Dell PowerFlex vs FlexPod XCS comparison

The compared Dell Technologies and NetApp solutions aren't in the same category. Dell Technologies is ranked #5 in HCI , with an average rating of 8.6, and holds a 12.6% mindshare in the category. NetApp is ranked #6 in CI , with an average rating of 8.4, and holds a 9.4% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerFlex

Read 27 Dell PowerFlex reviews

10,404 Views
6,669 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

FlexPod XCS

Read 295 FlexPod XCS reviews

500 Views
228 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Dell PowerFlex

FlexPod XCS

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell PowerFlex and FlexPod XCS based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI.

To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

March 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

Dell PowerFlex

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

HCI (5th)

FlexPod XCS

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

295

Ranking in other categories

Converged Infrastructure (6th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. Dell PowerFlex is designed for HCI and holds a mindshare of 12.6%, up 8.7% compared to last year.
FlexPod XCS, on the other hand, focuses on Converged Infrastructure, holds 9.4% mindshare, down 9.6% since last year.

HCI

Converged Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

Serdar De

IT Manager at ÜÇGE Shopfitting & Design

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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Chris Haight

Sr. Solutions Architect at CDW Canada Inc.

Integrates everything so you are using fewer tools

The traditional UCS Blades do not take much storage internally. You would be challenged to create an HCI (Hype converged Infrastructure) solution on FlexPod / UCS or any other solution that pools internal storage. Now, with UCS X-Series, you can carve off an HCI solution, software defined pooled solution if you want. This was one area of improvement that I wanted to see and can now realize with the refresh of the Cisco UCS infrastructure. With modern modular infrastructure, RESTful API has been added, there are more integrations, ServiceNow and vCenter along with tighter plug-ins. There is cross-user interface launching, for example with Windows Admin Center. The solutions are using Ansible and Terraform for deploying infrastructure as code. All the improvements that I wanted from the last gen are here or coming. With modern workloads and GPU use on the rise, adding GPUs to modern modular infrastructure will have some pros and cons. Typically, you can add one or two GPU's to a blade with no or little trade off. With the UCS X-Series, if you are doing a GPU farm, then you may have to sacrifice compute blades in the front slots to put in a GPU tray / module. A chassis holds eight compute blades, but if you are adding a ton of GPUs, a single GPU tray or more will reduce your blade count by as many GPU trays you add. This is not just a Cisco UCS X-Series problem. It is an industry problem with modular infrastructure and one that I would like to see get solved! I am looking into one such solution, VMware BITFUSION where you can send CUDA requests over the network to a BITFUSION server with the results sent back to the requestor, early stages here and only scratched the surface thus far. With Cisco UCS X-Series, I would like to see the fabric interconnects built into the chassis instead of being external. With the fabric interconnects, the real footprint of UCS X-Series is 9U, where some of the competing solutions are 7U and have collapsed the network fabric into the chassis. This is another thing that I would like to see from Cisco, though, not really on the NetApp side of the fence, NetApp is solid storage.

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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

"The solution was connected to alternate storage. It provides great scalability and reliability."

"Saves us a lot of space in the data center."

"The most valuable feature is the overall integration and just seeing the three different layers which make up the machine software. Altogether, it's something that I would say is much better than any other solution that I have experienced before."

"The resiliency and data protection are the most valuable features."

"Dell PowerFlex improves our latency which allowed us to reduce a lot of our Microsoft Enterprise SQL licenses."

"My overall product rating would be nine out of ten."

"The setup was very straightforward."

"Dell PowerFlex is a one-stop-shop solution. Storage, compute, network, application monitoring, and support cases are all combined into one solution. It's very easy to administer compared to when you have a reference architecture where you need to design and build everything yourself. You would also then have to work with multiple vendors."

More Dell PowerFlex pros

"It is a very well-thought-out solution with great virtualization. A good option we have is mapping a storage LUN onto an ESX cluster. That way, in case a particular ESX is down, it can migrate (using vMotion) to another host in the cluster, resulting in high-availability."

"We’ve seen an improvement in application performance."

"I see the most value in the UCS portion. I love Cisco UCS."

"It simplifies the management of our entire system."

"We got the product and we have a small environment, but it was able to be scalable to when we started to grow."

"The real benefit of this solution is that it is pre-architected with the ability to scale-up and scale-out."

"Simplicity and integration with NetApp are its most valuable features."

"It's a new architecture, really scalable and programmable. When you look at SDN propositions it fits very well in a next-gen data center."

More FlexPod XCS pros

Cons

"We've had some issues around the licensing."

"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."

"It would be great to get earlier access to beta builds because we have to develop providers on our own. The APIs and enablers for custom automation could also be improved."

"There should be more functionality available for routing."

"The storage capability must be improved."

"The installation is complex."

"The solution must be more flexible."

"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."

More Dell PowerFlex cons

"They should have an easier user interface to get it up and running."

"It is not as easy as a hyperconverged solution, but you are going to have a hard time finding that anywhere, where you can just plugin and run a deployment app."

"Our environment does not always require this solution, so we are not reaping the optimal ROI."

"It could be more innovative."

"Hyper-V is not as well supported by NetApp and Cisco as VMware is, which is something that should be improved."

"Not a perfect ten because it could use better integration on the network side between UCS and the switching layer. The fact that LACP is not supported on UCS blades isn't so great. It would be nice if it was."

"Compatibility issues with replication. The Oracle table formats were not working and storage replications did not work as well, until we had to introduce other components to make it work."

"As we do much of the Tier-I support ourselves, and thus don't normally need it, there is time wasted in moving up to the next level."

More FlexPod XCS cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."

"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."

"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."

"The cost of this solution is fair."

"From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users."

"The solution's pricing could be much cheaper and affordable."

"The price could be improved."

"The product is expensive."

More Dell PowerFlex pricing and cost advice

"It has saved us hundreds of man-hours by using this converged infrastructure."

"Cost is the primary factor behind why I would not give this product a perfect rating."

"The cost is a little high."

"The FlexPod licensing can adjust to your purse, i.e. there are different levels available for businesses of all sizes."

"Make sure that you engage as much with whom you are buying from as a partnership, not just as a purchase."

"We have saved 50 percent on new service deployments."

"We have saved time, money, space, and power consumption on new service deployments. We have a data center in Toronto which had ten racks on one of the new servers. This was all reduced to two racks with six chassis, which is amazing."

"We have saved time and money for new service deployments."

More FlexPod XCS pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user244362

Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees

Aug 30, 2015

Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod

Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Manufacturing Company

20%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Educational Organization

10%

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerFlex?

The support is highly responsive.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about FlexPod?

The system is designed for easy scaling. Because we define everything clearly. So when we plug the system in, we apply the profile, and it scales easily.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FlexPod?

The pricing is not cheaper, but stability is more important for us now. We focus on business gains, not static numbers. Following XCS rules ensures a stable environment, which is crucial. For me, C...

See all answers

What needs improvement with FlexPod?

FlexPod should focus more on automation. Integrating an automation tool with FlexPod would enable customers to leverage automation capabilities. More automation would be helpful. Currently, we cont...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 46% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 14% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 7% of the time

Azure Stack HCI vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 1% of the time

More Dell PowerFlex Competitors

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 13% of the time

HPE Hyper Converged vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 11% of the time

Dell VxBlock System vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 10% of the time

Dell PowerEdge VRTX vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 10% of the time

VMware vSAN vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 9% of the time

More FlexPod XCS Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerFlex

March 2025

Download Dell PowerFlex product report

Buyer's Guide

FlexPod XCS

March 2025

Download FlexPod XCS product report

Also Known As

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex

No data available

Overview

VxRack System consists of hyper-converged rack-scale engineered systems, with integrated networking, to achieve the scalability and management requirements of traditional and cloud native workloads. The VxRack series is purposely designed to enable customers to quickly deploy Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and/or Private Cloud architectures. VxRack Systems tightly integrate hardware with software and management layers.

The result is a fully tested, pre-configured, hyper-converged system with simplified operations at data center and Service Provider scale. VxRack Systems support the deployment of a variety of application workloads, allowing IT to rapidly deliver new services while improving overall agility and efficiency.

Dell Technologies

FlexPod XCS is the secure platform your applications need from edge to cloud. Easily manage your suite of cloud-native, edge, and enterprise apps. Integrate advanced cloud services without compromising performance, security, reliability, or scale.

NetApp

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

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: March 2025.

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