Dell PowerStore Reviews

We are using Dell PowerStore for block storage to run Oracle databases, and we are using it for file servers with replication, and a lot of VMware data. By VMware, I mean it is all Windows-based applications we are using it for. 

We are currently using two models of Dell PowerStore: 3200 and 5200.

Benefits of Dell PowerStore compared to Unity 400 and 650F, which we were previously using, are significant. Firstly, we benefit from extensive deduplication for non-database applications, which saves us a considerable amount of costs. Secondly, the performance has improved dramatically due to advancements in technology, such as TLC disks and NVMe technologies. These two factors, cost savings from deduplication and enhanced performance across applications, are the primary benefits we are experiencing.

Dell PowerStore has not helped our company improve operational efficiency to a great extent, because that depends on administrator tasks; operational efficiency is mostly from provisioning and using it through block, but then the benefits are mostly with TCO and performance.

The most valuable functionality we find in Dell PowerStore is deduplication, which saves us a lot of cost with a dedupe ratio of 4:1, good when compared to Unity of 1.6 or 1.7, allowing for almost 2x or 3x cost savings for us. 

Replication is also more simplified, so we are happy with the replication feature, which is easy to configure and manage. 

It's simple and easy to use.

There should be improvements in Dell PowerStore regarding scaling up and scaling out. When it's a cluster, provisioning is basically not automatic, and it doesn't do LUN balancing, so that automatic feature of LUN balancing between the cluster should be looked into.

I would like to see more user-friendly reporting on provisioning, LUNs, and more extensive reporting usages in the next version of Dell PowerStore, as that would help us.

Another area that should be looked into for Dell PowerStore include our current use of TLC disks; we cannot expand our cluster with a QLC disk, leading to some problems.

We primarily use Dell PowerStore for mid-range applications, and we are satisfied with its performance in that context. However, we have tested it with high-end applications that have significant performance requirements. In one instance, a single PowerStore array provided only 3 to 4 GBPS, which was not satisfactory. For applications requiring 15 or 20 thousand IOPS, PowerStore performs well. However, when an application needs around 50 thousand IOPS or 3 GBPS transfer rates, there tends to be noticeable lag.

I have been working with Dell PowerStore for close to two years.

I would rate the stability of Dell PowerStore as a seven out of ten. When it's clustering, it's not straightforward rebalancing, and there's a lot of tasks that need to be done to keep the array more performance-oriented.

Technical support is good, and I would rate it an eight out of ten.

Positive

We have worked with HPE, and compared to HPE, we believe that Dell PowerStore is good. We have also worked with Nutanix, which is also very good, and we feel Nutanix performs better than Dell PowerStore, while HPE is a little lagging in this area.

Single-node deployment is a little easy. Multi-node clustering takes a lot of understanding. It should be simplified.

We purchased Dell PowerStore through a partner. We do in-house deployment for Dell PowerStore, and Dell Technologies is always the implementer for us.

In terms of lifecycle management, we are connected through ESRS for Dell PowerStore, and all those reports get back to us from Dell EMC. We have our account manager who periodically schedules these upgrades.

The price of Dell PowerStore is decent. It provides good value, and it is a fair value product.

We have a two-node cluster. We are not directly using Dell PowerStore for optimizing workloads; basically, it is more of Oracle and SAP applications, only these things we are using it for.

We use Dell PowerStore for both Linux and Windows. They have an equal footprint. We have integration with Kubernetes. 

Overall, I would rate Dell PowerStore a seven out of ten.

The main use cases for Dell PowerStore in my case involve using it as primary storage for a mid-range of applications hosted on VMware, as well as in disaster recovery.

We are working with multiple industries. We provide services to a variety of companies, including several security firms and financial institutions such as banks. Additionally, we operate our own site as well.

One of my customers has the 500 series. They have multiple clusters in their primary data center. If I recall correctly, they operate with four or five nodes. From what I understand, it's fine for moving and optimizing workloads within the cluster. Previously, there was a different kind of storage, such as Unity and VNX, from which they migrated. There were numerous quality of service and performance issues back then. However, since migrating to PowerStore, I believe everything is quite optimized. We haven't observed any issues in the two years since the migration.

My experience with the deployment of Dell PowerStore was good. It was easy and straightforward. The migration was quite quick compared to other storage solutions, and provisioning was smooth as well.

The best features of Dell PowerStore that I most appreciate are its performance and the quality of service it provides. The snapshot and replication features are much improved compared to previous mid-range storages. 

In terms of improving Dell PowerStore, they should have simplified documents available for customers, not just for the support team. We faced issues that were hard to resolve without easy access to information, which could aid in quicker resolutions.

I have almost three and a half years of experience with Dell PowerStore, and overall with storage and backup, I have over 10 years of experience.

I find Dell PowerStore stable.

We haven't expanded Dell PowerStore yet, but according to the documentation, it is quite easy to extend. It does take some time to distribute the data among nodes, but we haven't experienced scaling issues as we are currently at 65% capacity.

I would rate Dell's customer service or technical support highly because I was part of Dell EMC in Johannesburg from 2015 to 2018. I know how they work, and their timely responses and resolutions have been quite good. I would rate it an eight.

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward, with the help of the Dell team. After hard installation and upgrades, we were up and network-ready in about six hours, including rack and stack, management, and hosting, and then we began migration the next day.

For that client, the deployment model we uses was on-premises, not private cloud or anything else.

Based on my experience, I would rate Dell PowerStore an eight out of ten.

Dell PowerStore is our Tier 2 storage used for general-purpose servers and applications.

The most valuable feature of Dell PowerStore, compared to previous products, is probably the ease of installation and upgrades. 

The benefits our organization has received from installing Dell PowerStore include a smooth transition from previous storage, Unity and previous Dell storage, making for an easy migration.

One of the big differences when we were looking at Pure is that they had more of an in-place upgrade option going forward, kind of future-proofing things. We hear Dell is working towards that, but they weren't quite there, especially three years ago.

We acquired our first Dell PowerStore three years ago.

In terms of reliability and stability, everything has been stable with Dell PowerStore, so I cannot complain.

Dell PowerStore has had no problem scaling to our needs. We have expanded a couple of times in the last few years and had no issues.

If I were giving advice to another company looking at Dell PowerStore, I would say that you cannot go wrong with Dell, as the sales and support teams are always top notch.

Positive

As a long-time Dell EMC customer, we did look at Pure Storage as well, but we ended up sticking with Dell.

We had a Professional Services engagement that helped with the installing and configuration of Dell PowerStore. My experience with Professional Services for Dell PowerStore was good, smooth, and without problems.

The return on investment from Dell PowerStore has been as expected.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate Dell PowerStore an eight overall.

For customers who are looking for a unified solution where they want a mixture of block and file systems, Dell PowerStore would be the right fit. Customers can have an array based on flash and also on spinning disk, depending on what kind of workloads they want to run. For example, if they want to do video surveillance systems, we can propose the Dell PowerStore that has only spinning disk, which they can capitalize on capacity because of the video images and related content.

One of our customers is a bank that has Dell PowerStore. Initially, before implementing Dell PowerStore, their transactions were slow, and they received many complaints from their customers regarding data access speed and backup initiation times. 

After implementing Dell PowerStore storage, the performance became exceptional, and customers started to notice improvements in system access. The internal team was very satisfied with the storage performance, and customers are providing positive feedback about Dell PowerStore storage.

The storage for Dell PowerStore has been performing well overall. The only improvement that might be required, though not significantly, relates to the features that allow for support, specifically the call home features.

I have been working with Dell PowerStore for over five years, while also dealing with IBM, Lenovo, Dell, and NetApp systems.

The technical support from Dell PowerStore has been very good. I would rate them eight out of ten.

Positive

We are a partner for Dell, IBM, Lenovo, and Huawei. Dell PowerStore is a good storage solution that I can place in the top five. It has excellent features, and given the opportunity, I would position Dell PowerStore first in a customer environment.

Unless customers specify otherwise, I prefer to position Dell PowerStore over other storage solutions because of its simplicity in deployment, management, and support. It has been very easy to expand in terms of scaling up and scaling out. The process is seamless as you don't need to take the whole storage down to add additional storage space. It's simply a matter of bringing in expansion, connecting it, and then adding space into the existing storage.

Dell PowerStore is highly recommendable due to its anti-ransomware features, which many customers appreciate. When creating snapshots of data that can be immutable, it prevents unauthorized access to the content. These security features make Dell PowerStore a preferred choice for many customers.

On a scale of 1-10, this solution rates 8.5.

We have used Dell PowerStore for service and storage needs, emphasizing products like VxRail, PowerStore, and our series rack mount servers.

Dell PowerStore offers good value for money and some feature scalability that is better than other products.

Dell PowerStore has good value for money and some scalability features that are better than other products.

Dell PowerStore doesn't really have a lot of advantages over other products. It has no special features technically. Other products have better management and analytics features. HP emphasizes much better analytical features.

I have used Dell PowerStore for a couple of years, probably about five years.

Dell PowerStore is reasonably priced and scales reasonably well. You don't really need to do much maintenance work on it, and it's not different from any other array.

Dell PowerStore's scalability features are better than those of other products. However, there are other products that are better overall.

HP is superior in analytics, while Dell is superior in scalability. It depends on which model of array you're talking about.

Dell PowerStore is pretty set and forget. It takes a while to install, but it's not overly complex.

Dell PowerStore offers good value for money.

Dell PowerStore is reasonably good value for money. There's nothing special about it technically compared to other products.

HP emphasizes much better analytical features compared to Dell.

I'd rate the solution five out of ten.

It is our primary storage. We have two appliances.

It's very easy to use. It's very easy to manage. We did not find any difficulties in terms of management. Its benefits were visible from the start.

It's good storage. The hardware is decent. It's doing its job.

It's easy to use and manage. It's compatible with our infrastructure. We don't have an issue in terms of compatibility, usage, and support.

We find NAS to be the most impactful feature of Dell PowerStore. The compression and deduplication technology is very important and essential, and this was one of the reasons that we decided to go with Dell PowerStore. 

In future updates, I would like to see more AI functionality plus a good integration with OneDrive.

We have been using Dell PowerMax in our organization for approximately seven years. Dell PowerStore has been in use for approximately two to three years.

It is stable. We have no issues with it.

I would evaluate Dell Technologies' service and technical support as very good and very responsive.

Positive

We have been using Dell PowerMax. We had a requirement for additional storage and decided not to expand Dell PowerMax because of the pricing. We decided to have new storage with Dell PowerStore.

It was very easy to deploy, and there was no challenge. It took two to three days to deploy.

Three people took part in the deployment process.

Dell PowerStore has helped to reduce our organization's capital expenditures.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use Dell PowerStore for our local operations and as a backup service that we provide. We use it for some VMware, but it's primarily for backups. 

Dell PowerStore has provided us with a lot of disk space that is easy to handle. The solution has also helped reduce our organizational footprint by about 50 percent. We have six units. That's less than what used to be on the rack. 

The platform's reliability and built-in replication between disk systems have made our customers happy. It has worked consistently well over the years.

The previous version of Dell PowerStore we used was easier to use compared to the current one. They have made it more cumbersome to handle, although it still works. It has become more complicated to manage.

We have been using Dell PowerStore for the last five years.

Dell PowerStore is stable. We haven't had any issues with it.

Scalability with Dell PowerStore is probably good, but we haven't had the opportunity to increase disk space as we have not needed it beyond our initial purchase.

I rate Dell support nine out of 10. We have not needed much support from Dell since the solution has been working well. 

Positive

We transitioned from a system called EcoLogic, which was another Dell solution. We started with EcoLogic about 20 years ago and switched to Dell PowerStore about six years ago because EcoLogic was no longer available. We needed new disks because our old ones were wearing out. PowerEdge was priced well.

The pricing structure and licensing model of Dell PowerStore are very good and I like it. We chose it because it was reasonably priced and met our requirements.

We considered other disk systems, but they were too expensive.

I rate Dell PowerEdge Servers nine out of 10. They do their job and cause us no problems. 

I can't think of anything to improve Dell PowerStore because when it comes to storage, I don't want to have to troubleshoot it or deal with it unless I'm deploying a new volume or deploying something. That's one of the reasons why I love PowerProtect - if I didn't save the password in a password manager, I would forget what the admin login is, because I never have to log into it and troubleshoot it at all. It just works. It is very resilient, and that's my favorite thing about it. 

I evaluate storage reliability performance by noting that I'm the one who would have to troubleshoot or fix something, and with Dell PowerStore, I never have to log into it, which is awesome. 

I've never had to contact support, which is one of the reasons why I love it. I don't want to constantly have issues with something, so I can dedicate my time to something else that's not just fixing what we have.

One improvement I would suggest relates to the service that pings Dell when there's an issue. I would say it needs to be more transparent. 

Dell has always been good to us, even though we're not a massive company. While we are a global company, in terms of employees, we're not that huge. Dell has always been good to us, and we never felt they looked down on us because we're under a thousand employees.

Positive

That's one of the big reasons why we're here, so we can find how we can start utilizing AI for our business, that's not just asking ChatGPT to make a report for us or something. Dell PowerStore is my baby.