Dell PowerStore Reviews

I can't think of anything to improve Dell PowerStore because when it comes to storage, I don't want to have to troubleshoot it or deal with it unless I'm deploying a new volume or deploying something. That's one of the reasons why I love PowerProtect - if I didn't save the password in a password manager, I would forget what the admin login is, because I never have to log into it and troubleshoot it at all. It just works. It is very resilient, and that's my favorite thing about it. 

I evaluate storage reliability performance by noting that I'm the one who would have to troubleshoot or fix something, and with Dell PowerStore, I never have to log into it, which is awesome. 

I've never had to contact support, which is one of the reasons why I love it. I don't want to constantly have issues with something, so I can dedicate my time to something else that's not just fixing what we have.

One improvement I would suggest relates to the service that pings Dell when there's an issue. I would say it needs to be more transparent. 

Dell has always been good to us, even though we're not a massive company. While we are a global company, in terms of employees, we're not that huge. Dell has always been good to us, and we never felt they looked down on us because we're under a thousand employees.

Positive

That's one of the big reasons why we're here, so we can find how we can start utilizing AI for our business, that's not just asking ChatGPT to make a report for us or something. Dell PowerStore is my baby.

My use case for Dell PowerStore is to have a faster storage platform.

The most valuable feature about Dell PowerStore is speed and reliability. Speed and reliability are valuable because we reach a better response time in the applications. 

We use the storage principally for the database, and their response of the database was better after that. Dell PowerStore helps my organization overall by providing a better experience for the clients from the front end.

I would improve the product to make it better. I had specific troubles with vulnerabilities in Dell PowerStore. There are many vulnerabilities that we cannot mitigate related to the administration interface. It is hard to install certificates from another source.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for five years.

I have found that Dell PowerStore scales with my organization.

I have not used customer service or support.

Positive

I did use another solution before Dell PowerStore; we were using EMC before, and EMC was a part of Dell. The switch was for obsolescence; we were really happy with EMC, and this is the next generation of the same platform.

I was not part of the group that deployed Dell PowerStore. We worked with another team for the deployment.

I did evaluate other companies before. Companies such as IBM and ThreePAR for HP were among those I evaluated.

I ended up choosing Dell PowerStore for many reasons; the principal reason is due to the fact that I had experience with it before. I had a nice provider with a close relation, and this product complied with our requirements.

The advice I would give to somebody who's looking at purchasing Dell PowerStore is that it was easy to deploy; the migration was easy, too, and I always had good customer service and replacement parts. It works fine and is pretty simple.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the product a nine.

We use Dell PowerStore for developing applications.

The solution has improved our organization by providing data availability and data protection.

The most valuable feature of Dell PowerStore is the metro cluster because we have two data centers and high availability. The solution provides good performance and stability.

Our organization uses CloudIQ to manage and analyze our Dell storage. It helps us see all the information together and understand more about the technology.

The solution has helped us achieve 5:1 data reduction.

We are utilizing Dell PowerStore’s integration with VMware.

We have been able to reduce our organizational footprint using Dell PowerStore.

My experience with Dell’s reseller was very good because they helped us a lot.

The solution’s security and technical support could be improved.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for four years.

The solution provides very good stability.

Dell PowerStore is a scalable solution.

The solution's technical support used to be much better some years ago, but now it is a little worse. Normally, Dell has an SLA of four hours, but the support is never on time. When we have a problem, the support team takes a long time to resolve it.

We previously used Unity and EqualLogic. We switched to Dell PowerStore because of its performance.

The solution's initial setup is very easy, and we don't have to spend a lot of time implementing it.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

I have implemented Dell PowerStore primarily for use cases involving straight-up service in virtualization, which includes fewer VDIs and more generic services.

The solution's most valuable feature is that the full NVMe offers great latency, which is the most effective way to give our customers the benefits of all-flash storage, especially since they won't really notice the bandwidth more than the latency.

The challenges my company was trying to address with the implementation of Dell PowerStore revolve around floor space saving. In Germany, one mostly has to deal with a conservative customer base. If there is a storage that is seven years old and now if one wants to change it, then there are these big machines, with which one can get a lot of terabytes out of it, and that is definitely a big point. When it comes to the area of data reduction, Germany is very conservative, and it may not be possible to reach 4:1 data reduction, but it is still good as the tool's usability is very simple compared to other systems.

Dell PowerStore's ability in the area of overall energy consumption is very good compared to the other systems, which have spinning disks. All-flash storage solutions are a lot more effective, but it is a big concern as energy prices are high. In terms of whether my company could reduce the power consumption with Dell PowerStore, I would say that my company had a use case with a customer around three weeks ago where their old Dell EMC VNX Storage System used to draw about 2500 watts compared to Dell PowerStore which drew about 800 watts, which is a really a big saving looking at the twenty-four hours and seven days of usage of the system.

My organization uses Dell CloudIQ to manage and analyze Dell storage around 50 percent of the time. It makes a lot more sense when one has a lot more Dell hardware because it provides one with a single pane of glass management and an overview of the systems.

After assessing Dell PowerStore's Cyber-resilient data approach to security, I would say that its secure and immutable snapshots are a big feature in Europe. The tool was lacking for quite a time in the area of cyber-resilient data approach to security, but now it has become very good. I think Dell PowerStore is a state-of-the-art system.

I have been able to reduce our organizational footprint and data consolidation using Dell PowerStore, considering that the tool has helped with data reduction by around a 2.5:1 ratio. If I compare the footprint of Dell PowerStore with our company's previously used solution, I would say that the products used in the past did not help with any kind of reduction of data. As a company that has partnerships with different vendors, we have Pure Storage in our portfolio. Pure Storage is better than Dell PowerStore, specifically in the case of data reduction. The algorithm behind Pure Storage performs a bit better, but looking at the price difference, Dell PowerStore is available at a better deal.

The tool is deployed mostly on an on-premises model. The deployment is split into an 80 percent and 20 percent model. Around three to seventeen customers use the tool with VMware, while a few customers use OpenStack.

After upgrades, there were a few bugs in the product, and it can be considered as an area of concern where improvements are required.

I have been using Dell PowerStore since 2021. I was still a customer back in 2021 who bought a Dell PowerStore and then switched to the partner side at the beginning of 2022. Since 2022, I have dealt with 30 to 35 product implementations.

There were a few bugs in the product after the upgrades. My company had to face a few bugs in the latest upgrades of the tool owing to which we had to reboot the solution, and it is a big no-no for us considering that the product is a part of the virtualization stack, but if you are not really counting that and stay at the target code, which the tool recommends actually, then it is good.

In my company, we have a few appliances which we scaled out. The problem is mostly that single drive additions are really expensive. For most customers, it is actually more efficient to buy a whole Dell PowerStore, which is kind of hard to explain to most customers.

My company mostly contacts Dell's support team for mission critical services. Dell's support team's response has always been completely positive. The quick response from the tool's dedicated German support team for storage ensures that our company gets new leads and connects you to the right set of people from Dell. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

Considering the other solutions my company has used, I would say that Dell PowerStore, with all its features from previous releases, offers good functionalities. The big pro associated with Dell PowerStore stems from its price point since one gets a lot more compared to other products in the market.

The product's initial deployment phase has been straightforward. You can't get anything wrong with the deployment process associated with the product. I had two or three systems on which the validation was successful, but the actual deployment failed. It is not a big problem since you can just re-initialize it and start over.

Though I don't get real hard data about the savings part attached to the product, customer feedback has been extremely positive. There are no issues with the product's performance since Dell PowerStore is an NVMe product.

I rate the tool an eight and a half out of ten.

We have implemented Dell PowerStore for small sites needing mirrored storage. To ensure high availability, the storage is set up in two different locations, possibly in the same building but far apart.

For example, when you have a large warehouse that could have almost 800 meters between the server rooms, we put one in one server room and one in the other. If something happens to the one on one side of the building, you still have the other one.

There have been no significant benefits to the organization because Dell PowerStore is expensive, and we have found that it offers the same functionality as other storage solutions.

Powerstore's cyber-resilient approach protects our data well. We haven't had any problems. 

Dell PowerStore is too expensive, and it could be less complicated. It isn't as user-friendly as other options, especially regarding the user interface.

We have been using Dell PowerStore for about one year.

It is hard to know how stable PowerStore servers are since we've only used it for a year, but they have worked so far. 

We contacted them once about to test a VxRail solution. That was quick, and it was working, so it's hard to gauge their support. 

Neutral

We also use Nimble Storage for other sites. They likely decided to use Dell based on server pricing and simplifying purchases by choosing the same vendor for storage. However, we are considering returning to Nimble Storage.

Dell PowerStore is too expensive for what it does.

Currently, we are exploring Huawei solutions because they offer the same thing for a third of the price. 

I rate Dell PowerStore Rack Servers seven out of 10. 

Dell PowerStore was attached to an SQL Database that needed to have high performance, and since the application was not very well written, the only solution was to put it on flash storage. In my company, we felt that Dell PowerStore stood out for us as a high-performance storage device in the market.

In terms of how the product has helped my organization or my company's customers' organizations, I would say that the product provides its users with the hardware they need to be able to scale and grow their applications. The product is helpful not just from the standpoint of being able to deal with expanding an array's needs but also having the power necessary for the workload.

The most valuable feature revolves around expandability, especially since our company had to grow one of the appliances once. My company found the tool to be really easy to use, expand, and manage.

My organization uses Dell CloudIQ to manage and analyze Dell storage. My company has not faced any issues with CloudIQ since we mostly use it for monitoring and reporting, and it never came back to us with anything, so everything is always green there. CloudIQ has not given our company anything yet since we may not have done anything wrong to date. As per one of the recent announcements, CloudIQ has been renamed Dell APEX AIOps. Going forward, we need to remember that CloudIQ has been branded as Dell APEX AIOps.

I don't look or assess Dell PowerStore's overall energy consumption closely since it is not in a data center where one can have features to monitor power. I would assume that the product would be efficient when it comes to the overall energy consumption area, and I understand that there will be some additional power savings with the newer versions of the product and the latest hardware. There hasn't been anything associated with the product that has been an issue for our company.

In terms of the ESG values of the product, I think Dell PowerStore has been doing a good job. Dell's team has been doing its best when it comes to the area of ESG values since they talk a lot about being green and recycling while also emphasizing how they are able to take in old products and dispose of them properly, making me believe that Dell works towards a good initiative.

The challenges my company is trying to address with the use of the solution, especially in areas like workload or data consolidation, I would say that the workloads that my company is running are all VMs, so we get into a ton of consolidation in that regard. The challenge my company is trying to address with the use of the solution revolves around the area of performance. The tool has not only met and addressed our company's challenges concerning the performance area but also exceeded them.

My company integrates Dell PowerStore with VMware.

The integration process of Dell PowerStore with VMware is not as easy as how it is when it comes to Dell Unity XT, especially in terms of getting the integrations turned on. Once the integration capabilities are turned on in Dell PowerStore, the tool works very well.

Though Dell PowerStore is generally easy to manage, it is not as easy as how one can manage Dell Unity XT. There are some management issues in Dell PowerStore. I have managed several pieces of Dell PowerStore's hardware area, and I could feel that it was almost like a step back in certain areas when it came to the management interface. I haven't looked at Dell PowerStoreOS 4.0, so I can't speak about it currently.

From a feature-oriented point of view, I don't want to see anything additional in the product since it is kind of a purpose-built appliance from what I understand. The product does everything I need it to do for me.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for a year.

The product's stability has been fantastic and rock solid.

The product's scalability features have been great. My company is happy with the product.

The solution's technical support has been fantastic, especially with the CloudIQ integration. Our company has had a couple of instances where Dell's support has actually reached out to us and told us about how there is an update in the queue and how we can download it and use the update as per our convenience.

I have not used any other solutions in the past.

The product's initial setup phase was easy. The product has an easy setup phase, especially if you have experience with Dell EMC storage products. Dell PowerStore's setup process may not seem as easy as the setup phase of the tools covered under Dell EMC storage products.

Only one of the two Dell PowerStore isn't production, but the issue that my company used to face with the previous product we used was associated with the fact that its application would die every day at two o'clock in the afternoon, after which there is a need to reboot the server in order to get the product to come back up. I believe the aforementioned problem was caused by a report running at the wrong time and taxing out the database server heavily. With Dell PowerStore, even if the report runs and Taxes out the database server heavily, the tool doesn't suffer from a performance hit. With the earlier products, users had to deal with 15 to 30 minutes of downtime in the afternoons, but now that has been eliminated with the use of Dell PowerStore. I have experienced an ROI using the product, but the number to which it equates is something that I can't specify.

When it came to the pricing part, my company looked at Dell EMC Unity All Flash and Dell PowerStore. Dell PowerStore is more expensive than Dell EMC Unity All Flash. Dell PowerStore's performance metrics were way higher than what Dell EMC Unity All Flash offered. My company considered Dell PowerStore to be the best solution despite its high cost.

I have not evaluated any other products against Dell PowerStore.

The product has not really helped reduce organizational footprint and data consolidation. The data is all there, and it just keeps growing, so I don't know if there has been any data consolidation possible with Dell PowerStore.

Though there are a few areas that Dell cannot control, when you look at an all-flash storage device, one can figure out that there is some cost involved in it. Other than the costs associated with Dell PowerStore, I feel it is a fantastic product.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We use Dell PowerStore with the VMware platform for block storage.

Our customers implement Dell PowerStore for the performance and deduplication compression ratio. For all the PowerStores that Dell deployed, I am around three dot eight or three dot six compression. It depends on the VMs and the customer's infrastructure, but it's quite good.

Our deployments are always on-premises for organizations in multiple industries, including medical and production. The environments are small, with around 20 terabytes of data or less.

We integrate PowerStore with VMware. We can't use PowerStore if we don't have a virtual platform like VMware or Hyper-V. We use VMware-certified professionals.

CloudIQ is a good tool for monitoring all our systems. It creates alerts that notify us if something is wrong and it also creates tickets automatically to Dell.

The most valuable aspects of Dell PowerStore are integration with VMware and reliability.

Dell PowerStore is an unfinished product compared to the HPE systems because it is relatively new. The synchronous replication was only added recently.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for four years.

PowerStore is stable. We install it and forget it for four years until it is time to replace it. 

We only sell one PowerStore to our clients, so there has been no need to scale but if needed more disks can be added.

The Dell support is good. The response time is good and the people are reliable. I am happy with the support.

Positive

We have worked with HPE, Huawei, and Pure Storage. Dell PowerStore is a young product compared to HPE. HPE has a lot of experience. Huawei is aggressive with pricing and has good products in Europe. Pure Storage is good but heavy and costly compared to Dell PowerStore.

For me, the deployment is easy because I'm very experienced. We had a lot of issues passing from version two to version three. I had to call Dell support each time we upgraded from version two to version three but once we're on version three, it is good.

I would rate Dell PowerStore eight out of ten.

The main use case for Dell PowerStore is that it hosts our production base and the virtualization infrastructure.

The best features of Dell PowerStore are the cluster and the synchronization, which is far better than the technology we were using. It was VPLEX, and it was quite complex with a bunch of more equipment, SAN switches, and the link between the sites, the bandwidth, and the time to converge both systems to the same state whenever we had a network problem. It used to take 6 to 10 hours to synchronize the storage. Now it's much more reliable and faster.

Dell PowerStore has positively impacted our organization by improving the user experience. We were having issues with the hybrid storage we had in the past, so we decided to go to an all-flash solution, and it made it possible to give a better experience because we were having heavy delays on the applications. We had to make some tuning on SQL Server as well, but we got into a limit that it was necessary to move to another technology or to a faster technology.

I have two years of experience with Dell PowerStore.

We are clustering multiple Dell PowerStore appliances with two active-active clusters.

I would rate Dell's technical support or customer service a 10.

Moving and optimizing workloads within the cluster became easier with Dell PowerStore. It became easier because we had a VNX, and it was quite tricky to set up. It's much easier now.

The initial setup of Dell PowerStore is complex, but it's not as complex as the previous version.

I think the pricing or setup cost or licensing of Dell is fair.

We have two storages; we have an object storage that stores all the objects such as PDFs and other kinds of documents, which is a Dell storage, a DCS. All other storage is supported by Dell PowerStore, approximately 70-80%.

Dell PowerStore definitely meets our company's needs. We are a public company, a state company, so we are very regulated in privacy and other requirements. It helps significantly.

I have been able to consolidate our data using Dell PowerStore. As far as non-technical improvements, there's a niche market in Brazil for Dell PowerStore, so more players would be nice. They are good because of the response time, the knowledge, the attention, and the supply chain.

I don't have any issues with storage, so if it doesn't give me any problems to resolve and doesn't bring me issues to solve, it's excellent. I assess the management capabilities of Dell PowerStore as pretty easy. The initial setup with SAN storage is always complex, requiring setting up ISL and all the back-end equipment, but once you've done that, the setup to provide storage and manage everyday activities is pretty easy.

Regarding the insights offered by APEX AIOps, CloudIQ, I've been receiving some reports. Every week I have a report in my email, so it's good.

Overall, I would rate Dell PowerStore a 10.