availability
• Reliability

We are also happy with the monitoring that Dell EMC is doing for us. They have helped us to identify many issues during the routine checks, issues which we were not aware of.

We are facing challenges with the SRDF replication which we got with the latest, new box. Overall, it has been working for us so well for the past few years. We hope that whatever bugs there are right now in the PowerMax are going to be sorted out quickly.

There is room for improvement with the enclosures. We were happier with the old VMAX enclosures which looked nicer in our data centers. The new one is dull.

The stability is superb.

We have yet to find out what the scalability is like. We recently added this new box and towards the end of the year, or next year, we are going to look at expanding it. So we don't know how easy it is to scale it.

Our experience with technical support was different before we got the most recent box. We are facing challenges. We were told that this is the first PowerMax box implemented in our country, so maybe these are teething issues, and hopefully, they will be sorted out quickly. But we are constantly in touch with support, and I have actually been trying to get ahold of one guy here at the Dell Technologies World conference so I can see if he can help us sort out the bugs quickly.

We were using the same solution. We just upgraded it.

The solution’s architecture influenced our buying decision with the new features it has, and the smoothness of the migration was also important. The last time we upgraded there was downtime, but this solution gave us the opportunity without bringing down the systems.

We had challenges again with the initial setup. I don't know if there was a gap during the requirement-collection phase, but the box was partially delivered to us with missing parts and it delayed the implementation by about 60 days. It was not as smooth as I would have hoped.

We used a local Dell EMC partner and they were pretty good.

We have already recommended this product to two institutions who called. Our view of the product is positive. Our experience has been positive. As head of IT, my worry was about the migration. We believe in the technology, but how could we achieve a smooth migration? What I have seen was amazing beyond expectation. Things have been so positive, overall.

The migration process from older VMAX arrays to PowerMax is very good. The data dependency is tremendous and the results we got from the migration were amazing. They were beyond our anticipation. Things went smoothly, mostly, with the SRDF technology, and the critical systems were not taken down, so we had 24-hour continuous operation.

We have attended a couple of technical sessions which talked about how to do some analysis on the box, from the box, using the Dell EMC tools. We are exploring those tools to see how we can take advantage of them and improve productivity.

We have faith in the solution and would rate it an eight out of ten. The rating will depend on fixing the issues we are facing.

Our customers use the product for virtualization. They also use it for SAP deployments and bigger databases like PostgreSQL.

The solution provides an ease of handling backups and deployments. It provides a smart integration into the customer environment.

The product is very fast and reliable. It's certified for several scenarios. It is easy to handle. The UI is good.

The initial setup process is difficult.

I have been working with the product for five years.

It is the most stable system we know.

The tool is scalable until a certain point. There are only two versions available. Each has a limit, but the limit usually is never reached by our clients. Generally, the scalability is limited, but we have no problems with it.

The technical support is brilliant.

I have worked with NetApp before. Over the last three or four years, we only worked with Dell. Dell is easier to set up and handle. Dell is technically more advanced than NetApp. Dell’s support is better than NetApp's most of the time. The selling process of NetApp was a nightmare.

I rate the ease of setup a four out of ten. We have to prepare for the deployment and plan with the customer. We set up the hardware. We need Dell’s help with the software setup because we do not have access to all the tools that are needed for it.

The initial deployment and software work is done together. Afterward, we do the detailed configuration of the machine. We need one person from our organization and one from Dell for the deployment. The deployment can be done in one day. The maintenance is mostly easy. It’s done with the Copilot system. Dell checks the machine in advance and tells us whether the software version is available.

We get a return on our investment. The solution is not cheap, but it is worth buying. All our customers who bought the solution were satisfied and said they would buy it again.

The price is really high. It could be better. It is a high-end product.

We sell the solution, implement it, and support our customers. I recommend the solution to others. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

My company uses Dell PowerMax NVMe for our customers, but it's possibly not for a big account or a customer with a big data center. With Dell PowerMax NVMe, my company focuses on the storage part and also the database aspect.

For me, the valuable aspect of Dell PowerMax NVMe stems from the fact that it serves as an enterprise-based storage system, so there are no worries about any failures in the solution. Even if certain of my components fail within the storage solution, it still works online, which makes it different from the other storage solutions.

The price cap of Dell PowerMax NVMe is very high. In Dell's portfolio, there are PowerMax and PowerStore, and it is important to note that there is too much of a price gap between both. The aforementioned aspect of the solution related to the pricing element is an area where improvements are required.

I have been using Dell PowerMax NVMe for about four years. My company functions as a distributor of Dell products.

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Though there are some downtimes when it comes to Dell PowerMax NVMe, 99.99 percent of the time, it works fine.

It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

I recommend Dell PowerMax NVMe for enterprise-sized customers.

Based on my experience with the solution's technical support, I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

I have experience with IBM products. Dell provides a larger portfolio of products compared to IBM. The ease of deployment and management of products are not areas that are well-matched in IBM products.

Dell PowerMax NVMe's initial setup is not complex, but it may look complex when compared to the setup process of Dell PowerStore.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

I rate the overall product an eight out of ten.

This would be for leveraging the purchase of PowerMax storage system through a service provider, who would deliver the capacity of PowerMax on a service catalog basis. The storage capacity would be offered as a block service and the utilization of the PowerMax would be delivered on a revised written basis.

This will certainly be leveraged to deploy non-critical and mission-critical applications in our environment, in which we have plenty of both at this point in time.

We expect it to deliver exceptional performance and capacity utilization metrics. This is one of the reasons we are evaluating PowerMax 2000 and PowerMax 8000 at this point in time.

The most valuable features are compression, deduplication, and NVMe-based back-ends for flash technologies. 

I would like it to support NVMe over Fabrics, because that is the next item for consideration on the NVMe roadmap. PowerMax supports NVMe on the back-end, but when it starts supporting NVMe over Fibre Channel, suddenly various hosts can directly communicate with PowerMax, and with NVMe-oF, as well. Suddenly, Gen 6 and Gen 7 switchers will be able to help facilitate that particular communication channel.

It is very stable. We expect superior performance and reliability from this particular storage system.

We expect it to scale.

We are slowly moving towards simplifying our current complex environment, but we are not there yet.

In the past, we have been using the various versions and families of VMAX. Now, we are moving more towards PowerMax and newer versions of technology as they get released onto the Dell EMC roadmap. We have been using VMAX based platforms for many years. Suddenly, PowerMax has evolved from the lineage of VMAX. Therefore, we expect Dell EMC to continue to build upon it. 

In terms of the engineering aspects of the performance requirements, we have a variety of applications requiring a certain level of IOPS, response times, and a minimum microsecond latencies. While we understand that PowerMax can deliver to these expectation from a performance standpoint, we will certainly undergo some rigorous proof of concepts (PoCs) with the PowerMax systems to make sure that our current understanding of PowerMax capabilities, from a performance standpoint, meets our expectations.

We are not yet done any setup of PowerMax systems. We are still working on the integration plans.

We have always used Dell EMC. We have evaluated the technologies from some of the other vendors. We have done numerous proof of concepts, and we have done some real hard proof of concepts. Either in the architectural design stage, or in the engineering stage, some of those particular products do not meet the rigorous testing that we do in these types of scenarios and environments.

Use PowerMax.