DataCore SANsymphony vs Dell PowerPath comparison

DataCore and Dell Technologies are both solutions in the Storage Software category. DataCore is ranked #2 with an average rating of 9.4, while Dell Technologies is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.7. DataCore holds a 25.0% mindshare in SS, compared to Dell Technologies’s 16.5% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of DataCore users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Dell Technologies users who would recommend it.

DataCore SANsymphony

Read 58 DataCore SANsymphony reviews

3,606 Views
288 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Dell PowerPath

Read 8 Dell PowerPath reviews

444 Views
249 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

DataCore SANsymphony

Dell PowerPath

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

Dell PowerPath and DataCore SANsymphony compete in the storage management and virtualization category. DataCore SANsymphony appears to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive data efficiency features and broader range of capabilities.

Features: Dell PowerPath offers robust path management, load balancing, and failover capabilities to optimize data flow and reliability. DataCore SANsymphony provides auto-tiering, encryption, and integration flexibility for a comprehensive data virtualization approach.

Room for Improvement: Dell PowerPath could benefit from enhanced integration with non-EMC storage and broader virtualization features. Additionally, improved user interface designs would aid accessibility. DataCore SANsymphony might improve by streamlining the setup process, offering more intuitive management tools, and enhancing documentation for ease of understanding.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerPath is known for straightforward deployment with supportive guidance, making it appealing for rapid executions. DataCore SANsymphony requires more initial setup but offers flexible configurations and strategic customer support adaptable to diverse environments.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerPath typically offers a competitive setup cost, delivering reliable ROI through its path management performance. DataCore SANsymphony, while incurring a higher initial cost, justifies the expense with extensive features and long-term operational savings for a higher total ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed DataCore SANsymphony vs. Dell PowerPath Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony vs. Dell PowerPath

September 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

DataCore SANsymphony

Ranking in Storage Software

2nd

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (4th), HCI (7th), Storage Performance (2nd)

Dell PowerPath

Ranking in Storage Software

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Storage Software category, the mindshare of DataCore SANsymphony is 25.0%, down from 28.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerPath is 16.5%, up from 10.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Storage Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
DataCore SANsymphony	25.0%
Dell PowerPath	16.5%
Other	58.5%

Storage Software

Featured Reviews

SigfridCecillon

Owner at Arsium

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.

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Derrick Brockel

Senior Manager of Operations at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

A resilient and reliable solution that has many load-balancing technologies and provides high availability

People who want to buy the solution must create a scorecard of Dell PowerPath against other products. They must run database tests. They must consider factors like pricing, performance, ease of use, visibility, and reliability. They must also run tests to understand which product recovers faster. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Mirroring is the most valuable feature because I can provide a high-level of service and optimize the use of obsolete storage."

"The platform's most valuable feature is its synchronous mirroring capability, which ensures bit-identical copies of data and offers excellent failover capacity."

"I am very happy with this product's ability to adapt, increase, and modify existing infrastructures."

"DataCore SANsymphony's stability is okay."

"DataCore's ability to seamlessly move virtual volume data between storage pools as well as their synchronous mirroring has made maintenance and disaster recovery planning achievable."

"The ability to pool the storage to leverage thin-provisioning is a huge saving in space and costs."

"For us, fault tolerance is the most important feature of DataCore."

"The DataCore system has been rock solid since we have been using it - from 2007 on."

More DataCore SANsymphony pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is migration without disruptions."

"OS-aware multipathing is a valuable feature of the product."

"It provides a high availability and will increase the performance of any server or operating system."

"We have found the solution to be quite flexible and very scalable."

"The user interface is good."

"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that disaster recovery scenarios are very good and easy to use in Dell PowerPath since it is available in a simplified form."

"The solution has improved our performance, reliability, and redundancy."

"The product is very reliable."

Cons

"Having an enterprise "Storage Dashboard" that can show capacity, usage, performance, and any issues would be very beneficial."

"If it could integrate to a cloud gateway, then we could carry it directly to storage, instead of having middleware in between the storage and the cloud."

"One limitation of this solution is that it's Windows-based, e.g. one requirement to install DataCore SANsymphony SDS is putting it on a Windows server machine. It relies on Windows and that is a limitation because there are some customers who are looking for non Windows systems."

"If you're dealing with big databases or transactional databases, it might not be the best-suited solution. The design of DataCore's solution isn't oriented towards this type of data."

"One area where the solution could improve is its software platform. Many customers have expressed dissatisfaction with the software running on Microsoft Windows."

"The main problem is there is no DataCore OS."

"For customers or technicians who don't speak and understand English, it would be great to have other language support, all the more so given the number of countries in which SanSymphony is used."

"I found it a little unnecessary to have to rename the configurations within the graphics console in order to have unique names."

More DataCore SANsymphony cons

"The technical support is good but they are not available all the time."

"The product must adapt to other storage technologies like HPE 3PAR."

"Customers do not choose PowerPath unless they have Unix or Linux."

"The solution is quite stable, although they have not quite worked out all of the kinks."

"While I utilize it for data migration, I would love to do that data migration in a GUI from an ease of use perspective."

"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"Although PowerPath is very mature and has been on the market for more than 15 years there are still a lot of bugs that have been profiled with PowerPath, specifically, during any OS upgrade."

"The solution should provide extensive reports on backups and backup failures."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is relatively expensive, and the additional costs for hardware and storage can make it a significant investment for customers."

"The cost is at the same level as other storage solutions and it is easy to understand the licensing."

"This product has a good ratio between quality and price. In many cases, it's less expensive to work with DataCore than other storage systems."

"The solution is cost effective."

"Make sure you are made aware of the annual subscription cost when purchasing."

"Pricing has improved but it is still expensive."

"The pricing and licensing are better with DataCore."

"In my case, the licensing per terabytes is very high and it must be licensed for each extra functionality."

More DataCore SANsymphony pricing and cost advice

"Pricing is good. I don't have any issues with the pricing of this solution."

"The product is a little bit expensive."

"The solution is expensive."

"There are no additional costs associated with the product."

"I rate the product's price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is affordable, and ten is really expensive. Dell PowerPath is an expensive tool."

"The price of the solution is fair."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Government

Transportation Company

15%

Healthcare Company

15%

Retailer

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	36
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	21

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	3

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...

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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).

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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.

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What do you like most about Dell PowerPath?

The solution has improved our performance, reliability, and redundancy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerPath?

The product is a little bit expensive. It is a little pricey because it provides multipathing with other OSs. I rate the pricing a five out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell PowerPath?

The product must adapt to other storage technologies like HPE 3PAR. When we use 3PAR storage, we have to use another technology to load balance. The product must be integrated with other products l...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 14% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 8% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 7% of the time

More DataCore SANsymphony Competitors

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Dell PowerPath

Compared 50% of the time

NetApp ONTAP vs Dell PowerPath

Compared 50% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony

September 2025

Download DataCore SANsymphony product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerPath

September 2025

Download Dell PowerPath product report

Also Known As

DataCore Virtual SAN

PowerPath

Overview

Experience peace of mind with DataCore SANsymphony, the ultimate software-defined storage solution alleviating storage management challenges. Say goodbye to the complexities of managing different storage tiers and disruptions with SANsymphony's block-level storage virtualization technology, empowering you to automate capacity provisioning and data placement across diverse storage environments including SAN, DAS, HCI, and JBOD. Break down silos, control data placement, meet business continuity objectives, boost performance, and seamlessly expand or refresh hardware with SANsymphony. Benefit from features like asynchronous replication for disaster recovery, minimizing data loss, accelerating application responsiveness, and integrating new technology non-disruptively. Trusted by industry leaders like NASA, Thorntons, Inc., and TUI Cruises, DataCore SANsymphony guarantees unparalleled flexibility, scalability, and reliability, ensuring uninterrupted data access and application availability while reducing storage costs and inefficiencies.

DataCore

EMC PowerPath: Host-based software for automated data path management, failover and recovery, and optimized load balancing. PowerPath automates, standardizes, and optimizes data paths in physical and virtual environments as well as cloud deployments to deliver high availability and performance.

AUTOMATE FAILOVER/RECOVERY

PowerPath automates data path failover and recovery to ensure applications are always available and remain operational.

OPTIMIZE LOAD BALANCING

Adjust I/O paths constantly to leverage all available data paths and to monitor and rebalance the dynamic environment for the best application performance.

STANDARDIZE PATH MANAGEMENT

Simplify and standardize data path management across heterogeneous physical and virtual environments as well as cloud deployments.

Dell Technologies

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.

Healthcare Residential Service Company

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony vs. Dell PowerPath

September 2025

Free Report: DataCore SANsymphony vs. Dell PowerPath

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