Dell PowerStore Reviews

We use Dell PowerStore for virtualization.

Our customers implement PowerStore for its performance and the possibility to utilize AI in the future.

CloudIQ improves efficiency by allowing our customers to manage their systems from one place.

PowerStore does not consume a lot of power which is great for our enterprise customers but in Italy, our customers are usually small and medium businesses and are not too concerned about the power consumption because they only run two PowerStores.

Some of our customers have seen PowerStore's four-to-one data reduction. This has reduced our customer's footprint by three to one.

The most valuable feature is the functionality of the integration between the storage and the domain. Also, the possibility of having snapshots and synchronous replication is valuable. This is helpful for our enterprise customers because they need to replicate their data.

The most important thing is for Dell RND to continue to be innovative. 

Dell PowerStore currently only allows us to copy data from our main production system to the disaster recovery site. Dell PowerStore needs to add two-way replication to include data from the DR to the production site.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for four years.

Dell PowerStore is stable.

Dell PowerStore scalability is good because we can change parts and the controller if required. The parts are swappable.

We have used the technical support and professional services of Dell. They have been good to work with.

Positive

I have also worked with HP and IBM storage solutions but most of my customers are already Dell users and prefer PowerStore.

Although I don't have direct experience with the deployment, our technician has told me it is simple and can be done with a few clicks.

Our customers see a return on investment in terms of time savings because the setup is simple. The initial cost may be higher for PowerStore than some others but the life cycle is longer which makes up for it.

The price is right. The software features are included in the pricing without any additional purchase requirements.

I would rate Dell PowerStore nine out of ten.

We usually use Dell PowerStore in enterprise environments like banks and financial insurance companies that use it for their core banking.  

Dell PowerStore improves our customer's resilience. Working in this mission-critical infrastructure is one of the most important features.

CloudIQ is a friendly interface where we can manage and expand on different solutions from one place.

Dell Technologies' ESG values are one of the most important factors in our customer's decisions. They are more focused on a friendly environment than other aspects and Dell is a step ahead of other vendors when it comes to this.

From my position as CEO, no feature was required by our customer specifications that PowerStore does not cover. It can address all of the requirements.

The cybersecurity world is developing quickly and the integration with storage solutions is important. Dell is ahead of other competitors in basic cyber resilience.

Our last PowerStore implementation has reduced our customers' footprint by up to 80 percent by replacing other technology like IBM. This was an important feature for our customer because their space in the data center was limited and this represented a huge improvement for them.

For our customers who require the data reduction guarantee, we can offer that commitment with Dell's support. Dell backs this guarantee for our critical accounts and global accounts where these requirements are important to be reached. 

The most valuable features of Dell PowerStore are the resilience, scalability, flexibility of expansion, and ease of managing the entire solution including the servers and storage.

There is an issue with Dell PowerStore related to future expansions which are software-related. This caused some issues with my largest customer in Romania. Hopefully, the new model will increase performance making it more efficient. 

I have been using Dell PowerStore for eight years.

Dell PowerStore is stable.

Dell PowerStore is scalable.

The Dell customer support is responsive.

Positive

My team has good experience deploying PowerStore because they have been working in this area for many years. Our customers are happy with our implementation services.

We implement the solution for our customers.

It is easy to work with Dell from the licensing perspective. I hope they will keep this part as it is not moving very fast into the subscription because, in some accounts, this can generate a big disruption. Especially in the public sector. From that perspective, the licensing flexibility that Dell offers is bigger than other vendors.

From the technological perspective, PowerStore and other vendors like HP always have good technology. The biggest difference is the way we implement it. We are more confident implementing PowerStore and usually working with global customers. That means for us, it's easy, and we are very confident when we implement this type of solution compared with other vendors. But from a technical perspective, other vendors like HP also offer good technology.

I would rate Dell PowerStore nine out of ten.

In terms of power consumption, I don't see a difference in the amount of power Dell PowerStore consumes compared to other vendors.

We use Dell PowerStore as a storage layer behind the virtualization layer. We have IBM SCC and we have the PowerStore behind that to serve the discs to the SCC and the SCC then presents it to the hosts in the network.

The high deduplication ratio means that we need less physical storage space. As a result, we have more virtual storage space available to assign to our servers. We have not encountered any problems with the system so far. Therefore, the system is better in terms of both performance and storage efficiency.

The compression ratio is way better with PowerStore. We were getting a ratio of 1:3 and now it is around 1:6. The compression ratio has doubled.

Dell's values around ESG are high and they have been working on those areas throughout the years.

We noticed that the PowerStore has a really high compression ratio for data. It's really good for data deduplication and also compressing the data on the drives. The PowerStore's compression ratio is even higher than the Unity system. Also, the way the PowerStore is built with special CPUs for moving data around. The systems also have lower CPU utilization compared to Unity systems.

In the past, with Unity, we could run both block storage and configure part of the system as a NAS system. This wasn't ideal, but it provided flexibility. With PowerStore, we have to choose between block storage and NAS functionality. It would be interesting to retain the option to configure PowerStore as a block storage array and try out the NAS features to see how it performs. It was an interesting way to see if we need a certain type of storage. We were able to do that from the same system, and now we have queues when we set up the system, which one it's convenient.

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

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

Dell PowerStore is scalable but we are not using the scalability of the system.

The technical support is always quick to respond. They are always willing to help us and if necessary, they will search for a specialist within their Dell network who we can approach with our questions.

Positive

We replaced Dell VNX with Dell PowerStore.

The deployment is really easy. If we have a PowerStore and we buy another and arrange all the necessary factors that need to be available in the data center, including cabling, power, and configuration details such as IP addresses and DNS names, it's simple to roll out, and it doesn't take much effort to place it in our data center and have it up and running. It takes a few hours of work if we have done all the prep work to get it up and running.

I would rate Dell PowerStore ten out of ten.

Prior to my joining the organization, they used Hitachi and transitioned to Dell due to cost considerations.

We haven't implemented the latest code yet, but we attended a session at the beginning of the day where they mentioned that backups can now be moved directly to the data domain from the power store. This is an interesting development, as it opens up new possibilities for backup management. For instance, we could now consider placing backup clients on a machine that is specifically designed for this purpose.

Dell PowerStore is doing what it's supposed to do, and it's even doing it better than we were expecting.

It's a good product, especially for companies dealing with virtualization. It's well-suited for a broad range of use cases and stands out when it comes to tasks like personalization. If you require power and flexibility in that regard, it's a reasonably priced, straightforward product that is easy to manage. It delivers on its promises without unnecessary complexity.

A particularly valuable feature is its simplicity. The reporting tools and support are good, and the solution promotes data reduction, often meeting the compression ratio. You can initially invest in less upfront capacity and expand later as needed.

Data reduction needs improvement. While the reporting is generally good for general purposes, it may lack sufficient detail for more technical analysis. If you want to delve into where your I/Os are going, the reporting might need more in-depth information to make informed decisions.

I’ve been using the solution for around three years.

The solution is scalable within regions. It allows you to scale up to four nodes in one tool for extensive storage. You can create as many tools as needed, providing scalability based on the use case. It performs well for midsized use cases, especially those involving up to a hundred servers for virtualization. However, you might consider alternative products for more complex and larger-scale operations.

The technical support is good as they continuously monitor the system remotely through a support agent. This agent provides critical alerts, and the response time is typically within an hour.

The initial setup is straightforward. Firstly, the initial step involves unboxing, followed by configuring connectivity. There are various types of connectivity setups, including straight connectivity, direct connect, and private channel connectivity, offering diverse IT capacity configurations. The setup process encompasses unboxing, provisioning power, and connecting to the necessary switches. However, it's crucial to begin with a well-thought-out plan. One person is required to set up the solution.

The pricing is good. There's no need to pay for a license; it's all-inclusive. The only cost is associated with a support contract based on the level of support you desire.

I recommend this solution, especially if you're not moving everything to the cloud and require reliable local storage. It proves to be an excellent choice.

I rate Dell PowerStore a nine out of ten.
 

Typically, the customer uses it and we manage it. We primarily use it to host the sub server.

snapshot policy you can take a versions as a backup in less than seconds and quickly created volumes from snapshot provide more flexibility and fast provisioning 
compression and deduplication of overall hosted data maximize the benefits from the actual physical size with a ratio of 1:3 at least.

The usage of the system is very straightforward. It is simple and easy to use.

It has great snapshots. I can take a million snapshots and also schedule the timing.

There is no complicated configuration for queries and calls. You just create a model and go.

This generation of the product, overall, has been very nice. 

It is stable.

The solution can scale. 

There are a lot of features in IBM that we'd like to see in PowerStore as well. It has more deduplication and compression processes, all the storage, so that they do not depend on the tool embedded in the cluster. 

The pricing could be lower. It is very expensive.

I've been using the solution for at least six months. 

The stability is good. It is reliable. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's been perfect so far.

The solution can scale. We can attach an expansion as needed. So far, seeing as how I haven't collected all of the information in regard to scaling, I'd rate it seven out of ten.

We have three storage admins. The customer likely exceeds 20,000 users globally.

The client does not have plans to increase usage at this time. 

I've contacted technical support, They are fine. They are helpful and responsive. 

Positive

We have received a new storage device from HP. It is MSA storage.

While I did not see the deployment, my understanding is that it is easy.

The price is very, very expensive. It is more expensive than IBM, for example. Likely the cost is $400,000 whereas IBM may be $250,000. This is a one-time payment to buy the device. There are no subscription costs. There are no other costs for support.

We've looked into IBM SS7 300 as well. I'd recommend it as it has many abilities. It can carry some uploads from storage clusters. 

We are service providers.

The solution is on-premises at our company and we manage it for the customer remotely via a private cloud.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We use private cloud solutions. We have 80-plus setups, and PowerStore is in all of our smaller sites for databases, backups, and VM instances.

We implemented PowerStore for its reliability. We know what we get with it and have specific requirements for uptime.

Dell PowerStore has improved our uptime. The availability is excellent. We had different Dell EMC storage solutions since the beginning of our company and with PowerStore we have had zero incidents.

PowerStore helps reduce our footprint. For example, if we compare it with Dell VNX storage, we need up to four times less space for the same if not more terabytes. The ratio for PowerStore may even be higher than four to one because the last time we compared the compression rate, it was four point six to one. 

PowerStore's compression ratio is a valuable feature for our VMs because it gives us a lot back. It is also easily configurable and we have it fully automated, so the API helps a lot.

We got our first Dell PowerStore for testing before it was listed as a product.

Dell PowerStore is stable.

Dell PowerStore is scalable but we did our analysis at the start and have not needed to scale. We replace the storage after five years. 

The technical support is good.

Positive

We previously used VNX, VNX2, Unity, and at some point EMC XtremIO. We didn't like the XtremIO because it had an incident. We replaced the VNX and Unity storage with PowerStore because it is the newer generation that offers more space and IOPS.

We are currently using Dell PowerStore for our smaller storage and there is no competition for pricing. If we needed a larger PowerStore say, a petabyte of storage, then the price would be in a different range and would increase.

I would rate Dell PowerStore nine out of ten. I have no negative feedback. PowerStore performs as expected.

We do not use CloudIQ. We use a special custom in-house tool to analyze all of our storage which gets all the statistics through an API.

We have our own small private cloud setup and each site has its own PowerStore. Nothing is shared over the network. We have one storage per physical location.

I recommend using Dell's professional services for the initial setup. We gained valuable information from them that helped with all follow-up deployments.

We are especially active in the mid-market and use Dell PowerStore for block storage situations and general-purpose storage platforms.

PowerStore was the promise our customers needed to go further with the evolution of technology. It is also a platform with container architecture that is up to date with actual technology requirements. That is important to our customers.

CloudIQ provides us with one cloud-based platform and integration with APIs. It is a must-have in actual management platforms.

Moving to the cloud has reduced our on-prem footprint.

The most valuable aspects of Dell PowerStore are the promising roadmap, and the interesting features to come. In the beginning, it was limited in the number of features but as time went by the feature came as promised. Now it is an enterprise corporate storage platform. There has been a good evolution.

We have not seen an ROI and it would be good to have an ROI calculator made available by Dell.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for three years.

Dell PowerStore does what it promises with no stability issues.

The technical support is okay. Our customers especially in Europe tend to have interesting local contacts that can be a problem. 

We previously used EqualLogic but switching to Dell PowerStore felt like the natural evolution since EqualLogic reached its end of life.

I would rate Dell PowerStore nine out of ten. PowerStore is a platform we focus on for the middle markets, which is important in Europe and it does what it has to do. Combined with other Dell solutions like PowerScale it fits the needs of most customers.

In the last two versions, PowerStore has improved on everything it needed to and is now an enterprise-grade platform. It is keeping up with new evolutions like AI which is the most important thing. The position between PowerScale and PowerFlex is important as well.

We are a multi-vendor partner, so we propose solutions to customers based on their needs and likes.

We were using Dell PowerStore as a block device for VMware infrastructure and in iSCSI Target for a couple of secret server clusters installed at a hardware level. Apart from that, regarding the workload, which is currently more or less 40% for SQL Servers and 60% for the production of VMware machines. We have a small workload on VMware machines to manage a typical number crunching machine and application server. Now, we have six machines running a couple of MongoDB servers. Honestly, our bottleneck is not the PowerStore. Our actual bottleneck is the networking size because we noticed how we got some barriers in LACP algorithms, indicating we have two mixes on every motherboard> However, we are not able to fulfill the double connection. We also have a part of our experience infrastructure, but instead of 25 gigabit, it functions on 10 gigabit. Sometimes, during evenings or on Fridays, we use Rubrik for protection when we run it. When Rubrik works against Dell PowerStore and MongoDB, along with SQL Server, we noticed that PowerStore's QLC is normal while its CPU and compression levels are good. But, we do face a delay in CAPA and the server. So definitely, we noticed that maybe we need to upgrade everything to 25 gigabit, and still, if it doesn't work, then we may consider FortiGate's networking. Dell Compellent was our storage before, and now we are pushing the Ethernet to the maximum with PowerStore.

Three years ago, I was a little scared about PowerStore because I have been working with storage solutions for many years and have a habit of maintaining additional storage machines, firmware, interfaces, and so on. I noticed that PowerStore is a totally virtualized solution. PowerStore runs container, docker, and so on, and the firmware is managed in a different manner, which is a good point for total virtualization of the firmware and so on. But on the contrary, it's like a black box for me. It is different to work on PowerStore compared to IBM. I worked in the past with IBM ESS 800 Shark Storage. The type of super virtualization in PowerStore is a startup feature. A digital machine is present inside the storage server when this startup feature is launched. This digital machine can be managed entirely remotely, with an automatic download available from Dell. We started with the solution's initial version three years ago, and now we are working on one of its latest versions.

Now we are not pushing the PowerStore to its maximum capability, so we are down in respect of the limit of PowerStore we use in our organization. For now, the slackness is ours, not PowerStore's. I'm not able to tell what can be improved since we are not pushing to its maximum speed. Also, we haven't experienced any downtime, and we switched from primary to secondary and so on, and there has been no problem. Initially, we had some problems with the firmware, and it was a serious problem. But, after six months, we upgraded two or three times, after which we didn't experience any problems. So, we never faced any problems or significant failures for two and a half years. We have a double installation, including primary and secondary ones. Also, in the initial six months, even if we had some errors, we never got a stop error. We never stop. Hence, we never stop the protection system. We only have a secondary type of error, which is for one of the parts of the solution but never for the software side.

The only thing is that with PowerStore, we don't have a solution for the file object. Because of this, we have been investigating Zephyr and another solution. We are also thinking of not buying anything in our data center. We are also evaluating a proposal from a provider named Wasabi, which provides an alternative to Amazon S3. Also, we want to follow a totally different approach so that there is no more spending or investments inside our hardware infrastructure, and we depend on just pushing it with the help of an external provider. Vaulting is another approach we may opt for, but we may not do it now since we are using Rubrik for vaulting. A good improvement for PowerStore would be to have an embedded vaulting feature. Currently, two providers of block devices offer vaulting capabilities, allowing for signing within multiple objects or on a partition. In such cases, this feature would be beneficial if you want to freeze a part of your storage or apply differential computing. This strategy involves preparing a disk for a machine and deploying ten machines based on multiple basic installations.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for more than three years. I am a customer using the solution.

The stability has been excellent in the last two years after the initial six months. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

I am unable to comment on the solution's scalability since we have no plans in our company to scale up and also because we are only using half of the potential of the solution. I cannot tell if adding another node to the solution is easy or not.

The solution's technical support is excellent. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

Positive

We were previously using Dell Compellent in our organization. Before that, I worked in a different company using HPE 3PAR.

The initial setup was complex and difficult, and we had to rely on the assistance of an Italian partner in Bologna under the name Cinetica. We initially planned for four days over two weeks, with two days set aside for the first week to prepare all the necessary networks for networking and another two days for the second week to start up PowerStore. However, the process took more than ten days, and we received a machine with firmware series one dot from Dell's headquarters. I cannot recall if it was one dot zero one or one dot zero two, but we encountered an issue during the initial setup. After completing the initial setup, we immediately switched to Dell PowerStore Version 2. If the machine had arrived with pre-installed PowerStore Version 2, we might not have encountered this initial problem. The main issue arose in the mapping and network features from the volume exposed by PowerStore, including MLAG, LACP, and the corner configuration in the internet reports. A large number of cables and fiber also made it difficult to align the procedures, with a ton of files on the console level.

If I were to install the latest version of the solution in 2023, with the last firmware and its additions, the setup process could be more reasonable. It would be possible to start the entire high-availability solution in four days with a double installation. However, the complexity is also related to the fact that if all production environments require at least a couple of PowerStore solutions, even if only one can be purchased, it is normal to have a high-vulnerability environment. I rate the setup process a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.

Regarding the deployment process timeline, during the dry run testing, we created an initial copy of a portion of SQL Server storage that Compellent was managing. During this phase, we were required to run the exact production workload without any interruptions to the production environment. This phase took us approximately one month. After completing the dry run, we decided to copy the storage from Rubrik to restore all the data to the logical number allocated to PowerStore. We then made adjustments because it was an iSCSI target, which meant changing the worldwide domain in the iSCSI target for the SQL Server machine.

Our organization spent two months considering its budget and economics. We got TRESIO and Excel's expected storage size and special compression, and because of this, we could save some money since the compression is working very well. In the end, we bought a solution that was half the size of the initial solution, and we got a compression ratio of about five to one, which was a win-win solution. With compression, we were able to have a solution within our company's budget. We include a clause in the contract with Dell that states if the compression ratio is not met, we will adjust the workload accordingly. In this scenario, Dell support will provide additional hard drives free of charge to be added to the PowerStore. There was Dell's competitor on our side, and they were supportive of our decision to give hard drives to buy to improve the functioning.

It's important to note that we evaluated another option quite different from a manufacturer, CentOS. However, we cannot say that we were able to make a fair evaluation between a small manufacturer and Dell, as economics played a significant role in our decision-making process. If I can freely test other environments, I would test solutions from IBM and Lenovo. IBM is a large manufacturer, and CentOS is a competing technology. VMware provides a software-based shared mapping storage technology, which emulates disk storage. CentOS is attempting to emulate VMware's vSAN technology.

It isn't easy for me to rate the solution because inside my infrastructure, PowerStore is the biggest one, and the other storage solutions we use only for secondary and unimportant projects using storage like NETGEAR. It is very difficult to give an evaluation considering my current infrastructure because I have only a PowerStore in my company. Earlier, I was able to make comparisons because I was using HPE 3PAR and IBM solutions in my previous company. Dell PowerStore is better than HPE 3PAR since there are a lot of changes and updates needed in 3PAR. I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.