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Dell SRDF (Symmetrix Remote Data Facility ) [EOL] Reviews

Vendor: Dell Technologies
4.6 out of 5
364 followers
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What is Dell SRDF (Symmetrix Remote Data Facility ) [EOL]?

The Symmetrix Remote Data Facility family of software is the gold standard for remote replication in mission critical environments. Built for the industry-leading high-end VMAX hardware architecture, the SRDF family of solutions is trusted for disaster recovery and business continuity.
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Data Replication
March 2025
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Featured Dell SRDF (Symmetrix Remote Data Facility ) [EOL] reviews

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Key learnings from peers

Valuable Features

  • "We've found the support to be very good overall."
  • "The feature of taking snapshots from the replicated volumes has allowed us to use them for DR testing to validate the application consistent point of recovery."

Room for Improvement

  • "If you are new to the product, the initial setup might be a bit difficult."
  • "The main pain point that we experienced is during device creation. For every newly provisioned volume, creating replication relationships between production and DR site, creating snapshots for third copy at DR site, and configuring them in appropriate replication groups and device groups means that there are lot of steps involved and a lot of room for error. There has to be a lot of checks and balances which need to be incorporated to make sure that the solution is set up correctly."
These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.
Download our Data Replication Buyer's Guide for additional reliable information.

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Dell SRDF (Symmetrix Remote Data Facility ) [EOL] customers

Global Security Provider, SSM Health Care, Bar Harbor Bank & Trust, Shriners, BZWBK, Qatar Islamic Bank, Sudwestrundfunk (SWR)

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Dell SRDF (Symmetrix Remote Data Facility ) [EOL] reviews

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PeerSpot user
AGT Infrastructure Operations at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Verified user of Dell SRDF (Symmetrix Remote Data Facility ) [EOL]
Apr 16, 2020
RPO and RTO have improved drastically

Pros

"The feature of taking snapshots from the replicated volumes has allowed us to use them for DR testing to validate the application consistent point of recovery."

Cons

"The main pain point that we experienced is during device creation. For every newly provisioned volume, creating replication relationships between production and DR site, creating snapshots for third copy at DR site, and configuring them in appropriate replication groups and device groups means that there are lot of steps involved and a lot of room for error. There has to be a lot of checks and balances which need to be incorporated to make sure that the solution is set up correctly."

What is our primary use case?

SRDF is used our disaster recovery service by using replication from our production site to our DR site. We have two different production and DR site pairs in two different global geographies. One use case has got SRDF asynchronous replication and another has SRDF synchronous replication primarily due to business requirements and the location of the DR sites. At the DR sites, snapshots of replicated volumes are created and provisioned to hosts facilitating periodic DR tests.

How has it helped my organization?

RPO and RTO have improved drastically with the SRDF solution which has replaced a tape based recovery solution. Before the SRDF solution was deployed, backup tapes were shipped to the DR site and recovery was made from tapes during DR tests. This was largely error prone because the applications were not able to obtain a consistent point of recovery and RTO was very longer. This didn't fit our business requirements for disaster recovery. The SRDF solution has improved our disaster recovery RPO to near zero or less than 15 minutes with RTO getting drastically reduced. 

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (481 words)
PeerSpot user
Senior Storage Consultant at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Verified user of Dell SRDF (Symmetrix Remote Data Facility ) [EOL]
Oct 22, 2014
If this had a bit better data compression, it would be the best storage vendor on the market.

What is most valuable?

Most valuable features of the product are :

- Reliability

- Ease of use

- Different purposes and usability available

How has it helped my organization?

In all the companies in which I have used the product the ease of Disaster Recovery was implemented in such a manner that the Risk of a Site Disaster was mitigated in a efficient way. Furthermore it made the migrations of complete DataCenters to other (new Data Centers at other locations) a piece of cake (although the complexity of the old Data Center and Infrastructures it self made it often time consuming).

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (469 words)
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PeerSpot user
Storage Consultant at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Verified user of Dell SRDF (Symmetrix Remote Data Facility ) [EOL]
Apr 29, 2021
Stable with great features and excellent support

Pros

"We've found the support to be very good overall. "

Cons

"If you are new to the product, the initial setup might be a bit difficult."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for its high availability.

How has it helped my organization?

The general stability on offer has been a great help to the organization.

*Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
Read full review (597 words)
PeerSpot user
Sr. Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Verified user of Dell SRDF (Symmetrix Remote Data Facility ) [EOL]
Oct 28, 2014
It's a great, stable traditional product that is out there and once you set it up it just keeps running.

What is most valuable?

Replication, once it's setup it can just run.

How has it helped my organization?

The replication works great from prod site to DR site.

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (267 words)
PeerSpot user
System Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Verified user of Dell SRDF (Symmetrix Remote Data Facility ) [EOL]
Oct 22, 2014
A bigger benefit if used in an active, multi-site configuration. There are less expensive methods for a DR scenario.

What is most valuable?

The ability to control functionality with a command line utility for ease of scripting.

How has it helped my organization?

SRDF has served as a robust method of providing a golden, point-in-time copy of our most critical data.

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (386 words)
PeerSpot user
IT & Comm Infrastructure Operations at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Verified user of Dell SRDF (Symmetrix Remote Data Facility ) [EOL]
Oct 27, 2014
SRDF compared with EMC Recover Point has less capabilities but provides ​​reliability and stability.

What is most valuable?

Reliability and stability, 3 SAN storage star replication (1 box only with storage cache, no disks).

How has it helped my organization?

Currently is not used but was implemented 4 years ago for UNIX filesystems and Oracle DB replication.

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (342 words)
PeerSpot user
Core Cloud System Specialist at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Verified user of Dell SRDF (Symmetrix Remote Data Facility ) [EOL]
Sep 17, 2014
Straight forward, although you might face some complexity during the design phase.

How has it helped my organization?

We have built our Disaster Recovery site using the SRDF/s & SRDF/A, Using the SRDF we could have our off site Golden copy for the Critical Data and we managed to restore it back in case of data loss or corruption.

What needs improvement?

They should work more in ‘Security’ and WAN replication.
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (183 words)