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Dell Unity XT vs VNX [EOL] comparison

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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

Everpure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (18th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Dell Unity XT
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
198
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (5th)
VNX [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user752949 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Architect with 1-10 employees
Dec 03, 2017
 

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at Lambda256
Supports efficient storage management through volume snapshots and offers reliable non-disruptive upgrades
I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, but it does not show the performance by 4K byte unit. It displays IOPS and bandwidth, but IOPS is about real use, and I want to know how many IOPS are currently running in 4K byte units. I cannot see that IOPS because most storage systems report their performance by 4K byte unit. I want to see Pure Storage performance by 4K byte unit to compare with other storage or other internal NVMe SSD.
DK
Sales Account Manager - BFSI Sector at Frontier Business systems
Customer needs are addressed effectively with collaborative sales and service support
Recently, customers have been asking for a cloud tiering option in storages. Some Dell storages do not have cloud tiering, which is an optional commercial feature. NetApp's FSA model 2750 comes with an inbuilt cloud tiering option. In the future, if Dell storages include this option, especially for Unity, it would help us target SME or medium enterprises for quicker closures and support the sales team.
AZ
Works at AIT
The Nimble CS-Series has proven to be reliable with 100% uptime
When we started the process of looking for a SAN vendor I had four primary criteria: reliability, performance, cost, and simplicity. We were really looking for a unicorn and were fully expected to have to make compromises in one of those areas. The Nimble CS-Series was recommended by our solutions provider, and we were blown away. Not only was it the most affordable option, but it was the easiest to deploy, had the best performance, and has proven to be reliable with 100% uptime.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I use the tool for Oracle databases, Oracle virtual machines, and Oracle Linux databases. I'm on the storage side, not a database administrator."
"The best features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe include the volume snapshot capabilities, which allow us to save most of the storage space by volume snapshots periodically."
"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."
"The solution is scalable."
"I appreciate the performance."
"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."
"Dell Unity XT offers data integration features."
"It has compression, which allows you to store more data than you would normally under the arrays."
"For sites that we use it on, it gives us more flexibility and high availability solutions. It is easier to expand the site, if needed."
"We have simplified it down to where we're using one storage pool inside the Unity, whereas on the VNX, we had multiple storage pools. This has simplified that aspect for us. It would depend on each organization. We're heavy into VMware and this ties into it so simply. It's made it a lot easier for us. I create a datastore inside Unity, it just shows up in VMware. I love that tie-in."
"It does great deduplication. From a storage perspective, we save money being able to dedupe right on the disk"
"The most valuable thing for our use case is the flexibility to have multiple-protocol support."
"Snapshots provide a unique feature for testing and make management more comfortable and easy."
"We are happy with the way we have Dell EMC Unity XT configured."
"Multi-tiering, positively affects the efficiency of the storage space."
"The replication feature provides another functionality to protect your data."
"Customer Service: It's great. Technical Support: It's great."
"I have worked on CLARiiON and all series of VNX."
"It’s amazing, you can add and stack, and add more elements."
"I really value deduplication and compression to save space."
"One of the best features of the VNX is the ability to combine drives of different types into a virtual Storage Pool. By combining small but fast flash drives, SAS drives, and high-capacity but slower NL-SAS drives, the VNX can intelligently move data to the different tiers of storage based on usage."
"Stability has been rock solid, as we have been running both units for over two years with no major problems."
 

Cons

"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"Dell Unity XT could improve the compatibility of some of the features. Some of my customers had some problems. Additionally, it would be beneficial for the solution to have advanced AI and ML features."
"Our request to Dell EMC for improvement was in the reporting and monitoring areas. Dell EMC built up a cloud ID so that we could see the overall storage numbers. We needed to have the proper KPIs to be able to see and manage things."
"This product needs to have better integration with enterprise backup solutions and archiving devices."
"The pricing is a bit higher than expected."
"We have had some downtime. Nothing is perfect. Unity’s have had some code-release problems, versions that, from a compatibility perspective, had some glitches which caused an outage. But, given the amount of Unity’s we run, that has been fairly minor and it hasn't happened at scale or across all of our Unity’s."
"We would like to see the concept of Storage Groups brought back to this product line."
"Perhaps if they added more 10GB ports to the back of the system, so you have more IOPS out of the box itself to the network, that would help."
"We integrated it with vSphere but that integration was "iffy". It was okay but we had a few challenges with it."
"Due to very complex structure and sophisticated architecture, it needs experts for trivial troubleshooting also."
"Make major changes to the file services, Celera, do something like a lite version."
"EMC pricing is too expensive, like the Apple brand iPhone in the cellphone market."
"Based on our workloads, we see repeatedly in performance reports that the built-in controller (SP) cache of our VNX model is not sufficiently large, resulting in forced cache flushing."
"Storage processor architect for real active/active HA ASIC based functions are needed"
"The scalability is average because the storage has some hardware limitations and, obviously, operating system limitations."
"VNX can improve by offering flexible upgrade options. It's not possible to add a single HDD to a current array and there are fixed rules to make upgrades."
"Intel Xeon processors with under 2 GHz processing speeds could be replaced with more recent ones."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."
"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."
"While it has a good price to start, they could always make it cheaper."
"Our costs are roughly $200,000 a year."
"Looking at it based on cost per gigabyte, it's certainly very effective."
"From a pricing perspective, this solution is comparable to others on the market."
"The price is very reasonable."
"We purchased a five-year warranty."
"The license is not required, but we must renew the support every year, every two years."
"We have to apply for a license for each system."
"The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable, the yearly EMC is more expensive"
"Make sure you understand how the licensing works and that you are getting the right set of licenses if you need array-to-array replication."
"Pricing is somewhat higher, especially in Zambia, perhaps due to the low sales volume."
"Over time, VNX has become pricier than its competitors, and we have turned enthusiastically to Unity."
"​Reducing dependency on JavaServer Pages​ (JSP) could improve the administrative overhead.​"
"The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable. Yearly EMC is more expensive."
"While EMC tends to be on the expensive side, the stability and support of their products are top-notch and I feel are worth the cost."
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Answers from the Community

it_user752949 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Architect with 1-10 employees
Dec 3, 2017
Dec 3, 2017
Unity series is re-engineered VNX, so the Unity is newer … it makes better use of flash, active – active , dual controller mode; better price point , configurations solid upgrade from the VNX
2 out of 21 answers
CT
Business Development Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Oct 31, 2017
The VNX range is older and is being phased out. I think you mean VNX 5200? That said the Unity 400 is the better investment as it is newer, cheaper to support, faster, and with higher capacity and bigger supported file system size.
it_user281856 - PeerSpot reviewer
Advisory Systems Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 31, 2017
Hope this helps: http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2016/05/emc-world-2016-unity-the-story-behind-the-story.html
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Marketing Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Media Company
9%
Performing Arts
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise49
Large Enterprise94
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise23
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could ...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
I saw that you have doubts about what you chose. I have a lot of experience with the constructor, honestly I can reco...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
They’re both great solutions and I’ve used both. EMC is being VERY aggressive on pricing which may be the undoing of...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
First of all the decision should be taken looking at similar products in terms of capacity and performance. I will sh...
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Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X, Pure FlashArray X NVMe
EMC Unity, Dell EMC Unity
VNX
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Draper, Rio Grande Pacific, Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre
Samsonite, Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Kindred Healthcare
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