Dell PowerStore Reviews

Our clients mainly use it for additional workloads in databases and EDI.

Typically, high-performance and high-availability features, such as application snapshots and remote and local replication, are highly valued.

There is room for improvement in the support. 

I have been using Dell PowerStore for over a year.

For stability, I would rate Dell PowerStore as a seven out of ten. 

The scalability varies depending on the model. The smaller models are not very scalable, while the larger ones offer better scalability. So it really depends on the specific model. For example, the 400 series models are less scalable.

Our customers are a mix of small, medium, or enterprise businesses. 

The customer service and support are bad. The response time from the support team was not very satisfactory. They also struggled with handling cases from different time zones.

Neutral

I would rate my experience with the initial setup a six out of ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy. 

I would rate it as a six out of ten, one being cheap and ten being expensive, because pricing depends on the model and negotiation. Sometimes we manage to get good discounts, sometimes not.

It's an all-inclusive license, so there are no additional charges. It's a one-time license fee for the device.

Overall, Dell PowerStore is a good platform, but it's not the best, in my opinion, due to the support issues and stability concerns. 

Additionally, the shift from a storage controller to Dell servers as the controller is not ideal for a storage operating environment. Ultimately, it's a Dell Server working on the software for PowerStore.

Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

Dell PowerStore is the main storage product we use for our customers. When we sell storage products, Dell PowerStore is always the first one we propose.

Dell PowerStore has helped our customers have a stable storage solution that never goes down.

We use CloudIQ to analyze and predict when the storage will fill up.

Dell PowerStore is good at reducing energy consumption.

We have seen a four-to-one reduction in our footprint for data consolidation.

We use Dell PowerStore with VMware to plug into vCenter. The integration allows us to create data stores from VMware itself.

The software upgrades are all included for no additional charge.

Dell PowerStore has just caught up to some of the competition by introducing METRO nodes a few months ago while the competition has had the feature for years. 

I have been using Dell PowerStore since its release in 2020.

Dell PowerStore is extremely stable.

The technical support has significantly improved from where it was two years ago.

Positive

We previously used Dell Compellent but it wasn't stable and Dell PowerStore was replacing it so we eagerly switched.

The implementation is always good except for sometimes having to link PowerStore to the correct CloudIQ because the sales organization doesn't provide us with the correct ID.

For our customers, Dell PowerStore is a one-time installation that keeps running with minimal non-disruptive maintenance.

We evaluated HPE but PowerStore does what it needs to do and there is no need for other products.

I would rate Dell PowerStore nine out of ten. For a ten they need to surpass their competition.

Our environment consists of a VMware cluster of two, three, or four hosts in a single location.

I would advise my peers to go for it and utilize Dell PowerStore.

Dell PowerStore is primarily used for high-performance applications, such as databases, but it is also suitable for virtualization and other applications.

Dell PowerStore has helped in resolving latency issues in our applications. Our customers mostly use it to improve performance.

The most valuable features of Dell PowerStore are the support for NVMe and SCM, which provides end-to-end performance and high IOPS, minimizing latency. It is a full-fledged storage solution.

Dell PowerStore is a good solution overall, but some models could support hypervisors better by allowing for more customization and flexibility for customer needs.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for approximately three years.

I rate the stability of Dell PowerStore a nine out of ten.

We have five to six customers using this solution and we plan on increasing our customers.

I rate the scalability of Dell PowerStore a nine out of ten.

The technical support from Dell PowerStore has always been good, they respond quickly and you can reach them 24 hours a day seven days a week.

The initial setup of Dell PowerStore requires expertise, but for someone trained in the solution, it's not too complicated.

One person is needed for configuration, and two people are needed for installation and cabling.

By using Dell PowerStore's best deduplication and compression features, its ROI is very good.

I rate the price of Dell PowerStore a seven out of ten.

We evaluated options like HPE Primera and Huawei Dorado.

Dell PowerStore provides the best performance, deduplication, and compression, although other storage is also supporting these features. However, the Dell PowerStore guarantees 4:1 compression and deduplication, which goes up to 20:1.

If anyone wants to implement Dell PowerStore, I would advise that they seek help from an expert rather than deploying it by themselves.

I rate the scalability of Dell PowerStore a nine out of ten.

We are using Dell PowerStore primarily for SAP applications as block storage, for replication across different locations.

We see a lot of value in the investment. Primarily, it's quite cost-efficient, and with the latest NVMe technology, we see the performance of this has improved compared to the previous generation VNX or Unity array.

When compared to Pure Storage, Dell PowerStore's cost was quite attractive.

The UI should be a little more user-friendly to manage. 

We want to see additional public to private cloud adoption features included if they are at all possible.

I have been working with Dell PowerStore for approximately one year.

We are working with Generation One, and we are looking for Generation Two.

Dell PowerStore is very stable.

Dell PowerStore is scalable. We can add multiple engines to it.

We have 200 users in our organization who use this solution.

We have not contacted technical support.

At the moment, I am using Pure Storage and NetApp All-Flash Storage Arrays.

We have worked with TCS. We chose it because of NVMe and the performance-enhancing technologies it offers.

We worked with HPE Alletra and Pure Storage.

Because HPE Alletra was not unified storage, we chose Dell PowerStore because it was.

The initial setup was straightforward.

It took less than a day to deploy.

This solution does not require any specific maintenance.

We carried it out using OEM and other methods.

We purchased it with a five-year warranty.

When compared to the technology that has been evaluated earlier or has just come onto the market earlier, it provides a good value for the money. Since the price is significantly lower and performance features have improved. That being said, I would recommend this.

I would rate Dell PowerStore a seven out of ten.

We are a reseller, and we use them to demonstrate to our customers the PowerStore interface as well as to power our own lab demos, running vCenter, NSX, and other software utilities.

For our demo lab, before we got PowerStore, we were running on a really outdated storage platform that was running out of space and didn't have enough internal resources to be able to power our customer demos. This product really helped facilitate and we do quite a few PowerStore demos since we have that device. 

Our older PowerStore is where most of our demos are located. We're just using it as a block of storage and storage to power the VMware environment. That's been our main use case.

The networking was difficult and complicated. It took as long to configure it correctly for the networking, as to roll it out. It would be good if there was a way to simplify the network complexity. 

It's also only supported with a limited amount of switches. If I hadn't bought the Dell switches, I would've had some issues with my legacy switches. That's been our number one issue with customers, when they say, "oh no, I'm going to use this other switch."

We have two PowerStores. We have one that's three years old, and we have a new one we just implemented a couple of weeks ago.

The solution is extremely stable. We haven't had any issues with it.

We only have the product in one location. Only six people have touched the solution. That's between the people who maintain it and sales architects who use it for demonstrations.

We have full Dell support. One time, my engineer was in the lab and knocked a power cable loose. I got an email within 15 minutes saying "you had an unexpected node failure, and do you need help?" They were on top of it. They are right there and they reach out proactively.

Positive

We had Compellent previously and that had aged out. It was six years old. Then we had EqualLogic that was in place just for NAS storage. That one also aged out and was running out of space. This product replaced both of those units.

I was involved in the initial setup of this solution. It was pretty straightforward. With the first implementation, we were done in about 12 hours. That included the networking switches. The unit, PowerStore itself, is probably deployed in only six hours.

The solution requires maintenance. I am not the one who performs the maintenance. Our lead engineer handles it.

We used Dell Professional Services during the implementation. I also had my lead PowerStore engineer and some of our sales architects shadow it, as well as a couple of my other engineers who hadn't used PowerStore. Dell let us have about four people shadow the installation so that my staff could get some knowledge as it got deployed.

We've seen an ROI. We're a reseller. Being able to do those demos for our customers helps us sell more products.

I don't really have any line of sight on the pricing. I heard it's comparable to the other Dell storage units.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. It's a really good product.

I'd advise potential new users to have a demo or do a hands-on lab to try it out. Also, make sure you buy supported switches.

We were in need of a new enterprise storage solution for our virtual machines. We use it for primary systems and processes, so for us it's very important.

The built-in intelligence adapts quickly to changing workload requirements. It works as we expected it to work. It doesn't give you a view into how it's doing it because it's doing it in the backend, but up until now, every process has been working perfectly fine.

The biggest benefit is that we have an enterprise storage solution we can rely on. It does simplify storage operations. It's easy to manage.

In the few months that we have used it, the performance has been great.

The way you're able to manage all your PowerStores as one solution is very good for us. PowerStore enables you to federate or cluster multiple appliances with automated load balancing. In terms of management, it's helpful that we can do it from a single interface where we're able to manage multiple PowerStores. When you have multiple PowerStores, it works intelligently by running the workloads based on the needs of the infrastructure.

The solution's machine learning and automation work well when it comes to optimizing resources. It does inline deduplication which means that the net the amount of storage you have available is bigger. It can do all kinds of optimization in the system itself and that works very well.

We have been using Dell EMC PowerStore for about three months.

The most valuable features of PowerStore are its scale up and scale out. We are able to scale up if we need more space or more power in the current PowerStore setup, but we can also scale out if we want to put in an extra one beside it or in another data center.

Technical support for Compellent was a lot better because for Dell EMC the PowerStore is a new solution and they don't have a lot of people here in the Netherlands with the right knowledge to work on it.

Having said that, I don't have many concerns that it's a new solution. Other people do have concerns about that, but I believe in the knowledge of Dell EMC. Also, it's not 100 percent new. It's based on another hardware system, so I have no concerns.

Before, we were on Dell EMC Compellent hardware, and that was based on a tiering principle whereby we used quick and slower storage. We had more and more issues with that because it was a little bit outdated, around five years old. We were looking for a new solution to house our infrastructure.

The setup process could be improved. We had some issues regarding configuration and the time it took to do things. It wasn't specifically the people we worked with, but more the process and how it's done. They can work on that.

I'm not satisfied with the process they used to do the setup and the timeframe within which everything was done. For example, there were things which we needed to do together with Dell EMC. There were three meetings for doing three specific things, but we could have done them in one meeting. That's why the duration, from the moment we bought the hardware until we were able to use it, was two or three months. We had expected that we would be able to use the hardware quicker. But because of the implementation process, it took us longer than we wanted.

Three months is too soon for us to see ROI.

When we compared it with the other solutions, the pricing of PowerStore was equal. The pricing is good.

I don't know what the names were because I was not 100 percent involved in the selection process, but there were two other vendors we looked at.

One of the main differences was the way they do inline deduplication. In the backend, PowerStore does all kinds of smart things. The result is that with less physical storage being used, we are able to host more data. Also the fact that PowerStore is completely NVMe-based means performance is great, thanks to the technical architecture.

The solution enables you to add compute and capacity independently, although in our environment we cannot add compute. We are able to add storage and that works, although we have not done so because we have only been working with PowerStore for three months and haven't needed any extra capacity yet.

Only three people work with PowerStore in our company, and they are all system administrators.

I'm happy with the choice we made. I can recommend PowerStore because the technical architecture is based on NVMe. They have a good USP. There are other vendors who also have NVME-only systems, but I still recommend PowerStore.

We utilize Dell PowerStore for VMware and to establish an OpenShift environment for deploying applications on the customer's end.

The solution is easy to use and has good performance.

Horizontal scaling has room for improvement.

The price has room for improvement.

I have been using the solution for around five years.

I give the stability a nine out of ten.

I give the scalability a seven out of ten. While the solution can be vertically scaled without issues, horizontal scaling presents challenges.

The technical support is usually good but they are not very robust.

Neutral

The initial setup is straightforward. I give the setup a seven out of ten. To ensure successful deployment, a certain level of technical knowledge is necessary. Typically, a team of one to two engineers can complete the deployment within a few hours. However, the duration may vary and take up to two days depending on the specific configuration requirements.

We implement the solution for our customers.

The solution is expensive. I give the cost a two out of ten.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

The solution requires hardware maintenance. Depending on the customer's contract agreement, we can maintain the solution and provide replacement parts by the next business day.

Our clients are enterprise-level.

I recommend Dell PowerStore because it is a highly stable solution.

I use it in the financial sector for banking, specifically for core banking applications, to serve our applications. We served different types of customers, ranging from oil and gas to the financial sector, education, and healthcare. We deployed Dell PowerStore in different industry segments, such as manufacturing and retail, for example.

The most impactful benefit is the data reduction and the deduplication.

Replication is easy to implement, and you don't need higher bandwidth to do replication across sites. It's quite useful.

The most impactful feature is the data reduction. Data reduction significantly saves costs. If I purchase, for example, twenty terabytes of storage, the effective capacity gives me somewhere around eighty terabytes. I pay for ten terabytes but gain eighty terabytes or fifty terabytes, for example. It depends on the type of data I am storing on Dell PowerStore, but usually, the reduction ratio is very good. It's a fantastic feature.

I have read about the new ability to cluster multiple PowerStore appliances and it sounds like a very good feature.

Its management capabilities are very strong. It is easy to implement and very easy to manage. The interface is very user-friendly.

APEX AIOPS is quite useful. It sends helpful notification. It tells you what bottleneck is in your storage environment. It gives you detailed orientation of  why you are you are getting a bottleneck and where the problem is. 

We have been able to consolidate data using PowerStore.

PowerStore's compression and duplication technologies are very important and useful. It's a good feature.

The data resiliency and cybersecurity are good. It covers all the aspects that modern storage should have. 

The PowerStore cybersecurity and resiliency features meet our organizational needs.

PowerStore's built-in integrations for VMware are beneficial. It has all the features that need to be integrated into the environment. It's well aligned and tightly integrated.

One challenge in clustering is that when I create a cluster, the overall pool doesn't increase. Separate pools must be created for each controller node in the cluster. For instance, if I am creating a four-node or four-controller node cluster, I will have four different pools. If I want to enhance a pool beyond the maximum capacity of one controller node, I cannot increase it and must create a separate pool. This is a drawback in Dell PowerStore clustering. 

Synchronous replication covers the entire replication process, but there are scenarios where implementing synchronous replication is necessary, and that feature is missing. Pricing must also be considered, as Dell PowerStore is quite expensive compared to competitors in the market like HPE Alletra, Huawei Dorado, or Hitachi storage, for example. It is quite expensive price-wise.

Feature-set wise, PowerStore is very rich. I think all of the necessary features are there. Price-wise, PowerStore is quite expensive compared to the competition in the market like HP Alletra, Huawei, or Hitachi storage. Dell is more expensive. 

Competitors come in with better pricing and a similar feature set. Customers who already have PowerStore are very satisfied but when it comes to new storage requirements or a tech refresh, customers consider other options as well because of the price.

I have used the solution for roughly five to seven years.

It's very stable.

Scaling up is quite easy, whereas scaling out my storage requires deployment in a clustered manner from day one. If it's not deployed in a clustered manner and I want to scale out, I cannot do so. Careful planning is required at the start of implementation to determine if scaling out will be needed in the future. If this is not addressed in time, I will have to start from scratch, which is a daunting task. There are challenges with scaling out if the environment is not prepared at the initial deployment. Otherwise, it is straightforward. It is very useful, as I can add drive storage incrementally instead of a large batch of disks each time. It is both very useful and cost-effective.

Dell technical support is very good. They reach out to me promptly, deliver replacement parts quickly, and have local depots in three different cities across the country. Overall support is good.

There are two major aspects when it comes to the setup. One is the migration from existing storage, and the other is how fast I can complete the initial setup of Dell PowerStore. From a migration perspective, Dell PowerStore has the capability to migrate data from existing storage, even from other brands. The second phase is the initial setup, which is very straightforward. In a few steps, I am ready to set it up. Then, in the third phase, configuring replication, it is very straightforward and can be done in a few clicks. In all three phases—from migration to initial setup and to replication of the DR side, or the secondary side, or a third site—Dell PowerStore is easy to install and implement.

When I plan a tech refresh, other competitors offer better pricing with similar feature sets. This is a challenge for customers who are already satisfied with Dell PowerStore. However, when it comes to new storage requirements or a tech refresh, I consider other options as well.

Normally, Dell PowerStore is an NVMe storage, but it does not offer all NVMe protocol support like NVMe over RoCE, NVMe over fiber channel, and NVMe over TCP while other competitors do offer various connectivity options that Dell PowerStore lacks. For example, it lacks F5 and NVMe over RoCE and NVMe over fiber channel. Although it's NVMe-ready storage, it is not end-to-end NVMe ready from a technical angle.

My advice to anybody considering PowerStore is that if you need a scale-out feature in the future, you should consider it from day one. If Dell PowerStore is set up as a single appliance, scaling out will not be possible. This is the main point that needs consideration. 

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