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Dell SC Series vs VMAX [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 SC Series
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Frame-Based Disk Arrays (2nd), All-Flash Storage (19th)
VMAX [EOL]
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

RK
System Administrator at Lovely Professional University
Storage solutions accommodate diverse drives and offers good resiliency
Technical support is good. I can log complaints online through the portal and have engineers in line. I can also take dedicated engineers if needed, although this involves a different support cost. As far as my requirements are concerned, it is working fine. There are two or three types of support. Standard support involves logging a complaint and receiving a call from the OEM on the same day, but hardware replacement takes two to three days. Advanced support offers instant replacement without delays. Hardware support terms include calling or emailing the company or logging the call in the portal to receive remote support, or getting a dedicated engineer or account manager from Dell.
Ali Yazıcı - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Service Manager at Kuveyt Turk Participation Bank
Good interface that is customizable, and the technical support is good
Our primary use of this product is for our core banking servers over FC It is a high end storage, minimal downtime, reliable, good performance, get speedy support when we need. The user interface is good, and it is also customizable. snap and clone operations easy.  Stability and availability…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The user interface is good, I would rate it a nine out of ten."
"Its feature set is superior to some of the other platforms."
"I definitely recommend Compellent to my customers because it is a very good product that is very scalable, it is easy to use, and Dell offers a good warranty."
"When it comes to mid-range storage solutions, it's usually our preferred solution, from all-flash all the way up to hybrid solutions too."
"It is suitable for small or medium businesses."
"The performance benefits weren't surprising, we expected that. What we didn't expect were the densification benefits that we got out of going all-flash. We're able to put more applications on the arrays because of how all-flash performs. The way some of the application profiles have responded to all-flash has been really pleasing."
"It had many features, like a snapshot, replication, on-the-file RAID levels, mix-and-match files, those kinds of things."
"The setup and installation is much simpler now, because Dell has standardized the configure process."
"It is a high end storage, minimal downtime, reliable, good performance, get speedy support when we need."
"If someone is looking for a product that can give the best performance under heavy load then this is the product they must go for."
"VMAX is a rock solid foundation to deploy applications which cannot incur a disruption of service."
"The most valuable features are the interface and performance."
"Resilience, speed, flexibility, system reliability, and a strong refresh strategy are the most valuable features."
"Customer Service: Excellent. Technical Support: Excellent."
"I like the many new features, especially the all-flash solution."
"Furthermore, EMC support is second to none, EMC engineers will visit your site to replace a disk or component before you are even aware that there is a problem (via ESRS – see below)."
 

Cons

"Dell could improve the upgrading process. It was the lifecycle that made it very short."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say the lack of reporting would be the main issue."
"The only issue with scaling up is that the pricing gets pretty high."
"Overall, I'd like to see more synergy between Dell EMC's higher-tier platforms and their mid-tier platforms."
"They need to make it a little cheaper."
"Matching color coding during zoning is sometimes a little bit annoying."
"There's always room for improvement in the operating code."
"Honestly, we were initially struggling with the integration with VMware (but it was fixed with the VMware 6.5) and, then, it was around a 10GB network."
"The pricing is a bit expensive. That is the reason we are now currently we are looking for other solutions. That's the reason we are looking at AFF and Unity. We are also considering PowerStore."
"Stability and availability should be improved."
"It is still expensive."
"The cluster support should be improved."
"Manageability is a bit of a challenge, as the user interface to access the array is not very user-friendly."
"The only draw back is you don’t get multiple point in time copies."
"Resilience replication, reporting, and performance need to be improved."
"Better speed to release new features that have become industry standards. EMC created so many standards in the past. Now, it seems they are playing a me-too game and lagging behind in some areas, specifically data reduction."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a very affordable solution."
"We were able to afford two tiers of flash storage at a price where the competition was giving us one tier or just a handful of discs."
"This product is too expensive compared to others, and I don't see any value in using it."
"We have the basic license for the use of this solution and it is a permanent license. The overall cost could be less, it is expensive."
"It's absolutely affordable. Again, not having to do a forklift upgrade like some of the others have had to do in the past, it's very affordable for our customers and they continue to buy."
"We have found it to be affordable. Comparing the cost with other hardware, it seems to be right in line with the compute and the storage that we get with it."
"The scalability seems a bit more expensive than even buying a brand new one so far. That has been kind of a drawback."
"Compared to other solutions out there, it's affordable."
"Our licensing fees are billed on a yearly basis."
"There are additional costs to the standard licensing fee, and it just depends on the package."
"Our licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Construction Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Performing Arts
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell SC Series?
In our case, we received favorable pricing with Dell because of our strong partnership. While I acknowledge that Dell SC Series can be expensive for many companies, we received good discounts. The ...
What needs improvement with Dell SC Series?
For us, it is a great product. The deduplication and compression could potentially be improved, though they are already good. We cannot identify any significant areas that need improvement.
What is your primary use case for Dell SC Series?
We use Dell SC Series in a VMware environment.
Ask a question
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Also Known As

SC Series Storage, Compellent
Symmetrix VMAX
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric
Wentworth-Douglas Hospital, Kindred Healthcare, Cosentry, Sumitomo Life Insurance Company, Shriners, BZWBK
Find out what your peers are saying about Hitachi Vantara, Dell Technologies, IBM and others in Frame-Based Disk Arrays. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.