Dell PowerMax NVMe Reviews

Our primary use case is data storage, compression, encryption, all in one device. So we need all those things.

We're consolidating two to three arrays down to one which means that our data center footprint has decreased by like 90%. So we're saving 90% of our space, and it also is much better on power and everything else in our data center. And on top of that, the performance is much, much better than our older arrays.

The most valuable feature is the performance and compression. The most useful tool is CloudIQ.

Stability of the new PowerMax from what I've found is a lot better than the older version of the VMAX or EMC Dell array. That's one of the reasons why we've purchased more of them going forward. I think it's going to be a pretty prevalent storage array in our environment.

All of our applications are running on mission-critical applications. We've always been a Dell EMC shop, we've always run all our critical applications on there, and this is just a better and more improved product, so we're just continuing with the cycle that we've had for 20 years.

It's very scalable. It can grow much larger than I probably would utilize, but I don't like to put all my data in one box. The scalability is enormous in the PowerMax.

We haven't had to use tech support customer service. We've had a couple of little things come up, but for the most part, they've been pretty stable, so we haven't had any issues.

We don't have a vast I/O performance database or application suite, so the old arrays were taking care of that part. But we see the milliseconds to microseconds response time in the new variety.

We have purchased some professional services to do NDM migrations. We haven't done any yet, but we will be doing that in the next quarter. From everything I've seen and looked at, and I'm going to take a few more sessions on it. I think it's going to be much easier to migrate data from the old to the new.

We knew we needed to invest in a new solution based on a compression standpoint and the overall cost by reducing our footprint and fitting more data into a single file, it just made sense, and it's been working great for us so far. And MVME had a considerable influence on my decision to go with PowerMax as well the ability to encrypt and compress at the same time.

The initial setup was straightforward. From a hardware stand-up getting ready to go perspective, it was very straightforward. Our internal processes held it up. It wasn't anything that Dell held it up with. It went well.

The new Unisphere for PowerMax is beneficial in collecting that data although I have not started using the app IQ or, I don't remember what it's called. The alerting, they gather all the data, and I can use my phone and look at an app, and it can tell me right there that my environment is good that day or whatever and it sends me alerts. So, I haven't started using that, but I plan to when I get back, so it just makes the management a little bit easier looking at the whole environment.

No, we didn't implement through a vendor we go direct through Dell. And the experience was excellent. We have a great relationship with our Dell sales team as well as their support and customer service organization.

Our ROI on this is much higher than it was previously with the arrays that we had. Being able to consolidate three arrays into a single footprint has made it much easier and cost-efficient.

From a TCO perspective, we saved a lot of money by getting the over rate consolidating two into one or three into one, so we saved a ton of money on the total cost of ownership over the next four years.

We have multiple solutions, but we're mostly an HDS F-Series company as well as Dell EMC.

From what I've heard people seem to think that the cost of the array is prohibitive. And I would tell them to look at the ROI and do their cost analysis on it because from what I've found, cost per gigabyte is much lower than what it was for previous arrays as well as the overall cost of ownership in the reduction of the footprint in the data center is enormous.

On a scale from one to ten, one being the worst and ten being the best, I would rate the product an eight or nine. So far it's been great.

We are using this solution as our main storage. We use it with VMware, as well as our databases. We are customers of Dell and I'm a team lead for network and infrastructure. 

I like the operability and easy scalability of this product. It's also easy to integrate with all of our systems. It has high speed and a good name in the market. The accounting is good, easy, be accessible. 

The solution is quite expensive and I believe Dell should examine their prices because they are currently very, very high.

I've been using this solution for two years. 

The solution is stable. 

It's very easy to scale this product. 

The technical support is good, whenever there's an issue they figured out the problem and repaired the faulty part.

Positive

The initial setup is easy; our deployment took a few days. Dell carried out the deployment for us. We have around 2,000 users in the company. 

The cost depends on the capacity that you're using so every use case will have a different price. 

It's important to think about your workloads and define them. All right. I'd also recommend comparing prices, both within and outside Dell. 

Feature-wise the solution is perfect but because of the price, I rate this solution seven out of 10.  

The number one most valuable feature is reliability. I want to go home at the end of the day and come in the next day knowing it works, especially since we have storage offshore.

I would like to see the rack change. They have defaulted to the standard rack, so our fiber cables are crowded when we shut our back door.

It is reliable at the end of the day.

It is not complex for us because we have done so many of them. We have a lot of people with experience now.

We also considered Pure Storage.

It is a product that people take for granted.

Our primary use case is blocked storage.

The smaller footprint of the device has been really nice. We have gone from eight bays to one bay. Having one floor tile in our data center has been pretty awesome. A lot less power and HVAC cooling is being consumed.

We have all of our large Oracle databases along with a lot of order processing for our warehouses, which ship out clothing, currently on PowerMax.

The data reduction has been very impressive.

There are definitely some improvements that can be made to the CloudIQ.

CLI and Solutions Enabler need improvement. While it's been around forever and it's proven that it works, it can be cumbersome to operate and train some storage admins on it. Also, if you haven't been using it for a while, it can be complicated.

The stability is extremely simple. 

From a Unisphere standpoint, it has gotten a lot easier to manage. I can train some of our admins quickly on how to utilize and provision storage. The complicated aspects of Solution Enabler are still there for guys, like myself, who like to utilize the old school way.

It's as scalable as any other legacy array.

We were previously using VMAX, and it was the end of their lifecycle.

Our performance requirements were that it was an all-flash array multicontroller, and it has been great. We always go for multicontroller architecture. 

The initial setup was very easy. We set it on the floor and powered it in and up. The BIN file was already written, so we didn't have to wait on our local customer engineers to write the BIN for us. 

We have upgraded and already added disks, which was pretty easy to do. The BIN files were quickly modified to accept those disks, which is pretty awesome.

I deployed it myself.

We used post-base migration, which was pretty straightforward, which is not too complicated. I wanted to use the new SRDF-integrated migration method which is integrated with PowerMax, but we didn't get a chance to use it.

It beats the Unities and XtremIOs. Compared with those products, it's been good.

We're integrated pretty tightly with Dell EMC, so there was really no exploring outside of Dell EMC.

The new version of the Unisphere Solution Enabler is really good.

It is a very straightforward workhorse of our block storage portfolio. It is one of the best block storage arrays out there. It is a very solid machine that has been around. 

The best feature is the protection - PowerMax NVMe is volume-based and replicates data, so it's very comfortable for us to use.

The GUI interface is very complicated and could be improved by streamlining the number of steps in the process, as the new storage UIs have done.

I've been using this solution for eight months.

PowerMax NVMe is stable.

This is a scalable solution.

I'm happy with Dell's technical support - we have a private support contact that ensures we get good support.

Positive

I would rate PowerMax NVMe six out of ten.

We use this solution to consolidate high-performing workloads. The solution houses all of our VM workloads, as well as our EMR, which supports over 20,000 users. We also have PowerMax deployed on a different site for disaster recovery.

We work in healthcare and have to ensure that our data is always available because it can directly affect patient care. This platform is reliable in supporting our data availability. We now have a higher-performing platform and are able to consolidate our workloads into one single platform.

Overall, the platform is easy to use. The performance has kept up with our workloads.

I have been using this solution for two years. 

This is a stable solution. 

This is a scalable solution. 

The customer service for this solution is excellent. We received assistance with a four-hour response time. I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

Positive

We previously used XtremeIO. We switched just because we felt that the platform was aging and we needed something that was going to be high performing and offer more availability. 

The initial setup was straightforward. We received great support on the ground from Dell. They are familiar with our data center and they were able to prepare the site to install the equipment without any delays so everything ran on schedule. Deployment took one day. 

We worked with a project manager both internally and from Dell, and we ensured that we had all the necessary power, networking, and other connectivity ready for deployment to take place on schedule.

The deployment involved myself and another engineer, as well as Dell engineers. It took several days to get the configuration right from a layout perspective, but overall, it was straightforward.

The return on investment is the consolidation of our platforms. We've reduced our footprint in the data center, which has required less power, less heat, and less floor space.

The pricing for this solution is good compared to other products on the market. 

I would advise others to do their homework and assess their environment to understand their workloads. It's important to do testing and model your workloads against your expectations to push the boundaries.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten. 

We use PowerMax to provide storage for our clients. The service level is important for the different service classes we propose to our clients.

It's a new generation and class of storage so it's faster and more resilient. 

We have reached our required performance level with the response time. We have benched the solution with different types of IO. Now we can be sure, with this solution, that the response time is what we need.

The solution has helped to consolidate storage. With lower space, we now have half a rack.

There is room for improvement in the replication. It's an important requirement for us.

The stability has been good.

The scalability has also been good. We have just bought PowerMax so it's difficult to say much more for now.

Technical support has been good.

The last solution we used was VPLEX. We switched to this new solution because it is more resilient.

We knew we needed to invest in a new solution to help our clients respond to all their requirements. We needed to make available other services and other classes of storage. The solution's architecture influenced our buying decision. It was important for us to have NVMe because it is faster.

The initial setup was a little complex because it was our first time with a high-level storage class from Dell EMC.

In terms of migrating from older VMAX arrays, they are still running. We are working with Dell EMC to do that. We are migrating from the OS side, so it's not from the storage side. It's a little longer process.

We worked with Dell to integrate the solution. Our experience with them was good.

The other vendor on our shortlist was HPE and we went with Dell EMC because, with all the tests, it seemed to be the best array.

My advice is to buy this array.

We use CloudIQ and we use Unisphere, but for day-to-day management, we prefer to automate all tasks with REST API.

For now, I would rate this product at nine out of ten. We have tested it and it seems to be resilient and as fast as we need. But we have to do more tests, such as on the replication. That's important for us.

The primary use case is for Tier 0 applications.

We have no performance related issues due to hardware.

This solution has helped to consolidate islands-of-storage in our data center due to a reduced footprint. This is because of single pane of glass management.

Applications require zero downtime. The high availability and the configuration of the current Symmetrix provide all of that.

We get amazing IOPS and workload with VMware, SAP, and Oracle.

The stability is the most valuable feature.

It has a simple GUI, but still has a CLI-like interface for managing and monitoring.

I find Unisphere and REST API valuable.

We would like easier DR setup. We require DR operations, and we wish it was a lot easier to do that configuration.

It could use additional features and easier integration.

The stability is amazing. Zero downtime reported over the last years.

I would like the scalability to improve, as it requires additional footprints.

It's been always stable, so we haven't really required much support.

We had an opportunity to transform our environment. From experience with previous hardware, we selected this solution.

Our performance requirements were high IOPS, as well as stability. It is meeting those requirements and exceeding our previous infrastructure.

The initial setup was complex. The initial implementation team was not familiar with the Symmetrix architecture.

This was all new implementations for us.

We used a reseller for the deployment, who we are no longer working with.

Our costs are on a yearly basis.

IBM was the competitor. Ultimately, it came down to price.

The product is good. Test it yourself. Assess it against other solutions, and you'll be impressed.

Data plays a role in digital transformation, automation, and database decision-making.

I am looking into CloudIQ.

We're not at the NVMe architecture mode yet.