Dell EMC Unity XT reviews

Delivers High IOPS, but more important, low latency as this is the most important part for our usage.

• VMware integration, why is pretty self-explanatory, though Nimble offers better VMware integration then EMC does, which is odd given where EMC comes from.
• Veeam Backup integration: Veeam is the defacto standard for backing up of virtual environments.
• Fibre Channel support

I’d say better VMware integration. Currently, EMC relies on an additional VM (virtual machine) for integration with vCenter, whereas Nimble interfaces directly without the need of an additional virtual machine.

Both products are fully HTML5 compliant, which makes me very happy. We have been able to fully eliminate Adobe Flash thanks to this.

Firmware Upgrades in EMC Unity require you to manually download OS and Drive firmware, this should be integrated (Nimble does this). When you order an EMC Unity, you have to specify the block size. This is weird for me and even weirder that you cannot change this afterwards, you should be able to specify per LUN/datastore (Nimble does this as well).

No.

Not yet.

Decreased administration efforts, improved manageability.

• User friendly interface
• Scalability
• It is shipped with all licensed, included for this product range, no need to buy additional licenses
• Flexible support plans 
• Prompt answers from EMC support

Thick provisioning of LUNs.

Firmware management form EMC. Strange way to populate firmware based on spread ratio among the customers of EMC Unity.

Yes, but did not affect systems which relay on it. Firmware patch was released by EMC.

Not for now.

Easy to use. For beginners, it is very interactive.

The company migrated data from an older NetApp storage. The entire environment is virtualized. The amount of fast cache is great for meeting all demands.

All areas, since the entire environment is virtualized. In Brazil, price and native unity migration tools are not very good yet.

Still using.

No, but I found some articles about a code upgrade that solved some issues.

No problem. During installation, I added more disks and this activity ran without problem.

EMC technical support is great. With support, chat works well to talk with someone about any kind of problem. The only problem is some support agents take a lot of time to understand your issue.

I have worked implementing storage for at least 10 years. So yes, I used a huge number of solutions before. In this case, the customer changed because the warranty of his older storage expired.

The implementation went smoothly. The startup tool is very easy to use.

I believe there are other cheaper options, but you are not paying just for the "iron". The support in storage environment is a crucial thing to consider. Also, consider buying more flash disks for fast cache.

HPE 3PAR

Implement views using consistency groups. It is easier to replicate LUNs, take snapshots, etc. Also, you can't use fast cache with SSD storage pools.

The primary use case is storage.

The solution helps us be more competitive in the market against our competitors.

We use replication.

It has reduced complexity.

It is missing some features, like deduplication.

It is pretty stable.

It can scale.

The technical support is good.

The initial setup has straightforward and complex pieces, such as, the integration. 

We have seen ROI

We don't use the cloud options.

The first time we got a Unity was last year. We started deploying some of our file system data into it. We have been seeing a significant improvement, not just the way that we take Snaps, but with the recoveries as well. We're also using it for block storage.

The way it takes the Snaps, that is one of the best features. Snapshot performance is what is key in the Unity, compared to a traditional VNX.

The reporting, I'm comparing the VNX with Unity. The VNX reporting is much more granular. The information that we need in terms of the IOPS, for example, and things like what my compression value is, that kind of information is pretty straightforward and you can just go to the dashboard and look for the information.

Unity is a pretty stable product.

I know there are new, scalable versions of Unity that are out there. We recently have been getting more because our data is increasing. Recently we got the latest Unity model, and we are planning to convert most of our VNX data over to the Unity at some point.

Technical support is five stars out of five. Every time it has dialed home for any of the issues that we have, so far we have seen very good support from EMC.

The new upgrades, the processors get changed, a new box comes in, there are new security vulnerabilities that the security team will ask us to analyze; those are the issues where we ask support for that information. We get a response pretty quickly.

The setup is straightforward.

We did not evaluate other solutions. We have been an EMC shop for a very long time and we will continue to use it.

It's flexible and we've been doing a decentralization exercise for the last number of years, so we've used the Unity 300 for our remote sites as a storage box.

The multiprotocol support. It's supporting NFS, fiber channel, CIFS, and these kinds of things. The multiprotocol is very attractive.

There is something that comes to mind. We've deployed these systems in a virtualized environment. We are running VMware, and with the VNXe it was possible to restore. We're using Veeam for VMware backups and with the predecessor, it was possible to mount a backup or restore a backup from a storage snapshot. With the Unity 300, this is not possible.

So far it's proven very reliable and very flexible.

So far we have no issues. But we are currently doing disaster recovery tests so we've deployed the Unity 300 with an expansion in our disaster recovery sites. Now we're going to do some serious tests, so we'll be able to tell you that in a few weeks, whether or not it holds its own.

I think I called once, when I deployed the first box myself, to validate whether the setup was correct.

And also with some call-back issues, the ESRS. We had some issues with that, the call-back support. Whenever a box encounters an issue, we automatically contact Dell EMC and log a call automatically. This function has proven somewhat problematic. But it doesn't affect any of the normal day to day operations of it.

As I said, we'd been using its predecessor, the VNXe. It's because the VNXe is being phased out that we switched to the successor, the Unity 300. But apart from that, we've been using EMC solutions for the last four years now. That's why we've stuck with EMC, ever since.

Some points are frustrating. There's no quick setup guides included with the box itself on paper, so you have to connect to EMC support for that. But apart from that, it's very straightforward, quite easy, intuitive. It's proven fairly easy.

As I mentioned before, we've used this product to deploy in remote sites, so as an alternative we were contemplating VMware vSAN. But in the end we didn't choose that option. We chose the shared storage option using the Unity 300.

My experiences are generally positive with this product. I would definitely recommend to others to go for it unless they choose an alternative.

We are a solution provider and the Dell EMC Unity XT series is one of the products that we implement for our clients. My role is in pre-sales and I help to design the solutions.

It is primarily used to provide our customers with an on-site, high-availability production server. It is also used to provide disaster recovery

Using this product has helped us to improve the security of information. It is shared storage and as such, we have the ability to create an architecture that is resistant to server crashes. It allows us to minimize downtime and secure usage of services.

The most valuable features are its performance and simplicity.

The price of this product can be more cost-effective.

Dell EMC Unity XT

This is a stable product and we don't have a lot of incidents with it.

The Unity XT series is very scalable.

The support is very reactive.

We offer solutions from different vendors.

In cases where customers need a more cost-effective storage platform than Unity, we have possibilities to offer them.

The initial setup and deployment are easy. It can be completed in an hour.

We have an in-house team for deployment. We have five engineers that work with it in our organization. As a system integrator, we install and configure this product for our clients.

The price in our country is very expensive and some of our customers opt for lower-cost alternatives.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use Dell EMC Unity XT for its normal application for DB, Oracle, SQL and VMware and the file system, too.

The feature that I have found most valuable is the unified storage and its capabilities for block-access, file access, and the center box.

In terms of what could be improved, I would say its capacity and its connection.

It has good stability

It requires only one technician for deployment and maintenance.

Its scalability is good.

Technical support is very good.

The initial setup was very easy.

I can advise that Dell EMC Unity XT is a good solution.

On a scale of one to ten I would give it a 9.