Dell PowerStore Reviews

Dell PowerStore is utilized in customer environments where they need fast resilient storage, which highlights its importance in our operations.

The main use cases for us are virtualized workloads, such as clustered server environments that are attached to Dell PowerStore. It stores all their virtualized server environments, including database servers and application servers.

The reason that we brought in Dell PowerStore for this particular use case was that the environment had a database that was performing poorly. It was not clear whether it was a software issue or hardware issue, and it turned out it was a very poorly configured hardware situation. The software vendor was not really sure about what to do. We brought in this brand new Dell PowerStore, having used it since they have been available. After talking to our Dell rep, we learned it was the perfect solution for this environment to eliminate any performance issues, and that has been the case. We installed Dell PowerStore, and the application performance has never had an issue ever again.

The biggest advantage for us as far as features on Dell PowerStore is that they have really good data deduplication and compression, which means your usable disk space is really increased. You don't have to buy as much actual physical disk, making it a good cost-saving measure.

The ability to store more data at a lower physical footprint has truly benefited our organization. If you were having to buy the amount of disk that you actually needed on a physical level, the cost would be astronomically higher, or it would be a more expensive appliance. It's already not super cheap, but it does a lot of features. The biggest draw to it is you get a lot of features for the money and it's really high performance.

If I had to give my recommendation on how Dell PowerStore could be improved, it would probably have to be the user interface. I was hoping that this new product would have a great simple user interface, similar to Dell Unity that we sold and used extensively. Instead, I found the user interface to be a step back from what was done with the other product, which could be tied to the whole architecture of the platform. My wish is to have a more user-friendly interface; the previous system had wizards and guides that facilitated configuration. I have used Dell storage since it was EMC, and back then, configuring the original VNX line required considerable knowledge of storage. The Unity platform simplified that, but with Dell PowerStore, it feels having to know a bit more about storage again to set up some features, which might confuse users transitioning from Unity to Dell PowerStore.

We have been using Dell PowerStore for maybe three or four years, somewhere in that area, showcasing our commitment to leveraging its capabilities.

Our experience with the resiliency, availability, and cybersecurity features of Dell PowerStore has been really good. We have never had any issues, we have never had any outages or downtime or anything of that nature, so it has all been rock-solid.

The stability and reliability of Dell PowerStore are excellent; we have never had any issues. I don't think we have even had a drive fail. You just plug them in, get them turned on, set them up, and they just work, so it has been fantastic.

As far as the growth of the organization and how Dell PowerStore scales, it has been great. We did have one instance where we needed to add some more hard drives, as it was a little underspecced out of the gate, but the whole process of ordering and plugging in additional drives was seamless. The system just auto-expands the file system, and you go.

The technical support and customer support for Dell PowerStore have been fantastic. I don't think we have had to call anybody for that, so I would say it is great.

As far as return on investment with Dell PowerStore, we have seen it. We have had no downtime, no issues; they have just run and worked, which has been tremendous.

The pricing, licensing, and setup costs have been fair for what the product does and what it is. Dell PowerStore is a very high-performance, high-end platform, so you are going to pay a premium, but at the same time, it performs its intended functions effectively, which has been a huge plus for us.

The only other solution we considered before selecting Dell PowerStore was Dell Unity. At the time, they had an all-flash Unity, but its deduplication, compression, and performance metrics were not on par with what Dell PowerStore was designed to deliver, which ultimately informed our decision.

The environments where they are deployed are not operating 24/7 but they are real close. We need as much uptime as possible, and never having to be down for any kind of maintenance window or anything of that nature has been tremendous.

In the environment that we are in now, we do utilize Dell PowerStore's built-in integrations for VMware, which is tied into our system.

The built-in integrations between Dell PowerStore and our virtualization platform are very important for our organization because having that communication when setting up LUNs or configurations is really helpful. It allows us to execute tasks from Dell PowerStore without needing to operate in two different systems.

I would rate this review a 10.

Dell PowerStore is a really interesting array because since it's a full NVMe array, we can consolidate all types of workloads on it, including virtualization. It's an array that can be set up in block mode or unified mode with file, so we can even put file on it and now replicate them in synchronous mode. It's really a multi-environment array. We use it a lot to implement Oracle OLVM clusters. It's really an interesting solution for doing that, in terms of its performance, and also because it supports Linux metro-cluster. We can consolidate Oracle databases with this solution under very good conditions with an excellent level of performance.

Dell PowerStore can help consolidate the data on the storage part. After that, it's clear that Dell PowerStore will be able to interface with AI solutions to provide services. That's a certainty. However, it will remain just a block on the storage side.

The feature I like the most about Dell PowerStore is the simplicity of configuration with DRE. You no longer need a storage expert to configure the array for the client. We have a lot of expertise with people doing storage who have more than 25 years of experience, so installation is no problem for us. Once the array is configured, having this intelligent engine that will organize the blocks, organize the stripes, and manage all the complexity of storage brings a lot of ease of management for the client. They just have to create a volume and present it to their servers. The simplicity is what's interesting about the array.

Dell PowerStore arrays have a range that is broken down in the sizer, where we can see the maximum IOPS we can get and the maximum bandwidth depending on the models. It's important to carefully analyze the customer environments to place the array in the range that will properly meet the expected performance. Since it's a full NVMe array, by default it's a very high-performance array with low latency and really strong performance. I've never come across a workload where the array did not meet the expected level.

The feature we'd like to have in Dell PowerStore is coming, which is metro-cluster over Fibre Channel. That's really the last solution we're waiting for. The advantage of Dell PowerStore is that it's developed as microservices and that it's very software-driven and very automatable as a solution. We can integrate it into modern environments like OpenShift. FC replication is something we didn't have yet, and there are many customers for whom that's a prerequisite.

We can get performance information because when Dell PowerStore array is connected and interconnected to CloudIQ, we send up all the performance metrics needed per volume. We can see perfectly how it behaves. The only thing we don't have is the ability to customize it. Since it's the array itself that manages the organization of the blocks, it's both an advantage and a disadvantage. It's easy to manage for the client, but for an admin looking for specific customization, Dell PowerStore is not the right choice.

We can customize it regarding workload usage. For example, I have a client who was on hyperconverged. I migrated him to Dell PowerStore. He told me it's so much better to customize the usage, put volumes into replication, and segment clusters. On Dell PowerStore storage array, I can very well have a VMware cluster and next to it an OLVM cluster, and manage my VMware part and my Oracle part independently to comply with licensing. Being able to segment environments on a traditional environment allows the client to better manage licensing compared to hyperconverged, which will put everything in the same basket and cause more problems. The array really allows customization if we want to do file system replication. However, if you want specific customization at the RAID group level, that's something you can't do with Dell PowerStore because that feature is handled by an automatic engine. There are admins who rather use Hitachi arrays for that, where they really want to customize their environments down to the core. Dell PowerStore doesn't allow you to do that because it's not its objective.

I've really been using Dell PowerStore since version 3.6 of PowerStoreOS, when we were able to build a redundant architecture with two PowerStores. Before there was replication between two arrays with the witness, it was difficult to build Dell PowerStore architectures because it lacked this feature for securing across two rooms and two sites. With customers, we always need to secure things.

Dell PowerStore is stable and reliable. The only problem is that it came out a bit early. Before version 3.6, it didn't have the features that customers expected, and it was difficult to work with because we didn't have metro-cluster. Metro-cluster in France is less put into production than in the United States because their distances are totally huge, so they tend to do asynchronous replication instead, but in France it's necessary. Before, you had to work with metronodes and virtualize the array. It wasn't integrated, so it was more complicated to put into production and it was less attractive for customers. Now we've reached the level of functionality that's good so that it's really positioned on the market.

Dell PowerStore adapts to growth because it already grows unit by unit at disk level. It has growth that can be both scale-up and scale-out. Let's say I did my sizing badly or I did sizing for a client who then integrates other entities, buys companies, and the need completely changes. I'll be able to add not just shelves to increase capacity, but new primary nodes to increase power and have a cluster that grows in power rather than capacity. When we add capacity, we ask ourselves whether we just need to add capacity, in which case we add a shelf, or to add power. Then we add a Dell PowerStore node directly into the cluster to add capacity and power at the same time.

We've already used Dell PowerStore support to fix issues. I particularly remember a case when we were on 3.6 with an array that had been installed with the wrong name. There was a bug with renaming. When we renamed the array after it had been installed, it caused problems on the file system, and we resolved it with support very quickly.

For support with Dell PowerStore, I'd rate it a 10. It's very good support.

Positive

Deploying Dell PowerStore array is done very efficiently. Once the racking is done, the racking and organization part is always very important. We take the time to do it properly, and the cabling has to be perfectly done. The interconnection to the SAN has to be very well done and well identified. Once that's done, starting up the array is completed within the next day and a half. It's really very fast.

I've tested quite a few storage systems, and I find Dell PowerStore really highly suited to modern, diverse environments. It adapts to pretty much all the cases I encounter with my clients. What I find really interesting is that we can standardize installations a bit, and then interconnect workloads and the array responds. Especially what I see with clients is more a decline in specialists in customer teams, except in very large structures. With mid-sized customers, people are very generalist and use everything. I no longer have a storage expert who can take care of the storage array. Having an array that's simplified and can be managed by someone who is less specialized is a huge asset today. That's why I referenced it and why I really appreciate this technology.

Even with the customers, they told me the other day that it's the death of hyperconverged with Dell PowerStore because it integrates so well and it's easy to use.

I would rate this product a 9 because I'm just waiting for the FC replication feature. I think that when it has that, we'll be able to give it a solid 10.

Most customers are using Dell PowerStore for their data, including metadata as well as unstructured data. Storage customers do not require much AI because they need only reports on storage uptime, downtime, and management perspective. They want to know their disk size, consumption, and how much deduplication and compression they will receive.

If I go ahead with normal storage where I cannot get any deduplication and compression, I will require the full capacity. However, when I go ahead with Dell PowerStore, I will get effective capacity. For example, hypothetically, with a 3:1 compression ratio, if my data is 100 TB, I will only require 30 TB of capacity. Whereas without deduplication and compression, I would require 100 TB.

Dell PowerStore provides deduplication and compression with availability of five nines. The customer got significant benefit from deduplication compression in terms of effective capacity. One of my customers required somewhere around 100 TB of storage, but in terms of effective capacity, I could start with only 20 TB of storage and store data up to 100 TB because of deduplication and compression.

Effective capacity is an excellent feature from Dell PowerStore which is provided by deduplication and compression. Dell PowerStore has a feature called DARE, Data at Rest Encryption. Once the data is written on the hard disk, it is automatically encrypted. Any data which is encrypted will not be encrypted again by any ransomware attack. Dell PowerStore also provides SED hard disks, meaning self-encrypted disks, and because of that, they are achieving the DARE functionality.

Dell PowerStore definitely provides both functionality in terms of NAS and block. Dell PowerStore provides CloudIQ for management. Inside they offer reporting on how much deduplication and compression I have, how much my current utilization is, and at the current rate, when my data storage is going to be full so I know when I require an upgrade. They also offer predictive analysis in terms of whether any hard disk is corrupted or going to fail. This feature and functionality is available with Dell PowerStore.

Otherwise the product is very rugged, so there is no issue at all. Once the customer deploys it in their environment, they are running successfully and there are no major challenges. Availability is the strongest part because it is a rugged product, so there is no issue. I have never faced any challenging in terms of downtime.

To date, I did not come across multiple clustering for one of the customers. However, I have sold multiple Dell PowerStore appliances to a single customer, but they did not require clustering. They are using them for individual locations.

Certain models do not provide the NAS functionality and only provide block storage. If Dell PowerStore could increase that offering from each product for NAS functionality, it would be good.

I used Dell PowerStore was used for approximately three years.

Dell PowerStore is a stable product that is very rugged, so there is no issue. I have never faced any challenging in terms of downtime. Once the customer deploys it in their environment, they are running successfully and there are no major challenges.

Dell PowerStore is easy to scale with a cluster node architecture scenario. When a customer wants to increase any type of size, the only limitation is that the customer has to add an entire appliance.

Dell PowerStore provides CloudIQ software for the management part, which is a cloud-based solution. I can easily manage my entire storage, not only single storage, but if I have multiple storages, I can manage them from a single console.

I am a system integrator currently working with both Commvault and CloudVision.

I started with Dell PowerStore 500T. The setup is easy.

Dell PowerStore provides CloudIQ for management. Dell PowerStore has already integrated a certain feature of AI, but storage customers do not require much AI because they require only reports on how much storage uptime and downtime they have and management perspective. They want to know their disk size, consumption, and how much deduplication and compression they will receive. I am working with Dell Technologies. I am a partner for the Dell entire product portfolio. I am also a partner of Arista as well as a partner of Commvault.

Whatever 70% savings I achieve, I will get it easily on return on investment.

I can say nine out of ten.

Competitor products include NetApp, Hitachi, and HPE. In some features and functionality like inbuilt NAS functionality, Dell is ahead. Dell PowerStore and NetApp can be compared with each other. However, HP does not provide the NAS functionality and Hitachi requires an additional appliance to provide NAS functionality. Otherwise, all the products provide deduplication compression ratio, management software, and technical solutions because they are enterprise products.

Effective capacity is an excellent feature from Dell PowerStore which is provided by deduplication and compression. I am working with Dell PowerStore, PowerEdge, and everything from Dell. Dell PowerStore is easy to scale with a cluster node architecture scenario. When a customer wants to increase any type of size, the only limitation is that the customer has to add an entire appliance. This review has an overall rating of nine out of ten.

My team's role in using or managing Dell PowerStore is that we run all our infrastructure for our shared infrastructure in all the data centers, and we run Dell PowerStore for our IaaS solutions and some backup DR solutions. 

Currently, we are not using Dell PowerStore for any AI initiatives in our company or for our clients; it's primarily for IaaS workloads, so Infrastructure-as-a-Service on our shared platform for customers. 

Currently, we are utilizing the 500Ts and 1200Ts models of Dell PowerStore.

We have seen the benefits of consolidation, compression, and reduction in overall storage.

I can share a specific example where Dell PowerStore made a noticeable improvement in our business operations; we were running an IaaS platform for one of our acquisitions on a different vendor, and we've moved that to a brand new platform we built based on PowerEdge and Dell PowerStore. All of our performance is now improved, and all of our customers are happy; they're not complaining anymore about performance. We've recently received feedback that there's a massive improvement—boot times are quicker, and responsiveness from their workloads is quicker.

We have realized several benefits from using Dell PowerStore; we migrated to the current Dell PowerStore models from tiered storage, and now we're using all flash. 

The dedupe and compression has been a big benefit for us versus the old storage that it was running, and we've seen the performance of all flash for our storage services. 

My company finds particular features within Dell PowerStore valuable, primarily the cost benefits for the performance that we get out of the platform. We've definitely seen the benefit on that side of it, including the cost per terabyte, and the support from Dell has been excellent as well. 

We haven't had any issues with it, so it's been very reliable as a platform for us.

The performance metrics I use to measure success with Dell PowerStore are all IOPS and throughput. We are not using it with AI workloads on Dell PowerStore, so it's primarily just customers running IaaS, however, it is important that it's reliable and performs well, and we get that from Dell PowerStore.

Dell PowerStore has supported growth and operational success for my business; a key driver at the moment is consolidation, and the dedupe and compression ratios allow us to standardize on a single platform. This has helped improve our operational metrics and overall operations, as we now have only one vendor to support and one set of storage arrays to manage. We have a very clear path into support and escalation if there is an issue, and we are not dealing with multiple vendors.

It could be improved to be cheaper for us. Cost versus performance is crucial, and it has to have the performance and capabilities that we need for that price point.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for years.

I would assess Dell PowerStore's stability and reliability as excellent; the latest generation of Dell PowerStores that we put in has had no issues and no downtime.

I see Dell PowerStore growing with our future needs; as a company, we have standardized our compute and storage now on Dell, so that's the way it's going to grow.

Our business has around 1000 employees.

I would evaluate Dell support as a nine out of ten.

Any instance that we've had to open with Dell or any support ticket we've had has been responded to very quickly, and the quality of the team we deal with is very good. 

There's not much more I can get out of support really. They are responsive, and I've very little to complain about from a Dell perspective. There are always going to be issues with a support department, and we understand that. The escalation paths are clear, and the account managers and team I work with at Dell Ireland are always proactive in reaching out if they identify an issue.

Positive

Before moving to Dell PowerStore, I considered NetApp and Pure Storage as two of our large vendors, and we've also used HP. 

We've explored a large range of them. A huge standout in my evaluation process, both positive and negative, comparing these options was realistically the performance for the price; since we use a significant amount of Dell, they are our number one vendor for compute, and it makes sense for us to standardize our compute. When we compare the performance to the cost, it's a no-brainer for us.

We have seen a return on our investment in Dell PowerStore; definitely our cost per terabyte has been very good compared to some of the other vendors that we would have been using previously, and our performance benchmarks have exceeded what we were expecting.

At the moment, I can't think of any area where Dell PowerStore could be better; my engineering teams aren't complaining about anything, and we're happy with the performance, support, dedupe, compression, and costs. 

My advice to others considering Dell PowerStore is that the more you understand about the workloads you're going to run on the storage, the more accurate you can be, and the better solution you'll end up with. I would rate Dell PowerStore as an eight or a nine out of ten.

We use Dell PowerStore for the data centers and mostly for virtualization to provide storage capacity to hypervisors, using it for different use cases such as SQL databases, Exchange servers, and custom-based applications that serve different purposes.

Use cases that are mostly used involve some clients in the banks hosting main applications on Dell PowerStore, and sometimes it is used to replace previous generations of Dell products, such as Unity or VNX, where the customer base primarily consists of traditional Dell customers, along with some government institutions.

Some use cases with Dell PowerStore that can impact involve a client hosting an application for a public service that people use, and they provided feedback that the application performance has improved, and they are happy with this product.

The best features of Dell PowerStore are that it is really easy to use and really easy to set up, and a great feature is also the performance, which is really good, and it is very easy to integrate with VMware, for example; it has great integration.

Apart from the pricing, the key differentiator for Dell PowerStore in comparison to competitors such as IBM and Hitachi is its performance and data reduction, which is a really great feature since the data reduction ratio is much better on Dell PowerStore.

From a technical perspective regarding Dell PowerStore, I am not certain what improvements or enhancements should be made because it is a really good product; however, from the price perspective, I think it should be less expensive to better position it against vendors such as IBM or Hitachi, since sometimes it is hard to sell it due to higher pricing.

Disadvantages of Dell PowerStore, apart from the price, from a technical perspective, do not exist.

For growing needs, Dell PowerStore is easy to scale, but I had an issue where if a client wants to buy additional drives after the initial purchase, the price is quite expensive because they do not get the discount from the initial purchase; thus, they should plan to buy more capacity up front.

We have been working with Dell PowerStore for approximately two or three years.

I have not experienced any downtimes or crashes with Dell PowerStore, as it has been really stable, and we have not replaced any part except perhaps some hard drives.

For growing needs, Dell PowerStore is easy to scale, but I had an issue where if a client wants to buy additional drives after the initial purchase, the price is quite expensive because they do not get the discount from the initial purchase; thus, they should plan to buy more capacity up front.

We had cases when we needed support from the Dell technical support team, which is quite good for consultancy and firmware issues; however, in our region, it is a bit more challenging to get hardware parts since everything goes through partners, which can create a bottleneck.

I would rate the tech support an eight on a scale of one to ten.

Positive

Deployment of Dell PowerStore is quite easy, and compared to previous generations of Dell or other vendors, I think it is really easy for us as system integrators, although sometimes it is not great for us as it limits the services we sell since clients can even do the deployment themselves.

We are a partner and a system integrator with Dell, and also we are an authorized deployment and support provider.

Apart from the pricing, the key differentiator for Dell PowerStore in comparison to competitors such as IBM and Hitachi is its performance and data reduction, which is a really great feature since the data reduction ratio is much better on Dell PowerStore.

We work with Dell PowerStore and with Unity.

Performance metrics with Dell PowerStore actually depend on the case, but for some clients, the most important is the latency and write latency, and they use various tools to measure, mostly with VMware's vCenter that has some metrics they can monitor; however, to be honest, the clients or institutions using it are not utilizing the maximum performance or capacity that it can provide.

Most of our clients are small to medium businesses, but Dell PowerStore is not really a fit for small businesses since they tend to go with lower models such as PowerVault or less expensive products.

I do not have specific analysis on how Dell PowerStore has supported the growth of operational success for medium businesses, but since it is easy and has no issues, I think the IT teams do not have to worry and are happy with it.

I can recommend to other organizations considering Dell PowerStore that if they want an on-premises solution, they can count on it for performance and reliability, making it a really good product. This review has an overall rating of nine out of ten.

Multiple Dell PowerStore appliances can be clustered, with the capability to connect four nodes to a single cluster. Dell PowerStore solution is used on Linux, and a customer connecting storage space from Dell PowerStore to their server can use Linux as well. We are mostly using Red Hat Linux, Oracle Linux, and SUSE.

I have implemented many boxes recently and have been working for Dell as an IMAC deploying and implementing Dell PowerStore products in Pakistan. The solution is very easy to use. Moving and optimizing workloads within the cluster is straightforward on Dell PowerStore. The workload performance delivered by Dell PowerStore is very good.

The compression and deduplication technologies of Dell PowerStore are satisfactory, with a 2.1 ratio being sufficient and meeting customer requirements. Expanding and scaling Dell PowerStore is simple. When scaling up, you add the DAEs, and when scaling out, you add the next node on the right side. After initializing the next node and connecting it to the TOR switch, you can add it to your cluster, and the new node will join the cluster automatically.

For connectivity, we can use 10G primarily because it uses IP for cluster connections. Dell PowerStore has different ports used for the cluster, management, and other activities for interconnectivity. Lifecycle control for Dell PowerStore is also better, though we normally use the baseline to upgrade by manually uploading files through IDRAC rather than through the Lifecycle feature.

Some features are not easy on Dell PowerStore. For example, changing the IP is not straightforward like on Unity or other storage solutions. You must run a command in the CLI to replace the IPs, remove the existing IP, and add the new IP. A user cannot change the IP easily and will require technical support and expertise from a partner or from Dell.

There should be an easy way to change the IP from the GUI in Dell PowerStore. In the manageable settings, anything can be changed from the GUI after installation and initialization. The other features are satisfactory and very advanced but easy to manage, with nothing difficult about them.

The IP change issue is important in Dell PowerStore as there are four IPs to consider: a cluster IP, a management IP, and two nodes' IPs. These cannot be changed easily, and the subnet mask is also involved. You need to write everything in a two or three-line command, starting from the IP, removing the existing IP, and adding new IPs one through three, all in sequence separated by a comma. There is a very small tab in the management IP modify section. When clicking on modify, it shows delete, but the delete function is not working as it is not highlighted because it can only be done with the service password.

The service password is not able to log in with the GUI and is only used to log in with the CLI. In the previous Unity, you could log in with both the service account and the GUI, where you could use either the admin or service user. In Dell PowerStore, the service user is only used with the CLI and cannot log into the GUI, which is not a good feature because you cannot perform any maintenance from the GUI.

I have not used Dell PowerStore's built-in integrations for VMware, Kubernetes, containers, or other ecosystems. However, if you are using a different model, not the T model of Dell PowerStore but the S model, which has all VMware products built-in, it would be suitable.

There should be direct connectivity between the nodes in Dell PowerStore. An additional add-on card in Dell PowerStore would allow you to add four nodes in a cluster that can connect directly to each other without utilizing switching in between. We are using two switches as VLT with RedStack, using a direct cable between the switches to become a VLT, making it a single logical switch, though the management is separate. If the nodes in Dell PowerStore could communicate directly with each other through a direct, dedicated media, like a stack cable to form a cluster, that would be a better feature.

For the last three years, I have been working on Dell PowerStore and have implemented several boxes.

I do not have a good experience with the technical support for Dell PowerStore. The technical support by Dell for Dell PowerStore is a seven or an eight, which is better. The engineers and their team were very good.

Positive

The IP change issue is important in Dell PowerStore as there are four IPs to consider: a cluster IP, a management IP, and two nodes' IPs. These cannot be changed easily, and the subnet mask is also involved. You need to write everything in a two or three-line command, starting from the IP, removing the existing IP, and adding new IPs one through three, all in sequence separated by a comma.

The service password cannot log in with the GUI and is only used to log in with the CLI. In the previous Unity, you could log in with both the service account and the GUI, where you could use either the admin or service user. In Dell PowerStore, the service user is only used with the CLI and cannot log into the GUI, which is not a good feature because you cannot perform any maintenance from the GUI.

We are not using CloudIQ in Dell PowerStore and have not utilized it at any time in Unity either. We call and open a case on support@dell.com instead of using CloudIQ. Most customers do not connect their systems to the internet or allow such connectivity. Therefore, CloudIQ is not beneficial for them.

Regarding the ability to add capacity in single drive increments, a single drive can be larger, but it depends on the rebuilding rate. When rebuilding capacity in case of a disk failure, a larger drive will take a longer time. There should be concern if these are slow NL-SAS drives with 4-8TB capacity, as you cannot configure them to RAID 5 and must configure them to RAID 6 instead. The rebuild will take a longer time, and in case of a disk failure in RAID 5, you will lose data. Where the pool is involved, it is easy to use the entire disk. Dell PowerStore mostly uses NVMe disk, ACM disk, and SAS disk, SSD disk, and does not use NL-SAS in the base chassis. My overall review rating for Dell PowerStore is eight out of ten.

Our company is a partner of Dell Technologies, and we primarily use Dell PowerStore as our main tool deployed across our portfolio of customers according to their requests. Dell PowerStore is one of our main components in the market that we sell to our portfolio of customers.

We have approximately 10 to 15 implementations because we do not use Dell PowerStore in-house for our purposes. We do have a lab Dell PowerStore, though I have forgotten the model. However, we sell Dell PowerStore to our clients where we provide the service of procuring it, configuring it, starting it up, and leading the roadmap for our client until the point of usage. We are not using it ourselves; we are selling it to further clients.

If the customer requests those capabilities, we do deploy metro clusters and stretched clustering. The deployment depends on the configuration and the use case requested from the client.

We had one deployment of Dell PowerStore within a Linux environment.

Dell PowerStore has fairly easy clustering setup. The general rules of clustering involve preferred nodes, preferred LUNs, and available LUNs across the cluster. Dell made clustering quite easy in that the setup and management of a cluster are straightforward.

The easy configuration of metro clustering, super easy startup services, and the GUI are extremely easy and user-friendly to navigate and operate. Dell PowerStore as a device is easy to operate since as a hardware device, the maintenance and administration are very easy to perform, even regular maintenance such as disk changes and cabling.

Cybersecurity features are fairly good and at the level of what the competition is providing. Cybersecurity will always have grounds and bases on which it can be improved. Regarding data resiliency, it is quite resilient, especially if you know what you are doing with the RAID levels and properly set it up.

In my area of the market where we operate in Malta, most of our clients are SMBs because Malta being a very small country does not operate with multinational companies that have terabytes and petabytes of data. I believe Dell PowerStore meets the market needs at this point in time.

The champion feature for me is metro cluster.

Regarding compression and deduplication, coming from the HP world where I was a systems engineer for nearly four years, Dell has a much stronger and much more powerful compression and deduplication engine than the competition on the market. We are fairly happy with the deduplication ratio and the compression ratio that Dell PowerStore provides.

Dell PowerStore is an enterprise-graded device that is easily scalable and easily integrated into your ecosystem and provides metro cluster as one of the key features I would consider in any storage system. The main advantage is the general support of Dell, which is quite efficient. I would choose Dell over any other brand, and the deduplication and compression ratio is very powerful and very strong, effectively saving space and giving the overhead needed to store data. The cons of Dell PowerStore include that it has not been advertised at least in the Maltese market the way it should be. The advertising campaign that originates from Dell is much weaker than the competition, effectively making people skeptical and sometimes making the product hard to sell even though the product itself is a great one.

In the future, it would be great to have Dell PowerStore that can be a peer on the market for Alletra MP from HP where you have a main Dell PowerStore node that is easily expandable across the network using just a simple LAN switch, for example, the main concept that Alletra MP uses. Additionally, it would be great to have support from Dell for other hypervisors, not just natively on VMware, but also Proxmox and any other open source virtualization hypervisors that need access to a storage system using Fiber Channel protocols because at this point in time, Fiber Channel protocol is not supported on Dell PowerStore, for example, using Proxmox.

I have been working with Dell Technologies products for almost six months, but I have been working in IT for the past eight years or more.

I am not aware of any stability issues. However, I am still fairly new when it comes to Dell technologies. I have been with them for just six months. During that particular amount of time, we have not had any crash or anything disastrous happening.

Dell PowerStore is very easy to scale. I found it easier to be scaled than certain HP Enterprise devices like Alletra, perhaps not as seamless as Alletra MP, the latest one available from the competition, but similar to some other devices, it is fairly easy to scale it up and even sideways if needed.

I believe there is improved performance, but that is about it as far as I know.

I have not used Dell tech support as we have never had cases that required it. However, from the other devices we have been using across the Dell ecosystem, I found their support pretty straightforward and quite efficient.

Negative

Regarding compression and deduplication, coming from the HP world where I was a systems engineer for nearly four years, Dell has a much stronger and much more powerful compression and deduplication engine than the competition on the market. We are fairly happy with the deduplication ratio and the compression ratio that Dell PowerStore provides.

From my perspective, there are no challenges with initial setup. I do have quite a lot of experience even from times before when deploying storage was quite complex. However, nowadays, it is fairly simple. In general, when it comes to the simplicity of initial deployment of any Dell products, it is fairly simple to get it started up and running in literally a few clicks if you do not have any special requests that need to be catered or adjusted especially for that use case. If you need just a storage system to have it in your local domain, Dell PowerStore is fairly simple to start up.

Officially, I have implemented with a team. However, since I am at the company for only six months, I have not had any projects on that side yet.

I know that Dell PowerStore is cheaper than the competition, and that is about it because I am more on the technical side rather than on the sales side.

In the future, it would be great to have Dell PowerStore that can be a peer on the market for Alletra MP from HP where you have a main Dell PowerStore node that is easily expandable across the network using just a simple LAN switch, for example, the main concept that Alletra MP uses. Additionally, it would be great to have support from Dell for other hypervisors, not just natively on VMware, but also Proxmox and any other open source virtualization hypervisors that need access to a storage system using Fiber Channel protocols because at this point in time, Fiber Channel protocol is not supported on Dell PowerStore, for example, using Proxmox.

While it might be intimidating to have mixed and matched infrastructure in a view of having HP and Dell operating within the same system, everything is fairly acceptable. The partners are there to help and will be more than happy if they put Dell PowerStore along with any other storage system. As a matter of fact, they might have even better results within their internal networks and internal environment.

One of my key roles as a senior enterprise systems engineer is implementation and configuration of various devices either from Dell or previously from HP since I worked closely with HP. I do have hands-on experience.

I assume I could comment on certain aspects. However, I am not on that side of things because my job ends the second the storage system is presented to the virtualization hypervisors. I am not the best one to answer that question.

In the future, it would be great to have Dell PowerStore that can be a peer on the market for Alletra MP from HP where you have a main Dell PowerStore node that is easily expandable across the network using just a simple LAN switch, for example, the main concept that Alletra MP uses. Additionally, it would be great to have support from Dell for other hypervisors, not just natively on VMware, but also Proxmox and any other open source virtualization hypervisors that need access to a storage system using Fiber Channel protocols because at this point in time, Fiber Channel protocol is not supported on Dell PowerStore, for example, using Proxmox.

Performance is acceptable and is in the range of any other storage system during the workloads, obviously within the range of the model.

The GUI is fairly user-friendly. There are no finicky words or complex wording used, and I believe it is quite oriented toward systems administrators and enterprise administrators. I believe their life is fairly eased up on that side, making it fairly easy to use.

I believe we have clients that are using CloudIQ. I do believe this, but I am not 100 percent sure.

Since our users are mainly on VMware, we are using integration with VMware.

For us, I would not say it is super important because if you do not have one way to integrate it, there is another way to do it for me as somebody working on the partner side. However, I do believe that for the end-user, it is fairly important because most of those systems are not mainly used by one compute system, one server, or one hypervisor. However, if you have more than one, then the ease of integration within your current infrastructure and the current system that is running on site is very important.

I do believe that scalability is a very important part because, for example, I have had cases even when I was working with HP where you have customers who want to be able to expand slowly and keeping only a certain percentage of the overhead of the storage system because not all customers have the financial means to go and buy 5 terabytes of hard drives due to the cost of the hard drives and everything. I believe that is a very important part from the client perspective.

In general, there is nothing simple when it comes to working with Linux. However, I think the presentation of the LUNs and everything else is more or less the same as any other storage system that is operating over Fiber Channel protocols for the Linux side. I do not think in that aspect there are any easier scenarios or something that is much more different from the competitors.

Metro cluster will provide you with a copy of the data. First of all, you will have two systems that are joined by the metro cluster that can operate on the main site and on the disaster recovery site where you will have preferred LUNs on both sides, so you are not going to have a lot of latency when it comes to the data sets that need to be read and written. Basically, what you need on site A can be stored on site A and what you need on site B can be stored on site B, effectively making the quality of life for users that are spread on two sites nearly seamless. Additionally, you have that particular metro that is providing a kind of backup that in case something goes sideways with one of the systems, you will still have data available and there will still be a path for another system. You will have users continue to work seamlessly even though your storage system on one end is completely gone, for example.

My overall rating for this review is 9.

Dell PowerStore was initially used as a low tier storage solution where high performance was not necessarily required. Currently, it is being used as a data store for ESXi servers and comes with all-flash storage, so performance has been significantly upgraded compared to previous Dell storage solutions. Dell PowerStore is now being used more for enterprise and mid-size customers.

The most valuable features in Dell PowerStore are the replication method and snapshots. The replication method is the most valuable because storage replication is relied upon when disaster recovery solutions or BCP solutions are required to be introduced.

The integration with VMware SRM is relatively easy for Dell storage. Overall reliability and maturity of Dell products make implementation easier, and the deployment is not complicated for these devices. Additionally, compared to competitors, Dell solutions are generally more cost-effective.

While assessing Dell PowerStore's data resiliency and cybersecurity features, it is important to note that additional tools from the Dell side are still needed to help set up a cyber recovery or cyber resiliency solution. By default, the storage may not have all the features required, and additional software is needed to establish a cyber recovery vault. The solution includes mutable and immutable copy, deduplication, and compression which achieve a good ratio in fully utilizing storage capacity. However, a set of software from Dell that serves as an analyzer is needed to set up all tools and environments. By default, the storage will not fulfill all cyber resiliency requirements without additional tools and isolated environments.

When comparing compression and deduplication technology in Dell PowerStore with Pure Storage, there is room for further improvement. The dedupe and compression ratio is comparatively low, and Pure Storage claims higher efficiency. Additionally, the product life cycle differs, as Dell recommends changing storage processors after every five years, while Pure storage products do not become obsolete for ten years.

Dark data assessment is a functionality that could be introduced, which relates to data not accessed within certain time frames that could be moved to other locations. Such tools would help not only with deduplication and compression but would reclaim unused storage, providing an additional advantage.

I have been working with Dell PowerStore for more than five and a half years.

My feedback on the workload performance offered by Dell PowerStore is positive. When comparing to older products, there have been no performance problems with the new storage. An apple-to-apple comparison is difficult to make because the previous storage was five years old. With migration, better performance has been obtained compared to what was configured earlier.

I would rate the scalability part of Dell PowerStore at eight or eight point five. Adding capacity in single drive increments could technically add more risk to a drive because increasing VMs and data may compromise stability. Whatever is currently available as the highest capacity of a disk is acceptable.

The technical support from Dell is good. I have not encountered any issue that took a long time to get resolved. I would give a scoring of nine for the technical support.

Positive

In most of the deals worked on, if clients are using multiple vendor storages where product support is ending, a single vendor solution is generally recommended.

The deployment process for Dell PowerStore is simple because most of the tasks are menu driven, with few commands required, and it is quick to complete as part of a deployment.

It is easy to cluster Dell PowerStore appliances, and most of the time PS services are being added into the BOQ, with assistance provided in case of any issues during implementation.

Dell PowerStore helps clients reduce capital expenditures, as the footprint in comparison to legacy storage is less and power consumption is more optimized.

I have experience with Dell APEX, also known as CloudIQ in Dell PowerStore, and there are cases where this has been recommended as well. However, from a commercial standpoint, the additional costs paid to Dell are higher than what could be financed internally, leading the company to buy assets at their own cost to set up a private cloud.

Dell PowerStore is compared with Pure Storage and HP Alletra as competitors.

When comparing these three solutions, cost is a primary key consideration. All the required features are available in most vendors. However, whoever offers the best price during the negotiation stages generally wins the deal. In terms of reliability, scalability, compression, deduplication, and TCO, Dell is a preferred partner. One reason to choose Dell is that the compute upgrades are handled within the same vendor, providing a complete solution which includes backup, storage, and compute.

Dell PowerStore continues to be a preferred product for current work.

Work is being done on some RFPs which are for transformation and these products are required for backup as well as for primary storage.

The majority of cases for Dell PowerStore are for on-premises deployments. Dell PowerStore is generally not recommended for deployment on a public cloud. Instead, it is deployed with hybrid or on-premises as a private cloud setup. Native cloud storages are used for any further requirement where the data needs to be kept on a public cloud.

Regarding management capabilities, the feedback is that it is adequate.

I would rate this review an overall nine out of ten.

My role in using and managing Dell PowerStore involves deploying the systems, managing them, updating them, and deploying them on a daily basis for most of our end customers, which amounts to about thirty PowerStores.

The models of Dell PowerStore that I work with include 500T, 1000T, 1200T, 3200T, and 5200T.

The main use cases for Dell PowerStore among my customers are VMware for virtual machines, databases, applications, and file storage.

The most valuable features of Dell PowerStore that I or my customers find are data reduction. Since Dell PowerStore is based on XtremIO, a rather mature technology, it is implemented very well, and XtremIO was already quite good in deduplication. That is the primary reason we sold this system to our customers as it offers good midrange storage.

The benefits my customers have realized from implementing and using Dell PowerStore include faster storage because most of them transitioned from regular SSD storage or spinning drives to NVMe storage, which is notably faster. This represents a significant advantage along with a favorable data reduction ratio.

In some cases, they have achieved a two and a half to three and a half times reduction in their data ratio. Additionally, some of our customers that used to have half a rack of storage now require just two rack units.

Dell PowerStore does not play a role in their AI initiatives in any way since hospitals are rather conservative in deploying AI. Furthermore, it is not within our scope as they have AI integrated into their applications, which is outside of our management.

One aspect that could make Dell PowerStore better is adding support for multiple operating systems in Metro Volumes, which would serve as a good use case for some of our customers.

To make it a ten, it would require improvements such as quicker part shipping. Even though most customers have four-hour support, it sometimes takes two days for parts to arrive when I would expect it the next day. We also encountered performance issues with some Dell PowerStores at our customers, which took a long time to diagnose.

The missing element to achieve a score of ten is support for multiple operating systems in Metro, which is rather specific but a recent challenge we encountered.

I have been working in my current field for eleven to twelve years.

When assessing the stability and reliability of Dell PowerStore, I note there were some issues in the first releases, specifically with the software. Since version three point zero, improvements have been significant, along with the addition of extra features.

Not many customers have scaled up or out with Dell PowerStore, although some have added disks, which has been successful without issues.

Dell support is generally good.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate them a seven and a half due to the services received.

To make it a ten, it would require improvements such as quicker part shipping. Even though most customers have four-hour support, it sometimes takes two days for parts to arrive when I would expect it the next day. We also encountered performance issues with some Dell PowerStores at our customers, which took a long time to diagnose.

Positive

Some customers do come from different vendors to switch to Dell PowerStore, while most already had Dell or EMC storage, but some transitioned from other vendors.

The primary reason they switch to Dell over other vendors is usually based on tender outcomes. I cannot always ascertain why they selected us, but it was probably the best or most cost-effective solution available.

Overall, my experience with deploying Dell PowerStore has been good.

It works efficiently since it is easy to deploy Dell PowerStore. I have not encountered any significant issues.

Most of our customers in healthcare and government have not shared specific metrics regarding their return on investment in Dell PowerStore.

Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Dell PowerStore, the licensing is good since everything is included. All features are available when you purchase Dell PowerStore, and I find the pricing competitive.

The size of the companies using Dell PowerStore varies. One company has more than twenty-five hundred employees, while the rest generally have around two hundred to two thousand employees.

For small to medium customers, Dell PowerStore supports growth or operational success by being easier to use, as it incorporates native features for which they previously needed separate systems, such as replication technologies, thereby reducing the cost of managing storage.

Although I cannot determine exactly by how much cost has been reduced, I am not directly working at the end customer. However, we have managed these systems for our end customers, handling updates and managing storage, making it difficult to quantify specifics.

Dell PowerStore has features that specifically cater to the needs of small and medium companies.

The features include a broad range of mid-scale storage options, providing quite good entry-level systems that are relatively inexpensive while enabling customers to benefit from all its features.

To measure success with Dell PowerStore, we typically use latency as a good performance metric to assess how well it performs and meets the needs of the applications used by the users.

I cannot share a specific example where Dell PowerStore made a noticeable improvement or impact on business operations at this time, although I am sure there are instances.

When it comes to latency, I think it remains about the same for most customers, but it is difficult to compare because the technology varies. Customers transitioned from spinning drives or regular SSDs to NVMe, leading to consistently improved speeds.

My overall review rating for Dell PowerStore is eight out of ten.

Dell PowerStore's main use cases involve virtualization as the primary use case. It is SAN storage that falls under midrange storage in Dell Technologies but includes all enterprise features such as deduplication and compression, which are expected from enterprise storage.

The main benefit is that the operating system is container-based. If a service like management fails, it restarts inside a container without rebooting the whole array, which is very valuable in enterprise storage. The ease of use is significant because it is very easy for administrators.

I have deployed almost all the appliances: 500, 1000, 3000, and 5000 models.

I have had some implementations where we have done clustering, adding two nodes for the storage itself.

In general, I would say that it is easy to move and optimize workloads within the cluster.

Support from Dell produces positive feedback that varies by region. In Qatar, we receive excellent support especially for enterprise products such as storage.

Dell PowerStore can help improve operational efficiency through automation, as Dell provides playbooks that can automate processes through Ansible.

Regarding data resiliency and cybersecurity features, everything Dell sells is designed to be zero trusted, meaning the storage itself is secure. You do not need separate cybersecurity software because it already incorporates security.

The compression rate can go between 5 to 10 to 1, depending on the data. For structured data such as Excel sheets or Word documents, it can compress from 50 terabytes to 10 terabytes, but video and MP3 files may not reduce as significantly.

Integration with systems such as VMware, Kubernetes, and container services is one of the best features, given that the operating system is containerized.

As for drawbacks or areas for improvement in Dell PowerStore, I currently do not have any significant concerns.

I cannot name any specific enhancements for Dell PowerStore as I find it perfect for its midrange storage role.

I have been dealing with Dell PowerStore for about four years now.

Dell PowerStore is quite stable, providing 99.9% availability due to its active-active controller. Updates occur seamlessly without downtime.

Dell PowerStore can scale up and scale out easily. I believe it can scale out up to four nodes maximum and expand enclosures beyond 20 slots in the base unit, allowing for substantial growth.

I use CloudIQ, now called AIOps, which is a very good predictability tool and AI anomaly detection that is free when you have ProSupport from Dell.

The requirement for ProSupport for accessing the free AIOps add-on is not typically a limitation, as enterprise storages default to ProSupport.

Negative

Regarding the deployment, it can be complex if you do not have much IT knowledge, but if you have any system administrator, it will be easy to deploy. Dell recommends doing the deployment for clients to ensure a thorough OEM experience, which is what I recommend to my clients.

Dell PowerStore helps reduce capital expenditures, CapEx by 100%.

More accurate figures about CapEx reduction can be acquired from Dell based on Forrester or IDC reports.

Dell PowerStore aligns against HPE's Aletra storage and is favored for ease of use and capability as a midrange to enterprise solution.

I am a solution integrator and a partner for these companies instead of being a managed service provider.

Currently, my role is Solutions Architect, so I articulate the whole solution for my customers.

Management capabilities are relatively easy, allowing control via a single dashboard that integrates with VMware and Broadcom.

There is no inconvenience because clients typically choose ProSupport for enterprise storage.

While I note some potential for future enhancements, Dell PowerStore is already a leader in customer satisfaction.

I have provided this review with an overall rating of 10.