Dell EMC Unity XT reviews

• Fiber channel connectivity
• Fast cache features
• Support of VVOLS
• 10GB NICs
• Support of high performance and rapid provisioning/expansion options
• Deployment time is quick from unboxing to setup
• Scalable
• Supports both small environments and larger deployments
• Supports hosts connected via fiber channel directly to the unit without the need for fabric switches

Unity 300 is now the go-to storage device we use as we virtualize our infrastructure.

The SAN currently exceeds our requirements in terms of performance. We have estimated for 30% growth per year for three years. The configuration purchased had storage capacity and performance to match these requirements.

EMC provided a slightly alternative solution using all-flash negating all disk I/O, latency, and contention issues. We have seen a huge performance increase due to all-flash that is beyond what was anticipated. In three years, when the storage is close to its limits capacity-wise, performance will be greater than necessary.

The SAN provided by EMC exceeded our expectations. The only room for improvement I can see would be a faster leader time and lower cost. However, even with the lead time we had (which was approximately 10 days at the time of order) and cost we are very satisfied with the product.

I have used EMC Unity since June, 2016.

We have not had any stability problems.

We have not had any scalability problems.

Technical support is excellent. They have rapid response teams, ESRs, and the EMC account managers are always available.

We had no previous SAN solution.

The initial setup was very simple and instructions were provided in both documents and video tutorials.

Licensing ranges from $20K plus for a decent configuration. AFA configurations start at about $25K.

We looked at multiple vendors including NetApp, HPE, IBM, and Nimble.

There is currently a long lead time on 3TB SSD disks due to a shortage of materials in the USA.

We use it for the hosted data store in VMware environments. I also work with it as a solution itself.

It's easy to use, easy to manage, easy to troubleshoot, and the process support is good. 

We can run our environment as we need and run it in the whole flash. Unity is dynamic. We can only save the usable capacity on Unity. 

We need to improve the controller to work as active-active. We also need to improve the snapshot on the Unity site.

I have been using Dell Unity XT for eight years. 

It is a scalable solution. One engineer and one technician work on this solution.

The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment takes three to four hours.

The technical support team is fast and responsive. 

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

I've been working with this solution for about six to seven years. It is deployed on-premises and on the cloud.

It is scalable, and we usually recommend Dell Unity XT to small and medium companies.

I would rate technical support at eight out of ten.

Positive

It takes about eight hours to get Dell Unity XT up and running. Fine tuning may take longer.

The installation can be managed by two people and the configuration by one person.

It's an expensive solution, particularly for medium companies. One device costs about 30,000 euros. The support contract is quite expensive as well. We are currently looking for other lower-cost solutions.

Overall, I would rate Dell Unity XT at six out of ten because it's an expensive solution.

We use it for data storage, for file.

When it comes to provisioning and management, the solution has reduced complexity because we combined several systems down into one. We're utilizing that technology to see what we have available for file, instead of multiple technologies, and trying to converge all of that together to understand what our capacity management meets are.

Also, Unity's are more easily administrated, so we need fewer people to do the administration. We have less overhead because of that.

We do replication and snapshotting. We're using that as a backup technology to leverage snapshotting.

We went to the PowerMax because of the needs that we have for the business. We're doing true enterprise-level storage. So we went from Unity to PowerMax to give us that tier that we were looking for.

It's stable. It works well.

We had a lot of different solutions. They were all piecemeal'ed. We have manufacturing sites in 80 countries and every site did their own thing until corporate brought it back in. That's when we started to go with Unity. And now we're making the transition to PowerMax.

We use Dell EMC because they're the premier player.

We used one of our premier partners to implement it. 

My advice is to take this solution. It does what it tells you it's going to do.

Instead of using multiple types of backup or file storage, we were trying to combine all of that into Unity. Now we're trying to refresh that again and go with the newer technology, the enterprise-level storage. Unity met our overall performance expectations for what it is, and then we obviously needed the enterprise level, so we're going with the PowerMax now.

I would rate Unity at eight out of ten. Any application or product has room for improvement. I don't see anything out there that's a ten. Unity is functional for what it needs to be.

We use it for enterprise SAN. We have multiple units. We just started getting them in and the performance has been good. It back-ends our enterprise Oracle, which is for our financials. We have some Mission-Support applications that it supports as well. We have both structured and unstructured data.

The most valuable feature is the ease of integrating it into our current environment. It works within our enterprise management application. The NAS is also extremely easy to set up.

On the data domains - for the Unity product, but specifically for data domains - I would like a much easier interface for managing, for actually going in and having one place where I could get all of the different parts of the overall unit. And I would also like to be able to identify individual disks a lot more easily.

In terms of stability, so far everything has been fine.

The scalability has been pretty easy too, as opposed to some other vendors that we've had in the past.

We have only used tech support to replace drives that have gone bad. But our experience has not been so good. The biggest problem has been having the right equipment in the right category that our support people can have access to. We have multiple accounts, and unfortunately, equipment is across them. So we'll call it in and they'll say, "Well, that's not under your account," so they can't actually go in online and put an SR against it. We're working on fixing that, but that's been extremely frustrating. Once we get past it, and if they understand that, yes, we do own it, and where the site is, etc., getting the part is easy.

We are replacing our VNX2s with the Unity storage. The VNXs were end-of-life and it was our normal tech refresh. We also had new requirements come in for larger storage so we bought the Unity.

The initial set up was more difficult than the original VNX2s. My Storage Admin said that it was just different.

Three years is probably the best that we get for the return on our investment. It takes three years to actually get it back.

Regarding the licensing, that was easy. As far as recurring costs go, all that is understood, what we need to keep in place. If we grow and scale, we also understand a license comes with that, too. In terms of integrating it with our existing apps, there was no additional cost, nothing we didn't expect.

Primarily we're Dell EMC. We do have NetApp and they're pretty big, they're petabyte systems and they're primarily for a business-level project, not for enterprise storage. After using them, we definitely wanted to stick with Dell EMC.

It's a good product and you should definitely evaluate it. We're concerned about standardization, so even if a product has something that's better - one item, one capability that's better - we probably wouldn't go with it and would rather standardize across, for support and everything else. That's important to us.

For the purchasing process, we'll go to the vendor, we'll give them our requirements, and we'll work out the final design. They'll give us a quote and then we'll get two more quotes from two other vendors. We're required to get three quotes. I then put that in through my finance and then it goes through contracting. Contracting goes out and they get the true quote. And then, once the equipment is purchased, it comes directly to me onsite.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. Improving the interface for managing it would help make it a ten.

We use our Dell EMC Unities to store the bank's data. We have one Unity in our production environment and another Unity at our disaster recovery site.

We use it in conjunction with VMware. We store all our virtual machines on Unity. 

The Dell EMC unity interface is simple to manage. We manage it by ourselves. We create logs to store data. It's also easy for us to use because we use other solutions which are built for Unity, like VMware, which are recovery points. They work with the Dell EMC Unity system, as these products integrate well in our environment. 

All our applications have been migrated to VMware.

It's very reliable. I have not had an issue with Dell EMC Unity. 

Their service is good. If there is an issue with our Unity, Dell will sometimes call me before I even know I received a notification. They will tell me that some disks are bad and needed replacement. Whenever we have issues, they respond very quickly. 

We are using all-flash disk, so the speed is very good.

The solution is stable.

We are a small bank. It is very scalable whenever we want to expand the disk storage. 

Dell EMC technical support is very good. I would rate them a 10 out of 10. They take you by the hand and walk you through every issue. They explain the issue and follow up on it.

Whenever we need help to service the system or apply any upgrades, their customer service is good.

We used Dell EMC for the setup. We had a Dell EMC engineer and a third-party engineer come in. The Dell EMC engineer came and set up what he had for the disk. He took away the complexity from us, so I didn't see it. We had a third-party help us as well during the installation. 

My part was mainly just administering the system. If I had an issue, I just made a short phone call to Dell EMC.

In the past, we used to have a physical server dedicated for Exchange or SQL. We have been able to virtualize those systems. Therefore, we cut our costs on the hardware and the backup is simpler in a VM environment. With Unity, we can easily replicate all our data to our production. 

For DR, the solution is very efficient for us. It has also allowed us to centralize our data repository.

While Dell EMC is costly, I don't have any complaints about their licensing model.

We have also used Dell EMC CLARiiON and Symmetrix within the Dell EMC shop. What attracted to us to Dell EMC Unity was its flash disk technology.

Outside of Dell EMC, we looked at IBM and HPE. However, we have VMware as a recovery point for replication, and those VMware solutions work together well with Unity.

The purchasing process was uncomplicated. We went through a third-party reseller who has a relationship with Dell. They know the product well, so they specialize in it. We gave them our needs and they were able to recommend the appropriate solution to Dell, the sizing, etc. This helped us out. 

We can sleep at night because the support is great.

Our use case is very unique. We just need it in our offices.

It used to be a complex product. Now, it is becoming simpler. 

Overall, the feedback from my team has definitely been positive.

• Its simplicity and simple management. 
• Auto-features for data protection.
• Being able to expand the product.
• The Unisphere management interface: We are very familiar with it. It manages all the EMC devices that we have. Management is easy because it is part of Unisphere, which is self-learning.
• The support for Dell EMC is excellent.

I would like to see a more seamless virtual box integration with the physical box which can replicate, because the setup of the replication is very difficult right now. We tried it multiple times, and while the physical box is easy, when we mixed it with a virtual edition and it seemed very complex. We been trying this for several months, even with the cabling included. We are still working on it.

No issues so far. It is very stable.

It is scalable. We can always add additional tools if we need to expand it. 

We had been using VNX for a long time that it is now a part of our lifecycle. We introduced Dell EMC Unity into our environment to replace the VNX.

We contact our VAR, get a quote, and order all the hardware. Then, they ship and install it with a Dell EMC engineer. It is very straightforward.

We can see improvement since moving to the inclusive licensing.

The Dell EMC Data Protection license covers everything, like a one stop shop. All our options are covered. 

We have worked with different vendors. However, right now, we are sticking with Dell EMC Unity as it seems like it is a very solid, mature product.

Do your homework. Obtain all the use cases. See what license you need and purchase the license as part of your preparation. Then, the process will be smooth.

We do integration with vSphere, but it is very limited because we outsource with IBM. 

I work as an integrator and this is one of the products that I have implemented in different locations. Most customers choose this product because they want to have faster storage. The XT series is all-flash, so it's fast.

I recommend it for ERP systems and for people running Oracle Database. I have implemented both of these. Most applications these days are implemented in a VM environment with a Hypervisor, and this product is well suited for virtualization.

The setup and installation procedures are easy.

The management is done using a single console, which is good. You don't have to use a separate VM to manage the storage.

The most valuable feature of Dell storage systems is the tiering. However, with an all-flash system, there is no tiering.

The monitoring capabilities should be improved.

The reporting should be better. In other systems, you can create many different kinds of reports but this is not the case with Dell.

Dell Unity is going out of support soon, which is bad. They should continue to support it, rather than have it end after five years.

I have been working with the Dell EMC Unity XT series for three years.

Unity had a lot of trouble with stability in the beginning, but it is stable now.

This is a scalable product. I have set up the device in a lot of different locations.

The Unity technical support is very good.

I have also implemented Dell EMC PowerStore and Unity is better. The PowerStore had a lot of issues when I deployed it.

I also work with HPE 3PAR and I find that it has better monitoring capabilities, a better GUI, and better reporting. Reports with different views can be exported. In Dell products, the reporting is not as good

With 3PAR, there is another appliance required to operate the storage but with Dell, it's good because you can manage it from the same console. You don't need another VM to manage the storage.

The initial setup is very easy to do and there are no prerequisites.

Installing the license is easy. You just have to download it from the portal.

Upgrading the product is also easy to do.

This is a great storage solution and a product that I recommend. That said, it's not perfect. More can be done from Dell to improve the Unity series.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.