Dell XtremIO Reviews

Compression and de-duplication are the most valuable features, especially when compared to other All-flash arrays like Solidfire, Violin Memory or Pure Storage.

Overall space usage has decreased, plus input/output operations per second (IOPS). Performance has increased exponentially.

The replication and DR capabilities could be improved, since there is no native replication technique with XtremIO. EMC wants customers to rely on EMC RecoverPoint for those needs or VPLEX for DR sorts. Native replication is needed.

I have used it for 3 years.

I did not encounter any stability issues, it is very user friendly and easy to use.

Scalability was non-hazardous and even online.

Technical support was exemplary with a very fast response time by Dell EMC.

We used to employ high-end and mid-range products from multiple vendors like EMC and NetApp before we switched to XtremIO for good performance and space economical-ability.

Initial setup of this product following stacking and racking servers is straightforward. The product is not complex in its modus-operandi and you have the bonus of sources and support availability.

Pricing is definitely on the higher side and licensing plus maintenance can come as a package. I recommend this as a good negotiation technique with EMC.

We first evaluated and selected VIMM (NVRAM chip) arrays which were faster than XtremIO but costlier. We then looked at new players like Nutanix, and even ScaleIO. But in the end, XtremIO turned out to be cost-effective and at the same time worth spending for the change.

Be it XtremIO or anything else, you need to see that requirements are aligned with the following:

- Data Centre space and cost.
- Storage growth trend and capacity forecast.
- Application performance and requirements.
- Operational readiness and implementation timelines.

Reduced the Oracle database refresh times (10TB) from 48 hours to 4 hours.

• I/O performance and low latency
• Deduplication and cloning capability

Management and reporting need improvement. Cloning could be easier.

We have not had stability issues.

We have not had scalability issues.

Technical support is excellent.

We used EMC VMAX. Latency was inconsistent and it lacked cloning and deduplication.

Cloning was complicated due to necessary scripting.

We evaluated Oracle Exadata, EMC VMAX (SSD), and EMC VMAX.

• Provide clear requirements
• Test to verify that the results are as expected
• Spend time to carefully integrate it into your support model, including reporting/dashboards and proactive monitoring.

We used the product for our internal customers (Banking). The performance really improved for the end users with reduced costs.

It has very good performance for an application which needs lower latency and a better response, for example, in microseconds. It's very easy to use in terms of administrative tasks on the GUI.

At times, it's difficult to track down allocated resources as compared to other solutions, like VMAX and VNX, because it's completely software-based.

The GUI could be modified more in terms of how the different components are linked to each other.

Yes, we had issues with data corruption on one of the X-Bricks. The issue propagated to other X-Bricks as well.

No, in terms of scalability, we didn't encounter issues. It was very easy to add X-Bricks to the system.

Technical support was great in terms of first response and further troubleshooting assistance.

Yes, we were using a VMAX solution before. This product was incorporated in order to get better performance at a reduced cost for our internal customers.

I was not involved with the initial setup phase. My role was more focused towards administrative and implementation tasks after the product was installed.

Again, both the pricing and licensing were handled by another group. So, I can't comment on it.

Yes, there were multiple options evaluated and also incorporated for some percentage of the workload, like NetApp C-mode array. Specifically, XtremIO was considered for Xtreme Performance as advertised by vendors at a lower cost as compared to existing storage arrays, like VMAX and VNX.

It's very good in terms of performance and the ease of use of its GUI. However, we had issues at the data corruption level, which resulted in multiple X-Brick failures. It's a big question for the stability and availability when we have enterprise level customers on such an Xtreme Performance array.

We are a partner with Dell and our specialization is storage.

Xtrem10's features are more simple to implement. The integration and interface are also good.

XtremIO needs to be lower priced. It also needs better endpoints and scalability.

Scability of Dell EMC XtremIO could be better.

We also use PowerStore which we find easier to implement.

XtremIO is too high priced, especially in Brazil.

XtremIO is a good solution. I would rate it an 8 out of 10.

What I like about this solution, is that it is really fast and it's really good in compression. So you can put a lot of data in line on it. I've used it for cases like VDI in a healthcare environment because we use multiple copies of it. It is very good and has very good performance. It can handle big workloads. 

What needs to improve is that the end compression uses a lot of CPU, which makes it difficult or impossible to upgrade. I believe that it has improved in the upgraded versions, which we don't have yet. Also, the price and interface should be simplified too. 

The program is very stable.

We had some difficulty when we tried to expand our XtremIO because it had to be done in a certain way and only EMC personnel were allowed to do it. That wasn't very flexible. But it seems to be better in the new version. Scalability is always a problem. 

The technical team is good.

We previously used another EMC program, but it was not flash only, so that's why we switched to this solution. It possible to buy an all-flash system and, based on the compression features, we changed to this unit. 

We were not allowed to do the initial setup ourselves. So it was done by EMC personnel and maybe that could be improved so that our partner, our supplier, could do it themselves so that you don't need an EMC rep to perform the installation.

My advice to others would be to test it first to see the expected ratios. Do a check to see if they deliver what they promise. I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. To make it a perfect ten, I would like to see better scalability. 

Our organization has seen our customers' performance increase substantially for their database and VDI applications using this product.

Compression and deduplication are valuable because they help reduce the storage footprint required for our customer’s environments.

Snapshots are valuable because of their seamless nature, as well as the minimal space each snapshot takes.

The GUI is still Java based, and this needs to be fixed. It needs a way to determine the deduplication of each LUN and what the impact would be if we were to move data from one LUN to another.

There have been some stability issues with the code that have been corrected in later versions.

We understand the way the platform can scale, so we scale within the parameters.

I would give technical support a rating of 7/10.

Our customers switched from the older generation of VNX to XtremIO. It was ten times faster and deduplication/compression allowed for a much smaller footprint in the data center.

The initial setup can be complex if there is an issue during the setup. Otherwise, this is not too bad to install.

Pricing and licensing are in line with other products from other manufacturers. You get what you pay for.

At the time, we did not evaluate other alternatives.

The flash market is saturated with vendors and their products. This product is an all-around solid player. However, make sure that deduplication is a major factor before purchasing. If snapshot and snapshot consolidation is key, then this is the product for you.

It allowed us to shrink our storage footprint in the datacenter and it increased our performance.

Performance and deduplication. This is a very robust block storage option that offers both performance and data optimization.

It is great when a product can deliver high-end performance capabilities while offering a very competitive price point.

• The new UI could be simplified and the implementation should be simplified.
• The UI is easier to use than other EMC offerings, but still takes a pure storage admin to manage and maintain.
• Ease of use is key in the converged and hyper-converged world that requires administrators to have both hypervisor and storage skills.
• Arrays should be “set it and forget it”, including the replication features, which should not require separate products.
• Implementation and expansion require EMC or a partner to implement. However, to be a true scale-out solution, it should be something that customers can do themselves.

We have not had any stability issues.

There is a limit to scalability, but we have not reached it yet.

Technical support is excellent.

We did have a previous solution. This allowed us to move to a smaller footprint with better performance.

The initial setup was very complex. Have the manufacturer or a partner install it.

The pricing is simple but requires other products for robust data recovery and replication.

Make sure you understand the shutdown and redundancy for this product. Test these features to protect the storage controller’s journaling.

I use XtremIO for backup and recovery, to allow connected applications to access storage, and to locate storage resources for specific users.

I've been using XtremIO for four years.

XtremIO is very stable.

XtremIO is scalable - it has expansion charges so that you can extend your storage size.

Dell's technical support could be better.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We used a vendor team.

I would recommend XtremIO to others and give it a rating of seven out of ten.