Dell PowerFlex vs Red Hat Ceph Storage comparison

The compared Dell Technologies and Red Hat solutions aren't in the same category. Dell Technologies is ranked #3 in HCI , with an average rating of 8.8, and holds a 10.7% mindshare in the category. Red Hat is ranked #2 in SDS , with an average rating of 8.9, and holds a 19.8% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 82% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerFlex

Read 29 Dell PowerFlex reviews

9,558 Views
8,793 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Red Hat Ceph Storage

Read 27 Red Hat Ceph Storage reviews

15,133 Views
3,178 Comparison Views

82% willing to recommend

Dell PowerFlex

Red Hat Ceph Storage

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell PowerFlex and Red Hat Ceph Storage 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: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

August 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

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

HCI (3rd)

Red Hat Ceph Storage

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (2nd), File and Object Storage (1st)

Mindshare comparison

Dell PowerFlex and Red Hat Ceph Storage aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Dell PowerFlex is designed for HCI and holds a mindshare of 10.7%, up 10.7% compared to last year.
Red Hat Ceph Storage, on the other hand, focuses on Software Defined Storage (SDS), holds 19.8% mindshare, down 21.8% since last year.

HCI

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

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…

Read full review

Rifat Rahman

Infrastructure Architect & CEO at Tirzok Private Limited

Offers reliable performance and availability for large deployments

I would like to see improvements in Red Hat Ceph Storage not because I necessarily think it needs improvement, but because I generally prefer to do things manually rather than following the containerization part. Current deployments are based on containers, but I deploy manually with my scripts and controls. If there are no Kubernetes-like requirements, I often prefer to deploy a whole manual process. I don't ask for improvements in the deployment model because Red Hat has its own philosophy about making things, but it's my personal choice that I prefer things manually. Some features are available only in the containerization part, so if those are also available in manual deployment, that will help.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

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

"The support team responds quickly."

"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."

"The solution's most valuable feature is the storage space it offers."

"The tool's most valuable features are its price and flexibility. It has high performance."

"The integration with AWS is a valuable feature."

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

More Dell PowerFlex pros

"radosgw and librados provide a simple integration with clone, snapshots, and other functions that aid in data integrity."

"I would definitely recommend Red Hat Ceph Storage. It is a complete solution for cloud-native storage needs."

"The scalability feature is used by all users and is critical for our operations."

"Most valuable features include replication and compression."

"The high availability of the solution is important to us."

"It has helped to save money and scale the storage without limits."

"We use the solution for cloud storage."

"Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pros

Cons

"We're also running Hyper-V virtual machines. But we recently discovered that migration of the Hyper-V virtual machines is a bit challenging. Maybe if Dell EMC can come out with a tool that will make it very easy for us to migrate the Microsoft Hyper-V machine, that may be an improvement."

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

"Compared to similar solutions, Dell PowerFlex is not cost-effective and has room for improvement."

"It could be easier to learn."

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

"The installation is complex."

"The tool needs to improve its storage. It should also make migration to the cloud easier."

"The level of support needs improvement as the front-line support staff lack knowledge when we raise cases."

More Dell PowerFlex cons

"I would like to see better performance and stability when Ceph is in recovery."

"Routing around slow hardware."

"When it comes to the capabilities of Red Hat Ceph Storage such as object, block, and file storage, I am not fully satisfied."

"The product lacks RDMA support for inter-OSD communication."

"Ceph does not deal very well with, or takes a long time to recover from, certain kinds of network failures and individual storage node failures."

"What could be improved in Red Hat Ceph Storage is its user interface or GUI."

"This product uses a lot of CPU and network bandwidth. It needs some deduplication features and to use delta for rebalancing."

"It needs a better UI for easier installation and management."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of this solution is fair."

"The pricing for this solution is good."

"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as eight and a half. The tool is expensive."

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

"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 price could be improved."

More Dell PowerFlex pricing and cost advice

"There is no cost for software."

"The other big advantage is that Ceph is free software. Compared to traditional SAN based storage, it is very economical."

"I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten."

"If you can afford a product like Red Hat Ceph Storage then go for it. If you cannot, then you need to test Ceph and get your hands dirty."

"The operational overhead is higher compared to Azure because we own the hardware."

"We never used the paid support."

"Most of time, you can get Ceph with the OpenStack solution in a subscription as a bundle."

"The price of this product isn't high."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

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?

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.

See all answers

How does Red Hat Ceph Storage compare with MiniO?

Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This solution allows for multiple copies of replicated and coded pools to be kept, ea...

See all answers

What do you like most about Red Hat Ceph Storage?

The high availability of the solution is important to us.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Red Hat Ceph Storage?

Areas of Red Hat Ceph Storage that have room for improvement include more promotion. Many people do not know about the Stratus case, which is one of the most reliable systems available in the world...

See all answers

Comparisons

VxRail vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 41% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 14% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 10% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 5% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 5% of the time

More Dell PowerFlex Competitors

MinIO vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 39% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 6% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 4% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 3% of the time

More Red Hat Ceph Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerFlex

August 2025

Download Dell PowerFlex product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ceph Storage

August 2025

Download Red Hat Ceph Storage product report

Also Known As

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex

Ceph

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

Red Hat Ceph Storage is an enterprise open source platform that provides unified software-defined storage on standard, economical servers and disks. With block, object, and file storage combined into one platform, Red Hat Ceph Storage efficiently and automatically manages all your data.

Red Hat

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

Dell, DreamHost

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

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