Dell PowerStore Reviews

We are resellers and Dell partners, so we install Dell PowerStore for our customers.

The most valuable feature of Dell PowerStore is its easy-to-use feature, specifically the simplicity. What makes Dell PowerStore simple is that users don't have to worry about the storage group; they just set up the storage and are ready to go without worrying about which kind of RAID group to set up or the protection of this group, as everything is managed by the storage itself.

The first benefit of Dell PowerStore for my company is the speed and low latency with low latency working workload of the storage. The second feature is the security, because it has Secure Snapshot and other security features, ensuring the data is fast and protected in a good way.

I would improve Dell PowerStore by enhancing the replication feature because currently, users are limited to one applier, from one cluster, a Dell PowerStore cluster, to another Dell PowerStore cluster, but are not able to configure a three-site scenario. 

The second improvement would be to enable quantification of the snapshot footprint. 

The replication feature mentioned is what I find missing in Dell PowerStore.

I have been using the product for about four years.

The overall stability and reliability of Dell PowerStore is very good because I perform many upgrades without any downtime.

The solution is scalable. Dell PowerStore has features that specifically cater to the needs of small or medium business organizations because users can choose small size disks that are scalable to the smaller size of some companies.

I would evaluate customer service and tech support as fair. Nine out of ten times when I open a case, it's solved in the right time and in the right way, but there could be one out of ten times when it takes longer than expected.

Positive

Before using Dell PowerStore, I used Compellent, which is the generation before Dell PowerStore. It still has some features that are not included in Dell PowerStore, but I hope that the gap will disappear in time.

For lower budget needs, I have considered other solutions that aren't Dell, such as ME products, which are the main two products we use, choosing the right one with the right budget.

Dell PowerStore has grown with my company. We already have some customers who buy upgrades to their storage, in terms of expanding the size or buying new models. 

Dell PowerStore has supported our growth and operational success by providing a deeper discount, which is great from a selling point of view. We also received a demo unit, which is a storage we can use in a customer environment without any strings attached, so the customer can try the product before buying.

My advice to organizations considering Dell PowerStore is to start small because from both the perspective of speed and space, you probably don't need to buy a bigger Dell PowerStore because the performance is already there, even in the lower products. 

For space, you can always expand the one you have, so don't buy too much space, but the right amount for you at that time, and then expand if you need.

I would rate the overall Dell PowerStore product an eight out of ten.

I use Dell PowerStore for SAP and some databases along with a file server.

The best features of Dell PowerStore that I appreciate the most are its efficiency, as I can provide sufficient space due to data reduction and compression, and the performance, which is adequate according to our applications.

These two aspects are very beneficial for me where we are getting good performance and space as well.

Dell PowerStore has helped my organization improve operational efficiency by providing proper performance for whatever application a customer uses, making it easy for our production environment.

I can say that nowadays, Dell PowerStore is giving very good performance and fulfilling the requirements of the customer.

After Unity, I think it is a very good product.

As of now, I do not have anything specific that comes to mind regarding room for improvement, but I can say some AI improvements would be welcome.

Otherwise, I think it is good because we continue to get updates and improvements in storage features and efficiency.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for the last two years.

I would rate the stability of Dell PowerStore a ten out of ten.

Dell PowerStore is very easy to expand, and I would rate it a ten out of ten.

There is some maintenance required for Dell PowerStore, and my sales and procurement teams are working with Dell for the new storage.

Currently, we have some requirements in place, and they are working on that.

Due to SSDs, the workload performance by Dell PowerStore is boosting, so it is good.

My experience with technical support has been very good, and I would give it a ten out of ten.

Positive

The deployment of Dell PowerStore is easy because I am already working with it, so it is easy for me.

The deployment duration varies depending on the requirements, but if I talk about the configuration of storage for Dell PowerStore, then it takes hardly two days.

The pricing of Dell PowerStore is cost-efficient.

Comparing Dell PowerStore with other IT solutions and vendors on the market, it is a really good product.

If I compare it with NetApp storage, HP, or any other vendor, I am getting a very good result from Dell PowerStore, so it is good for me, and I prefer this.

I am using the 500T model of Dell PowerStore, and currently, I have around five or six PowerStore appliances.

I am using multiple Dell PowerStore appliances.

It is very easy for me to move and optimize workloads within clusters, but I am not taking care of all the parts because some of the parts are managed by another team, such as configuration and integration with VMware.

I cannot provide more information on that part.

I think more than five thousand users use the solution because I am utilizing it in five or six sites.

Currently, I do not have the option to consolidate any data.

Dell PowerStore's compression and deduplication technologies are very important because earlier we were not using these technologies, but nowadays they are very efficient.

For example, if I purchase ten terabytes or one hundred terabytes, I can allocate around three hundred, four hundred terabytes, or five hundred terabytes.

This is very good, and I appreciate these features, which is why this technology is moving in a different way.

I find Dell PowerStore easy to use.

Due to security reasons, we are not using Dell PowerStore APEX AI because our storage environment is totally disconnected from internet connectivity.

Currently, we are not using it, even though we have approached the end customer, but they have not allowed it.

I suggest enrollment in the lifecycle extension, but for lifecycle, either replacement or upgrade, there is another team handling that.

I utilize the built-in integration with VMware.

Built-in integrations are important for my organization because all of my applications and production are running there.

I would recommend this product because I prefer it, so it is definitely preferable for me.

I would rate this review a ten out of ten.

The main use cases for Dell PowerStore involve using it for applications that are compute and storage-sensitive. It is mainly the monitoring system that has a heavy load. Other than that, there are some critical internal applications that cannot have any time drift. 

One of the specific challenges we are trying to address is migrating from our existing infrastructure. The power consumption isn't entirely dependent on Dell PowerStore, but when it comes to heavy applications, the power consumption goes high. We have a Dell PowerStore at three or four sites right now. We are trying to see if we can roll it out to another three to five sites. 

We have about five Dell PowerStore appliances, and we are using the 500T model.

Dell PowerStore's compression and deduplication technologies are a big help for our organization. It's saving us a lot of storage compared to what we were previously using. We are transitioning from a typical infrastructure to a cloud-native infrastructure. It is helping us move applications to a containerized environment and getting the performance we need.

Its pricing is good when compared with what we were paying for the previous storage appliance and other things. We now have everything together. The management is pretty easy for us. A new person can easily understand it. It works very well for our mission-critical applications that can't have any delays.

Dell PowerStore’s data resiliency and cybersecurity features meet our organization's needs. 

The specific features of Dell PowerStore that I find the most impactful for our organization include using it for our NAS and SAN storage, which is a relief for us. It's natively supported with our VMware infrastructure. We are still trying to figure out how we can utilize it more. Due to the low latency on IOPS, it helps us with our critical apps that cannot afford delays. It decreases the number of incidents. The IOPS part works out well for us. 

The management UI is pretty decent and gets the job done, but the upgrade process is challenging. 

I've been working with Dell PowerStore for a year and a half.

I haven't had any performance issues with Dell PowerStore so far. 

Scalability is something we are looking at. Hopefully, we can get it in a cluster formation. At the moment, we are seeing if we can get it to a point where we do not have to interact with it every day.

We have more than 2,000 users and 11 people working with Dell PowerStore.

Dell's technical support is good. Dell has always been helpful for technical support. I didn't personally have a chance to open a case with them for Dell PowerStore, but my colleague did, and he had a good experience with them. We struggled a bit due to our time zone differences because the site we purchased it for is not in India; it's in the EU. That was the only thing that we struggled with a bit. Otherwise, the support has been good.

Positive

We used Pure Storage. We transitioned to Dell PowerStore because, with the VMs that we were running, Pure Storage used to crash. It was a pretty old solution. It hadn't been changed for a while, so the decision was made to go with Dell PowerStore.

The initial setup of Dell PowerStore was straightforward. It was pretty easy for us to set up. It took two to three days, maximum, to deploy Dell PowerStore in one location.

The migration part was a bit daunting for us. We had to move our existing data from one appliance to another.

In terms of maintenance, we haven't had any failed hard drives. It has been running fine. We just have to do maintenance every six months and make sure that the BIOS and firmware are up to date.

It required three people for deployment: one for the physical work and two engineers for migrating and managing our data.

In the long term, Dell PowerStore will help reduce our organization's CAPEX, but right now, it is a pretty hefty investment for our team.

The pricing structure and licensing model of Dell PowerStore are pretty decent. It's pretty competitive. The pricing has never been an issue, and it's fairly good. We are getting NVMe drives, so it's better than the market.

We considered distributed storage options such as Cohesity for storage solutions. We probably also checked HyperFlex with Nutanix.

Dell PowerStore's UI is good. The upgrade process is a bit complex, but there are no performance issues. Dell's hardware has always been pretty solid.

We have the VMware ecosystem and KVM. We have multiple OS running. We are looking into using it as a backup solution. We are thinking of replacing our existing storage infrastructure and have our backup solution running on Dell PowerStore.

It's a pretty reliable solution if someone's looking for a total replacement of their existing infrastructure. It's pretty easy to implement. That's one of the pros we've seen personally. It's a straightforward product, and there's not much hassle. 

I would rate Dell PowerStore an eight out of ten.

My current use cases for Dell PowerStore mostly involve VDI and Virtual Desktop Interface connections.

We are almost at the point of using approximately 20 Dell PowerStore appliances as separate systems, and we are using it for disaster recovery as well. We have replication and everything set up with that.

Dell PowerStore is a mid-range product that can suit small companies and provides good IOPS and performance. The relatively small setup we have with Dell PowerStore works well for mid-range customers and some high-end customers as well. If they want to separate workloads accordingly, they can go with it.

We do use Dell PowerStore's data resiliency and cybersecurity features for authentication, and we are using SSO and all those things. Dell PowerStore is quite resilient, and we have not seen any kind of corruption.

Dell PowerStore is expandable up to only three expansion modules. If you want to increase the capacity, we cannot go beyond three enclosures. One is a base enclosure and there are three expansion enclosures. I think Dell PowerStore could add some more expansion enclosures, perhaps seven to eight, to get more capacity.

With CloudIQ, I have seen that when we get access to it, we do not see all the products that we have in CloudIQ. We have to struggle a lot to get access to CloudIQ because it is managed by Dell.

We have not tried using Anytime Upgrade (Lifecycle Extension) from Dell as of now. We are doing an upgrade but not using that Anytime Upgrade, as we have a planned one.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for the last two years in my career overall.

A firmware upgrade can take around three to four hours, and no downtime is needed. I have seen issues where the node gets crashed and the replacement is needed for hardware. That will be as per the plan and as per the organization policy.

We are not clustering multiple Dell PowerStore appliances.

I have contacted Dell's customer support or technical support. Earlier the quality of support was excellent, but now it has deteriorated. We do not get quick support, and we have to wait longer to get the support.

Negative

I have used alternatives to Dell PowerStore, such as IBM FS 7300 and other solutions.

IBM is a hybrid solution, whereas Dell PowerStore is completely flash-based. Dell PowerStore is more performance-driven, providing more performance.

Dell PowerStore is pretty easy to install. It comes with a pre-installed operating system itself. You just need to plug it in and plug it into the network, configure IP addresses, and handle a few basic things.

Setup can take approximately three hours minimum for a new client.

One person in the data center can manage the setup.

Maintenance for Dell PowerStore includes a maintenance contract with Dell. However, some issues during troubleshooting require reaching out to Dell.

Dell PowerStore management capabilities are pretty easy to use and user-friendly. I would rate this review a 9.

My use cases with Dell PowerStore revolve around the fact that all our infrastructure is on Dell PowerStore. Everything related to virtualization infrastructure, including all our applications and VMs, runs on Dell PowerStore.

A feature that I particularly appreciate about Dell PowerStore is RecoverPoint for VM. What makes RecoverPoint for VM special compared to others is that it solves our DRP issues much better. We do not have to purchase another solution, which is very beneficial.

Dell PowerStore improves my organization in general as we are more confident regarding DRP tests and regulations that require us to have a DRP plan. Today we can carry out these tests without any problem and actually meet those requirements.

What I do not prefer as a feature of Dell PowerStore, or what should be improved, is more on the storage side, but not the computing. On the storage side, the management of the deduplication and compression ratio should be enhanced. Artificial intelligence has been implemented, but it is not sufficient yet and is not top tier.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for more than fifteen years, approximately twenty years.

I have experienced some issues, downtime, and outages with Dell PowerStore, as we have had quite a few issues related to storage and resilience. These issues are more related to the configuration of our virtualization infrastructure, especially the ESXi we have today, particularly when we perform updates and upgrades. However, we are supported by Dell, so the outages are limited in duration.

In terms of scalability, I can scale and grow easily with this solution. Since we are moving towards AI today, Dell PowerStore can be a major player in transforming the current infrastructure we have.

I have contacted Dell support once or twice for issues related to volume on the storage side.

The interaction with Dell support went well. We had some communication challenges initially, but those were resolved.

The issues were resolved in the end, and I would rate customer support as an eight on a scale from one to ten.

Positive

Before adopting Dell PowerStore, I considered other solutions such as Equinix and IBM.

The system deployment experience with Dell PowerStore was that we were supported by another company, Axians, who assisted us. The deployment was smooth and transparent for us, particularly since we were coming from another environment in a migration scenario.

I have seen a return on investment since adopting Dell PowerStore. We have already reached the return on investment with the current infrastructure, so the ROI is good.

My impression of the price and licenses for Dell PowerStore is that we are satisfied. I hope this will not change drastically in the future, but today we are satisfied as it fits within our budget.

I chose Dell PowerStore for the relationship and because they responded to the RFP. They are the ones who meet our needs.

The AI initiative is important for me as artificial intelligence helps optimize workloads and storage, and by extension, helps save money.

I have performance metrics that tell me whether Dell PowerStore is working well, and it performs very well. We are happy.

Dell PowerStore fits my organization's growth fundamentally, providing an infrastructure that supports our expansion. My overall rating for this product is eight out of ten.

We use Dell PowerStore for backup and for database use in the pharmacy industry. We are not clustering a lot of appliances together with Dell PowerStore. Dell PowerStore helps us consolidate 100% of our data, and we have a backup contracting in the cloud.

Next year, we are planning to make a recovery station with Dell PowerStore, a power station located in another province, another state of Argentina. We are building the premise right now to locate the server in this location. We can use all Dell servers to make a recovery station for data and applications.

The features I like most about Dell PowerStore are the reliability, the time, and the performance. Reliability is very, very, very good.

The environment control in our data center affects Dell PowerStore servers significantly, as we have the servers in conditions required for humidity, temperature, and dust to be very controlled. When the servers are under these conditions, they are durable and predictable. We have a new UPS and controller supply for the current to the servers with filters, and it works very well with Schneider UPS.

We are not currently using deduplication or compression technologies with Dell PowerStore, and at this moment, we have no data about the technology from the recovery technology. In the next month, we might have a decision on the technology to be used. We have SAP offering tools for backing up the databases, and we might be using the SAP tools.

I have four years of experience with Dell PowerStore.

My experience with Dell helping me set up is very good, and the servers are very hard to break. It is a good machine to do the job.

I do not have the exact data on the ability to add capacity in single drive increments versus the drive packs with Dell PowerStore. If you would like, you can send me an email with the precise data and I will reply as soon as I have the exact models and capacities.

I would rate Dell support for Dell PowerStore as a ten, but we have support via a dealer in Cordoba, from five hundred kilometers from Tucumán. We have a contract service based on demand. The basic maintenance is done in-house, and it is very easy, just the filters. The software maintenance is contracted; for SAP, it is contracted via a consulting firm, and for Oracle, it is contracted via a supplier in Austria. All third-party. The little parts are maintained in-house. We do not have a contract with Dell directly, only through a representative.

Positive

The company evaluated changing to IBM, but IBM was discarded, and we bought a new set of servers four months ago. The decision to discard IBM as a potential replacement was primarily economically driven, and the technology involved in the IBM servers is not what we are familiar with. We are using SAP in ERP and using a version, a special version of Linux and Oracle in some parts of the business. Migrating the data, the server, and the application to another server with IBM is very hard. IBM is a good server, just not for us. Another industry might be better, but for us, Dell is better. Dell is a little more economical, not so expensive, and the service contract with IBM is very expensive from Argentina, and the ROI is better in Dell.

The initial setup of Dell PowerStore was contracted to a consulting firm from Dell directly, and the server was configured remotely.

The price of Dell PowerStore is balanced in cost versus performance. The quality should not be compromised for the price. You get what you pay for.

I do not have the model of Dell PowerStore in mind right now. I do not have data on using the lifecycle extension to upgrade to a next-generation product. My experience with Dell PowerStore deployment is that it is very easy. I would rate this review an eight overall.

As the administrator for Dell PowerStore, I manage its functions and ensure it operates smoothly. Dell PowerStore provides the storage for all the services we have, so every server gets its disks from there. It has a nice interface and is easy to manage.

The upgrade runs quite well, except that when it shuts down one head, it then says you cannot get in here. You just have to know that you have to log in via the other head, otherwise you stand there for three quarters of an hour wondering if it is still there or if it is coming back. Dell PowerStore is fast storage and easy to administer. I would like to be able to do more on the CLI, but I have other systems where you can do that.

What differentiates Dell PowerStore from other storage solutions is that it has become simpler and more autonomous over time. Earlier, you would say you need a RAID group with a certain number of disks in a specific RAID configuration. Today you say you need a LUN size of a certain amount, and the system does everything in the background, which makes it much easier.

Where Dell in general could be more open is an area where Dell PowerStore could be improved. I have competition in-house where you can only work on the CLI if you really want to do it well, and that is more fun as an admin. However, the nice thing about the simple interface is that you can also hand it to someone who is not deeply involved.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for six and a half years.

Dell PowerStore is great in terms of stability and reliability. Even if something fails, it is really quick to swap it out. If you have virtualization layers on top, such as VPLEX, you can work on the other side and maintain the machine in peace. There are crashes from time to time. We had a controller problem once where something broke. A DIMM was defective, so the controller had to be shut down and removed, but the other controller kept running. If you do that at a time when there is not much load, then it is fine.

Scaling in terms of disks is always possible. Dell PowerStore grows well with company needs because you can cluster them so that you can put them together under one interface. You can just put a second one next to the first one, link it to the other one, and then it is basically a single system to administer.

It depends on the topic you submit regarding Dell support. I have not had any problems with Dell PowerStore, but there are other products where it sometimes gets stuck, though that is not Dell PowerStore support's fault. On a scale of one to ten for support, I would give it a nine. That is typically German; we do not give a ten, so the Americans will have to live with that.

Positive

I have worked with VNX, Unity, and XtremIO, so the whole EMC range. Before deciding on Dell PowerStore, I should note that the previous company had Dell PowerStore. They also had other solutions including XtremIO and Unity, and as Unity evolved, Dell PowerStore came along. Because people were satisfied with those products and I was very familiar with them, we decided to stick with it. At my current company, they also looked at other things, and at the company where I was before that, they also looked at various solutions. However, it is often the case that Dell, or rather the former EMC products, is what people knew and had been happy with for years. Honestly, people are usually too comfortable to switch to a completely different vendor when they do not know what they are buying there.

I took part in installing and configuring Dell PowerStore, including cabling, configuring, bringing it up for the first time, and doing upgrades. I took part in everything I could, and it actually runs quite well.

We do not yet know how Dell PowerStore plays a role in our company's AI initiatives. We had a meeting about a month ago with our sales representative, Dominik Nitsche, who is responsible for us. He was there with his colleagues, and they presented the HCI model again, where you can choose which hypervisor runs on it, and Dell PowerStore would be underneath. In case we decide we would like to try that out, Dell PowerStore would be in play with us again. I do not have much involvement with Dell PowerStore's pricing and licensing because I am just the admin and not the one who has to buy it. I give this review an overall rating of ten out of ten.

We use Dell PowerStore for storage management. We are using the 500T model. We have a standalone box and are not currently clustering multiple appliances.

The management portal is particularly user-friendly. We can access it easily, and the management software is not complicated.

With the recent firmware upgrade, we have a feature to restrict the bandwidth and throughput specifically for the volume.

The compression and deduplication that Dell PowerStore offers is performing well, especially compared to our previous storage solutions. We are achieving approximately a 2.8:1 ratio.

One suggestion for improvement would be related to volume management by both controllers. Currently, a volume is managed by a single controller, with alternate controllers managing different volumes based on load distribution. For example, if volume one is managed by controller one, volume two will be managed by controller two. In other vendors' solutions, both controllers participate in the I/Os. It would be more efficient if the volumes were controlled by both controllers in an active-active configuration.

The firmware upgrade takes longer than the other boxes. It should be better.

We have been using Dell PowerStore for three years.

I would rate the stability of the product at eight out of ten.

We experienced some concerns during a previous firmware upgrade when the controllers became unresponsive, which affected operations.

We have not performed any online scaling or scale-out operations as we use a simple standalone box. However, I believe the scalability features would be good, though I cannot speak from direct experience.

We have about 1,000 users.

I would rate the technical support a seven out of ten.

Neutral

We have NetApp AFF400, which is also good. However, since Dell PowerStore is a mid-range storage solution, it cannot be directly compared with our enterprise storage solutions. We use CloudIQ with Dell PowerStore.

It is easy. It took about a week.

We are not using ransomware protection. It is enabled in the new code, but we are not using any ransomware protection. We take a snapshot for any protection.

It is user-friendly, so we can easily manage storage. Many features are there. Compression is good, and the data configuration is good. 

I would rate Dell PowerStore an eight out of ten.