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Dell PowerFlex vs Dell vSAN Ready Nodes 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerFlex
Ranking in HCI
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell vSAN Ready Nodes
Ranking in HCI
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Dell PowerFlex is 12.6%, up from 8.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is 2.6%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

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…
Niraj  Shah - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good performance and is easy to use
The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required. The price of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes could be lowered. Dell's competitors offer many products at very good prices. I face some issues with the stability of the product, making it an area where improvements are required. In the future, I want to receive technical support directly from the vendor.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Perfectly suits customers dealing with the combination of future storage needs and, at the same time, keeping up their computing power."
"The tool's most valuable features are its price and flexibility. It has high performance."
"The solution is quite stable."
"PowerFlex offers us more IOPS, improving the application performance. It also helps us reduce our storage and eliminate redundancy. The primary thing is that we work 24/7, so we shouldn't have operational issues."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the storage space it offers."
"Dell PowerFlex improves our latency which allowed us to reduce a lot of our Microsoft Enterprise SQL licenses."
"The most valuable feature is high availability."
"The resiliency and data protection are the most valuable features."
"The tool's most valuable features are compression and its usage in Kubernetes."
"They are heading in the right direction and moving to integrate everything with a hybrid cloud, and moving workloads back and forth."
"I rate vSAN ReadyNodes as a nine out of ten."
"The product is useful for DR and other things."
"I have found the most important features of Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes are the capacity to manage the storage because the storage is built in the servers. The type of profiles you can attribute to the storage is a benefit. You can manage the storage by profiles. Overall the solution is a good speed and performance."
"Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes is scalable"
"vSAN ReadyNodes offer easy scalability, which has proven beneficial for storage needs."
"We find the initial implementation process simple and straightforward."
 

Cons

"Licensing restrictions can be frustrating."
"Including instrumentation would be a helpful improvement."
"I think there might be some room for improvement when it comes to pricing, because although I know how to convert customers, at the end of day, it's quite expensive. Sometimes your feature architecture is still coming out much cheaper than hardware costs for your infrastructure."
"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."
"The support of containers needs to be improved. At present, it is limited to VMware. There needs to be direct communication with the hardware rather than through a hypervisor."
"There should be more functionality available for routing."
"The tool is a bit difficult to configure, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Exporting data from the dashboard is not very user-friendly. It's just designed in a way that it's going to cover let's say 90%, 80%, of the end-users needs. If you need more sophisticated reporting it's not easy to have."
"Dell vSAN Ready Nodes' deployment is complex."
"Although vSAN ReadyNodes work well, a faster firmware lifecycle with the release of validated firmware catalogs more quickly would be a desired improvement."
"Currently, it's like a black box that only Dell technical support knows how to handle."
"There is room for improvement in the maintenance pricing. Maintenance isn't difficult, but the prices are high and ridiculous. Some customers feel it is better to go with a new solution rather than renew this one."
"Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes is a great hyper-converged system that is a perfect platform for supporting any kind of workload. The only workload that it's not designed to support is big data."
"Dell vSAN Ready Nodes doesn't perform as well as IBM. There are significant limitations, especially with scalability and flexibility over time. For example, adding drives can be problematic if the specific drives aren't available with older nodes that are four or five years old. Unlike IBM, Dell vSAN Ready Nodes isn't as flexible and doesn't scale easily. Additionally, while present, features like deduplication and compression don't perform as efficiently as they do on IBM. Our experience shows that the tool isn't as robust or flexible as advertised."
"We have experienced some issues with performance."
"Compatibility with other hardware nodes needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users."
"The price could be improved."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."
"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."
"The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."
"The product is expensive."
"The price of the solution was reasonable."
"The solution is more expensive than a traditional array. The prices are skyrocketing."
"My company makes yearly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the solution. The solution is expensive."
"The tool's pricing is competitive compared to others. The tool's licensing is based on annual subscriptions."
"There is a problem, which is the lack of an integrated price structure."
"We have a four-year contract to use Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes."
"Comparing the price of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes to other solutions it is not expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
I don't know the cost of PowerFlex. I understand it is reasonable.
What do you like most about Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
If I consider the overall product, I would say that it is an excellent solution that offers very good performance and stability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
There is no specific licensing model for vSAN ReadyNodes as it is linked with Broadcom VMware's solutions rather than Dell's. As a group under Comcast, we receive very good pricing from Dell due to...
What needs improvement with Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
Although vSAN ReadyNodes work well, a faster firmware lifecycle with the release of validated firmware catalogs more quickly would be a desired improvement.
 

Also Known As

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex
vSAN Ready Nodes
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Canopy, 8x8Inc., Atos, Canadian Pacific, City of Denton, CenturyLink, BNP Paribas, Asyaport, EDF, CSC, Fox Sports, Insight, Hunter, KPIT, Paetec, Rosetta Stone, Sonda, Xerox
Rackspace
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerFlex vs. Dell vSAN Ready Nodes and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.