Dell PowerMax Reviews

We use the PowerMax 2000 and 8000 models as storage appliances for high-end mission-critical applications. 

PowerMax is a compact high-performance appliance. It is one of the best devices in terms of performance specs. It includes an NVMe All-Flash Array. 

PowerMax's software is highly stable, but we faced two hardware issues in one year. We had a failure of the storage director module, and the physical disk failed on another occasion. Dell EMC should improve its hardware quality.

I'm unsure if PowerMax is scalable because I haven't done any scalable activity with PowerMax so far. I haven't added any components. 

I rate Dell PowerMax support five out of 10. They didn't provide an adequate explanation and resolution when we had issues. 

Neutral

Setting up PowerMax is straightforward. It only takes about three or four hours if you have everything ready on site, like the local network, power supply, and connections. 

I rate Dell PowerMax NVMe nine out of 10. If you have large applications with a high volume of transactions, Dell PowerMax is the number one solution.

I work in data storage as a senior administrator.

I use multiple Dell EMC protection and storage tools like VMAX and PowerMax network for data domains. This product is an onsite data center and we have two PowerMax boxes. One of them is for our main site and the other is for our disaster recovery (DR) site.

We use PowerMax SRDF as our main application.

With the NVMe technology, performance in terms of IOPS has improved. Things are generally faster, although there are some bottlenecks with the integration of IBM servers.

The biggest way that PowerMax has improved the way our organization functions is through an increase in performance. The business of pharma is complex and the IOPS demand is huge. In the past, we used VMAX storage, and there was a big issue with the performance. Everybody complained about performance, servers, and storage, saying that they didn't have enough space. We tried many different solutions in an attempt to solve the performance issue.

For example, we tried reducing the data that was stored on disk, and we tried removing unused data. We turned to development and asked that some programs have fewer features. Finally, management made the decision to implement the PowerMax solution, and it solved the issue. As soon as we migrated from VMAX to PowerMax NVMe, the performance increased and everybody felt better.

The security is good. We enabled DSE for our encryption.

CloudIQ has made our lives better. It provides notifications, where you receive an email to let you know about your storage and your SAN. It is a powerful tool, although we have had to upgrade it a few times. Overall, it is a good monitoring tool that gives us a powerful and easy way to monitor our servers.

This product provides NVMe scale-out capabilities, which is important to us because our performance and IOPS have improved. The administrators have felt better about our environment since we implemented PowerMax. The storage is much better, overall.

We use the NVMe CSM and it's a very powerful feature that makes our business stronger. The performance is improved, making everything faster.

The reporting functionality is very good.

The UI is very easy to use. We can add volumes and manage them easily.

We have faced problems integrating IBM servers and adding volumes. The capacity on the IBM servers was not the same and we needed to perform a reclamation process on the DR site to fill the same capacity on the storage site.

The SRDF software has an issue when it's used in conjunction with VMware. In the past, we were using SRDF for VMware but in swapping from VM to DR site, VMs take a very long time. In some cases, where the data on the main size was many terabytes in size, it took a very long time to replicate to the DR site. Some VMs power on automatically, without entering any schedule. We had to migrate to RecoverPoint, which is another solution from Dell, but we still use SRDF for things that are not stored on VMware disks. When we enabled hardware compression, things improved.

PowerMax Storage needs improvement in the area of monitoring tools. It should have more functions and more complicated analysis options inside the monitoring tools. For example, if I need the tool to analyze monitoring logs from one month ago, it can't be done because it retains data only for the past two weeks.

I have been working with Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe for more than five years.

This solution is very stable.

This is a very scalable product. We have approximately 170 VMs running on the servers.

Between administrative users, including server administration and monitoring, we have approximately 20 users.

The support is very good.

They respond very quickly when we have issues and the responses are good. However, the first-level engineers take more time to investigate some problems. The first level of support could use some improvement. Specifically, they should be faster at solving problems. If there are critical issues then we need them to be solved quickly, and the first level simply takes too long to investigate.

Our management is satisfied with PowerMax. There had been a discussion with IBM about obtaining a storage solution from them but when we saw the power that PowerMax had, we opted for the next version of it instead.

PowerMax SRDF is a very powerful tool that will replicate data to a DR site. It is very fast and has many powerful features including data compression. 

This is a powerful solution for us and our performance is 100% better since we implemented it. Overall, for enterprise-level mission-critical workloads, the solution is very powerful.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We are a medical organization. We use PowerMax with medical ERP. We have some government projects that utilize PowerMax because we have 99.99% reliability and uptime requirements.

We are not using cloud-connected storage. However, we are using PowerMax to virtualize our local/on-premise infrastructure.

We do not have a big installation. In Russia, our company was among the first companies who purchased PowerMax appliances. Our environment is around 250 terabytes.

We removed the need to observe whether we ran into issues with the performance of disks or number of IOPS. Previously, our Oracle Database would throw us performance errors. Now, with PowerMax, everything runs smoothly.

I would access the solution’s built-in QoS capabilities for providing workload congestion protection at 10 (out of 10), as we are using the highest, platinum-level minimum response time from the system. The NVMe SCM storage tier feature offers crazy speeds. When we were looking for a storage solution, we were looking for the most reliable, high performance, latest solution to delay end-of-life. Our PowerMax setup everywhere enables the diamond-level setting with enabled monitoring. Until this day, we have not experienced any anomalies. We simply don’t experience workload congestion. Our primary requirement was the reliability of PowerMax, then the rest of the features, like NVMe SCM, were a nice add-on

We value maximum system uptime because our projects are associated with a government customer. We have medical ERP, which is used throughout Russia, covering 8 time zones. If it fails, then we have big problems. Therefore, the stability of the system is important for us.We are using PowerMax and VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVols).

We use Power Pass, which is an additional software from Dell EMC, alongside multi-passing in our SAN network. This allows us to balance uploads and optical links of our SAN network.

I would like a more informative CloudIQ for iOS. What you can see via the web UI significantly differs from what you can see via the web application.

We have been using PowerMax in a production environment since August 2019.

My colleague and I are responsible for the infrastructure, network, and PowerMax storage.

In terms of storage users, we have about 1,000 people.

We are happy with everything, especially their technical support. We had a situation where there was an outage in the data center associated with our electricity supplier. Later, when we launched the infrastructure, the support perfectly helped us with this issue.

Positive

PowerMax exceeded our expectations. We previously used its predecessor VNX, which reached end-of-life and end-of-sale, i.e., we stopped receiving support for it. We have been using PowerMax for the last three years and have not yet hit the ceiling in its efficiency, performance, and scalability.

The deployment took about two days. We moved in segments, checking that everything was working properly, before moving forward with the migration.

The initial setup and integration of PowerMax were carried out by Dell EMC. We then migrated it via vSphere from our previous solution EMC VNX 5700 to PowerMax.

We don’t calculate ROI on PowerMax.

The PowerMax appliance pricing was reasonable. Dell EMC quoted us a substantial discount.

Support pricing is very high. Our support contract is about to expire and Dell EMC provided us with an extremely high renewal quote. It was four times more than the support contract for our previous EMC VNX solution.

I would suggest initially purchasing PowerMax with a longer support contract to reduce your support costs.With our previous EMC VNX solution, we were able to lock in the support costs, but we failed to do so with PowerMax. Therefore, it is more cost effective for us to purchase a new appliance with a support contract than to support PowerMax at these support cost amounts. For example, if the purchasing price was a million dollars, then the support costs a third of the total appliance cost per year.

We briefly looked at and evaluated Hitachi. However, in 2019, PowerMax didn’t have any direct competitors. There might have been a similar Huawei solution, but it was not really the same as PowerMax.

The primary reason that we went with PowerMax is because we have always preferred Dell EMC solutions. Our previous solution was a Dell EMC product and we were very satisfied with its reliability and performance until its end-of-life.

The NVMe has great speed with an Oracle Database, but that is not that important for us.

I often use the mobile CloudIQ client, which I find very useful.

I would rate the solution as 10 out of 10. It works perfectly apart from the support costs.

We are using the solution's application and snapshot feature.

The solution should include more AI features to make it smarter.

I have been using Dell PowerMax NVMe for a couple of years.

Dell PowerMax NVMe is a very stable solution.

The solution has limited scalability. Around three users use Dell PowerMax NVMe in our organization.

I rate the solution’s scalability a seven out of ten.

The solution’s technical support is good.

Positive

Operation-wise, the deployment takes 20 minutes. Our process may take longer for approval. It may take a couple of days.

IBM and Hitachi are Dell PowerMax NVMe's competitors. I would recommend the solution to other users.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I would like to see more security features and improvements in the platform's ease of management. Sometimes, it isn't straightforward to understand, especially for new users.For example, if there are power issues and the system needs to be shut down, we need to connect with the support team and go through several steps. There are complications to powering down the system.

The backup features need enhancement. 

I have been using Dell PowerMax NVMe for three years.

The product is stable. I rate the stability as nine.

In our organization, three admin executives use the product. Regarding customers, there are many users since we provide municipal services. 

We haven't had much experience with technical support, but we did have some upgrades to the core system and firmware. The support team was very cooperative and responsive. We had some issues with timing, but the team was adaptable and worked to schedule maintenance events to suit our time zone.

We didn't face many challenges during setup, but the implementation team resolved some initial issues. We received some knowledge transfer, basic training, and orientation regarding the technology. Overall, the solution was successfully implemented.

Dell's team implemented the system; some products were configured and installed in our environment. We also received knowledge transfers from them. 

We used to use an HP storage solution. After we switched to PowerMax, performance significantly improved across the whole environment. About 95% of our services run on virtualized servers with Dell containers. With SAN storage, like PowerScan or Microsoft products, we saw multiple performance upgrades on the virtual machine side.

The lead application is the most valuable feature. The reduction of consumed space was significantly higher than with the previous solution.

NVMe technology gave the database servers a huge performance boost compared to the previous environment. Database admins were very happy with the improvement.

I rate it an eight. 

Our customers use the product for virtualization. They also use it for SAP deployments and bigger databases like PostgreSQL.

The solution provides an ease of handling backups and deployments. It provides a smart integration into the customer environment.

The product is very fast and reliable. It's certified for several scenarios. It is easy to handle. The UI is good.

The initial setup process is difficult.

I have been working with the product for five years.

It is the most stable system we know.

The tool is scalable until a certain point. There are only two versions available. Each has a limit, but the limit usually is never reached by our clients. Generally, the scalability is limited, but we have no problems with it.

The technical support is brilliant.

I have worked with NetApp before. Over the last three or four years, we only worked with Dell. Dell is easier to set up and handle. Dell is technically more advanced than NetApp. Dell’s support is better than NetApp's most of the time. The selling process of NetApp was a nightmare.

I rate the ease of setup a four out of ten. We have to prepare for the deployment and plan with the customer. We set up the hardware. We need Dell’s help with the software setup because we do not have access to all the tools that are needed for it.

The initial deployment and software work is done together. Afterward, we do the detailed configuration of the machine. We need one person from our organization and one from Dell for the deployment. The deployment can be done in one day. The maintenance is mostly easy. It’s done with the Copilot system. Dell checks the machine in advance and tells us whether the software version is available.

We get a return on our investment. The solution is not cheap, but it is worth buying. All our customers who bought the solution were satisfied and said they would buy it again.

The price is really high. It could be better. It is a high-end product.

We sell the solution, implement it, and support our customers. I recommend the solution to others. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

We currently use PowerMax NVMe for our file server and all our VMs. It is a SAN, so all of our storage or data sits on it. It is just a great storage appliance.

With the SCM memory, it has been set it and forget it. It is being used as a cache drive. There is very little configuration for us to do. We just know that it is working.

PowerMax NVMe's QoS capabilities give us a lot of visibility into taking a look at what could be a potential performance issue. However, because it is so fast, we haven't really noticed any slowdowns from the date of deployment even until today.

It is a very good storage appliance for enterprise-level, mission-critical IT workloads because of its high redundancy, parity drives. It gives us the ability to not worry about our data. Or, if something were to go wrong, e.g., a drive pops, then we have our mission-critical warranty. We get a drive the same day, then get it swapped by the next business day at the latest.

PowerMax NVMe has made it a lot easier to understand how much we are able to provision. It has made it a lot faster to provision new things. 90% of my time for provisioning has been reduced. Also, it has made it very easy to understand and see everything behind it versus the older heritage, where Dell EMC was very convoluted and hard to get working. Things that used to take an hour, probably now take five to 10 minutes.

• The cost of the entire solution
• Their dedupe rates
• Ease of use
• Simplicity

Data availability is very high. Data security is also very good. There are a lot of encryption methods available.

We use the solution’s NVMe SCM storage tier feature. There is almost no overhead or management time involved. It was kind of set it and forget it.

The visibility within the storage resource tools or understanding the utilization of the SCM memory have been pain points. We know they are being used, but it is hard to actually see them within the actual GUI.

Firmware updates are a bit painful because you have to involve their support, as opposed to having the ability to do it yourself. This is probably for the best because you don't want something to go sideways while being the only person working on this and not having external support for it.

We have been using the physical appliance for 2.5 years.

It is a very robust, stable machine. We have had no worries whatsoever.

At this time, scalability is not applicable. I understand it is very easy to scale up. You just add on the drive shelf, then connect it in. That is really it. Now, you have all these drives available to you.

It is being used every single minute of every single day. The IOPs, the throughput data, is about 525 megabytes per second. So, it is actively being used at all times of day.

As time goes on, the usage of it will increase. That is just the nature of it being our primary storage array.

The technical support was very good. There have been no real issues. Any questions we have had, they were able to answer and assist with. There have been no problems whatsoever.

Because it is NVMe, it is extremely fast. It is a lot faster than our old SAN. It is hard to compare it to others in the market, only because we have never owned other products within the same generation. We switched to PowerMax NVMe because of aging hardware.

Prior, we were using a regular 7200 RPM disk. As a result, it was extremely slow. The upgrade to NVMe has been much appreciated by the company. Things that used to take four to five hours are now taking 15 minutes, if that.

It was a pretty complex process in the beginning: migrating data, verifying everything is good to go, standing up our volumes, and things of that nature. Once everything got going, it was a lot easier to understand and manage.

Deployment took about two weeks’ time, not including transfer times. With transfer times, it was closer to a month.

We set up our PowerMax, attached the source to VMware, and then migrated all of our VMs off of our old storage array into the new one. Once we verified everything was good, we turned off the old storage array and went from there.

We did it through Dell EMC ProDeploy, which is their professional services for this type of work. Our experience with them was very good. There were a couple of hiccups here and there, but it was more related to what was shipped to us, opposed to an actual hiccup with the implementation process.

We have seen an ROI based on time saved by being able to use a faster storage array versus our really slow, old one.

In terms of price-performance, it beat out other competitors when we were taking a look and comparing it to the market. That was one of the biggest driving points for us.

We did look at HPE Nimble Storage as well as Pure Storage. Pure Storage was probably the biggest competitor. At the time, we just wanted something that was a little bit more tried and true versus a new player in the storage array game.

Pure Storage did offer a couple of very niche tools related to SAP. PowerMax NVMe just came in very aggressively with their pricing, and that ultimately won them the business. 

PowerMax NVMe is very energy intensive, in terms of electricity. You need to spec that out properly. Just because it can fit in the rack doesn't mean it will work by sitting in the rack. You will probably need additional power, specifically just for PowerMax NVMe.

It isn't important at this very specific moment that the solution provides NVMe scale out capabilities. However, it will be once we decide to add more drives into this and expand our storage.

I would rate this solution as a nine (out of 10). There are definitely areas of improvement, but everything comes down to time and cost.

We are most interested in cloud utilization.

We would like to improve the delivery model. They don't have the delivery terms today. If they improve this area, everybody would be happy.

For the Romanian and Eastern European markets, we have long delivery times, and even if we have a solution, we don't have the products, and we don't know what to install. For the time being, manufacturers must enhance the delivery of all items while they have them.

If you go to Pure or you go to NetApp, they deliver in one month. If you go to Dell or HP, they will take up to six months for delivery. This is not a business model for today.

I have been working with Dell PowerMax NVMe for 10 years.

Dell PowerMax NVMe is a stable solution. The performance is good.

Dell PowerMax NVMe is a scalable solution.

It is suitable for enterprise customers.

They are now experiencing problems with Dell's specifications. They have a typical reporting period of five days and nine hours each day till Friday. 

Right now, on the enterprise side, they want 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is not available in Romania, which is why you need to retain inventories or have some replacement components on hand to accomplish this type of integration with other vendors.

I am also working with HPE 3PAR. I am just looking for a place to get some 3PAR components. But nobody has it right now.

We are the HP Platinum partner in Romania, and we are now looking for a place to purchase documents from Europe.

Previously, we worked with Cisco, Lenovo, and Pure. The advantage was their delivery.

We don't an advantage. 

The consumer requests something that they do not have with the brand today. 

If it is storage, a server, or power, and we have it, they will purchase it. 

They do not wait for Dell, HP, or Cisco. It is the same for both. If you have Dell on hand, we will purchase it. If it's HP, they'll buy it. It. They don't care about the brand anymore.

The installation of Dell PowerMax NVMe was easy.

Deployment time depends on the customer's request since if you have a solution with a cluster or include VMware or a solution or disaster recovery, we can provide it in two days. But, in any case, it depends on the project and your relationship with the customer.

The price is on the market. It's not inexpensive, but it's available on the market.

The cost is determined by the solution. It's not the greatest option.

You built the solution and rely on the customer's requirements, on the budget since they know the price of the product, they know the service to the client and it's the same if it's HP, Dell, or Cisco. It is how the solution is created and implemented. 

Today, the client is asking for SLA and uptime for the critical months rather than the important months themselves. This is the most crucial. They don't care if it's from Dell, HP, or Cisco; they just care about this one.

I don't have any requirements. I am now really unhappy with the delivery, therefore I don't have any arguments or recommendations to make. 

If we receive the goods, everything will be okay. When we are working, we have something. We are now dissatisfied with our needs. Simply provide the delivery. It is more important now.

We are partners with Dell.

I would rate Dell PowerMax NVMe an eight out of ten.