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DataCore SANsymphony vs Dell PowerFlex comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.8
DataCore SANsymphony enhances security and availability, offering high ROI through hardware reuse and cost-effective storage and uptime savings.
Sentiment score
5.8
Dell PowerFlex reduces Microsoft SQL licenses significantly, lowers maintenance costs, enhancing ROI and user satisfaction efficiently over four years.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
DataCore SANsymphony's support is praised for being rapid, knowledgeable, effective, and highly rated, despite occasional inconsistencies.
Sentiment score
3.1
Dell PowerFlex support varies, with responsive tech assistance but issues like slow replacements and unknowledgeable staff reported.
They always help me quickly and with great knowledge, which is essential for central storage.
The customer support is perfect.
I would rate technical support from DataCore SANsymphony a 10.
The level of support needs improvement as the front-line support staff lack knowledge when we raise cases.
We do not have local Dell technical support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
DataCore SANsymphony is praised for its scalability, hardware independence, and adaptability to both small and large environments.
Sentiment score
7.0
Dell PowerFlex excels in scalability and flexibility, ideal for growing businesses needing effortless upgrades and large-scale deployments.
There are no limits to scalability, which is essential for central storage.
The scalability is very good and is one of the key features of Dell PowerFlex.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
DataCore SANsymphony is highly stable and reliable, with minimal downtime, requiring proper configuration and minimal maintenance.
Sentiment score
8.3
Dell PowerFlex offers remarkable stability, reliability, and performance, making it ideal for small to medium environments with high user satisfaction.
 

Room For Improvement

DataCore SANsymphony struggles with tech support, pricing, Windows dependence, and needs better integration, interface, and enterprise features.
Dell PowerFlex needs improved integration, user-friendly tools, better data protection, intuitive interfaces, and expanded cloud integration for user satisfaction.
DataCore SANsymphony can be improved with high availability as it offers synchronous mirroring between physical and separate sites to ensure business continuity and disaster recovery.
The area of DataCore SANsymphony that has room for improvement is the support.
there should be improvements in how to get and filter logs
They could have more AI functionality in the future.
The level of support needs improvement as the front-line support staff lack knowledge when we raise cases.
As more customers start deployment, I believe use cases will develop, leading companies to consider that.
 

Setup Cost

DataCore SANsymphony's pricing is high, but offers favorable price-performance, with careful planning advised to optimize costs.
Dell PowerFlex pricing is seen as competitive yet sometimes costly, with varying user experiences on cost-effectiveness and flexibility.
They have made some improvements regarding the pricing, but it's still too expensive.
The cost changed from a perpetual license to a subscription model.
 

Valuable Features

DataCore SANsymphony enhances storage management, performance, and reliability with high availability, flexibility, scalability, and hardware-agnostic versatility.
Dell PowerFlex provides scalable, hyper-converged solutions with high performance, flexibility, and integration, ideal for business-critical applications.
Customers can extend storage with flexibility, as one is not obligated to purchase hard disks or controllers from the same storage vendor.
DataCore SANsymphony has positively impacted our organization because it is scalable and has a fundamental concept that aggregates and pools available storage resources, hiding the complexity, which makes it very simple.
DataCore SANsymphony's ability to enhance storage utilization is very good because it's agnostic and it can be deployed on every environment, which is perfect for my clients.
Dell PowerFlex includes PowerFlex Manager, which integrates with this solution to provide complete orchestration; you can manage your entire hardware as well as software segment and application segment through a single pane of glass, making it very easy to use and manage.
The scalability is very good and is one of the key features of Dell PowerFlex.
 

Categories and Ranking

DataCore SANsymphony
Ranking in HCI
7th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Storage Software (2nd), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (4th), Storage Performance (2nd)
Dell PowerFlex
Ranking in HCI
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of DataCore SANsymphony is 2.4%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerFlex is 9.3%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Dell PowerFlex9.3%
DataCore SANsymphony2.4%
Other88.3%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

SigfridCecillon - PeerSpot reviewer
High availability and user-friendliness enhance infrastructure health and redundancy
I would rate technical support from DataCore SANsymphony a 10. Each time I contact the technical support, it's when I don't have a choice because it's very difficult for me on site, and each time, I have good people online who are able to help me solve the problem. Usually, the problems are not very technically difficult, but sometimes they are, and the support team is still there to help us resolve them. The majority of the problems are linked to licensing, so when the license has expired or the number is not correct, they are proactive and change things live, which is very good.
Serdar De - PeerSpot reviewer
Initial setup has been straightforward and it has reasonable pricing
We are new to this, so we are still learning about the valuable features The solution is okay overall. It could be easier to learn. We haven't had any issues. They could have more AI functionality in the future.  I have been using the solution for six months. I have not encountered any problems…
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore SANsymphony SDS?
Regarding the pricing of the solution, it's better than before. They have made some improvements regarding the pricing, but it's still too expensive. As an integrator, I consider that it's at a goo...
What do you like most about DataCore SANsymphony?
The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are a lot of counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like when a backup is in progress).
What needs improvement with DataCore SANsymphony?
The area of DataCore SANsymphony that has room for improvement is the support. I cannot determine if certain features have been deployed and are available in the new software sold by DataCore.
What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?
VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if the user is working with a l...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerFlex?
Dell PowerFlex is a premium software-defined infrastructure solution and while the initial investment may seem higher than traditional SAN or mid-tier HCI solutions, the long-term TCO is competitive.
 

Also Known As

DataCore Virtual SAN
VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Volkswagen , Maimonides Medical Center, NASA, Thorntons, Inc., TUI, ISCO Industries, Pee Dee Electric Cooperative, United Financial Credit Union, Derby Supply Chain Solutions, Mission Community Hospital, Bellarmine College Preparatory, Colby-Sawyer College, Mount Sinai Health System, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Quorn Foods, Bitburger, University of Birmingham, Stadtverwaltung Heidelberg, NetEnt to name a few.
Canopy, 8x8Inc., Atos, Canadian Pacific, City of Denton, CenturyLink, BNP Paribas, Asyaport, EDF, CSC, Fox Sports, Insight, Hunter, KPIT, Paetec, Rosetta Stone, Sonda, Xerox
Find out what your peers are saying about DataCore SANsymphony vs. Dell PowerFlex and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.