Dell PowerStore Reviews

PowerStore is joined to four application servers in a cluster. We're running an application that we use to monitor our activity in the financial markets. We collect all the data from the market—books, trades, orders—that we send to the market. In terms of volume, we are collecting about 100 million rows a day for the books, 10 million a day for the orders, and about 500 rows for public trades.

It is a mission-critical application because of compliance and the regulators. We have to maintain this kind of monitoring because it's a direct link to our activity in the regulated market.

An interesting feature is the guaranteed reduction when it comes to the physical capacity of the disk. We have 30 terabytes of SSD and that is equivalent to 100 terabytes of effective capacity. It allows us to reduce the costs of capacity.

Our previous solution was Dell EMC Compellent. What we have seen immediately is how easy it is to use PowerStore compared to Compellent. PowerStore is much simpler to manage.

The most valuable features include 

• easy of use 
• performance in terms of read-write capacity.

It is also important that you can add compute and capacity independently. We have sized the solution based on our current needs, but in the future we can choose to increase capacity if we grow our activity in the market. And if we have more business in our monetary system, we can increase compute. The ability to choose what we increase is a good feature.

The only area I can highlight for improvement is that the 4:1 data reduction target has not been reached. This may be due to an issue with Dell EMC's initial analysis of data compression. As a result, we have had to add new physical disks to reach our goal of total available disk space. Dell EMC has met us partway on this DRR issue by providing some of the additional disks free of charge, but we have had to purchase the remaining quantity of the disks we need.

We have been using PowerStore in our production environment for a few months, after using it in pre-production for about two months.

The stability has been very good so far.

We have not tested the scalability yet. All our data is well supported in the current solution, but we sized the new solution with more capacity than the previous one had.

The initial setup of PowerStore is a straightforward process. Setting up the Compellent was much more complex.

Overall, the setup took us about three weeks.

We ran it in a pre-production environment initially. We loaded all the data that was in production into the new environment and ran our application in both the pre-production and the production environments, just to test the stability and the availability of the application.

There are four people involved with the solution in our IT operations, and there are about 50 people who use the application that runs on it. Our application is a specific, department-level application, that is used for monitoring the activity in financial markets, so its use is limited to our business area. That is why the number of users is limited.

Dell EMC's support was very efficient during the setup of the entire solution. They handled the complete setup in terms of connections and also helped us with the software configuration and moving data from our old solution into the new solution.

We haven't seen ROI yet, but the return for us will be in the efficiency of monitoring our activities.

The pricing is in line with other vendors' pricing, more or less. There are no costs in addition to the standard fees.

We did not evaluate other solutions because Dell EMC is a partner for us and we're satisfied with them. We have evolved with their solutions and PowerStore is the best. Dell EMC is our vendor and provides us with all our other client-server solutions.

At the moment, I am satisfied by the simplicity and ease of use of the PowerStore.

Most of our PowerStore units are used for VMware VMs and vSphere. We migrated the VMs from our Unity storage.

We have two sites; the data center site (DC) and the disaster recovery (DR) site. We only use the PowerStore on the DC site. The project was put on hold due to COVID but we plan to continue with it this year.

VMware integration with the product is good. We use vSphere, which is one of the main VMware functions. In addition, we use vSAN for storage, and we have to use the SIEM.

This solution has helped us to simplify our storage operations, although we have a lot of storage devices and too few administrators. Because of this, we're looking for a software solution to assist us with administration. This is something that we will be doing next year.

Overall, we're quite happy with the product because we can move the data that is stored on more than 10 of our current storage devices to a single PowerStore. In terms of efficiency, this solution is the best choice for us.

The deduplication and compression features are quite impressive because when we enable this feature on other products, such as HPE 3PAR, we have a lot of latency. With PowerStore, we don't have that issue.

This device is less CPU intensive than the EMC Unity and the HPE 3PAR.

PowerStore supports the iSCSI interface, which we find helpful. We use one for our fiber channel but another one for iSCSI.

There is no Synchronize replication feature on the storage.

PowerStore should include more NAS functionality.

I have been using EMC products since 2003, although I began using Dell EMC PowerStore only last year.

Stability-wise, we have had no issues at all. In the past, all of our EMC products have been stable. We have not had the storage fail or had a faulty port. We have not even had to call support since putting it into production.

We plan to expand our usage in the future. One of our next goals is to purchase a PowerStore for our DR site because we need to have replication for our financial use case. We also plan to replace some of our other storage devices with PowerStore because we need to improve the overall efficiency.

We have not opened a technical support case with Dell for PowerStore but because most of our products are from Dell, we have dealt with them in the past. We have purchased approximately 100 servers from Dell and we have always been quite happy with their support. We don't have any issues with them and I would rate them a ten out of ten.

Every time we have an issue, they work with us to resolve the problem. There has never been a need for a repeat call and we are quite happy with that.

We have many Dell EMC Unity storage devices, including the Unity 450 and Unity 650, but we wanted a new, smaller storage unit.  

The main reason that we moved to PowerStore was the compression and deduplication.

The initial setup is easier than other products, such as Unity.

We were able to set up the storage and put it into production within one day. PowerStore is very quick to set up. By comparison, Unity will take at least two days to install.

We are happy with the pricing that we get from Dell.

This solution enables us to add compute and capacity independently, although we have not had to change our configuration.

PowerStore uses machine learning and automation for optimizing resources but we are just starting with it, so I don't know much about these features.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

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.

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're using the solution for a specific application called Boomi for data analytics.

The application was running on an Isilon, and we needed an NFS mount. Since the solution was performing very poorly, we chose Dell PowerStore with the NVMe disk, which solved our performance issue.

The overall energy consumption seems comparable to other products in the same class.

Performance was the biggest challenge we were looking to address by implementing Dell PowerStore. We were running our application on an Isilon, and it just couldn't perform because it was a very chatty application with high transactions.

Dell PowerStore is very simple to implement, and its user interface is very simple.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for four months.

Dell PowerStore is a stable solution.

Dell PowerStore is a scalable solution.

The solution’s technical support is pretty decent.

Positive

We implemented the solution through a reseller, CDW. Our experience with them for the implementation of Dell PowerStore was fine.

The solution's price was comparable to other products for the use case, size, and setup. We did go with the NVMe disc and looked to do a capacity upgrade at one point.

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

We have mainly used it to migrate all the infrastructure we had from a data center to a PowerStore cabin. The truth is that with the good duplication rate that it has, we have been able to migrate everything to a single cabin.

We had a large number of servers, some in particular with a SAP solution that needed a lot of data. What we ultimately wanted was to unify all these solutions into a single storage.

For me, its great value is mainly the good duplication power that it has and its ease of use. We are able to expand storage, add new storage, and duplicate it. It is very easy to use, and no great knowledge is required.

We use CloudIQ to manage and analyze our Dell storage. We use it for all the cabins. It always updates me about possible errors. It often anticipates problems that I may have with log storage and automatically solves them. I have peace of mind knowing that I have all the storage monitored.

We have certainly seen a significant data consolidation. We went from three storage cabins to one.

When it comes to the values around environment, social, and governance (ESG values), I assess Dell Technologies in a very positive way. I like that large companies in the sector are pioneers in these areas.

It is very easy to use. Access is very friendly. It shows you a lot of important information at the first glance. It has been very easy to use.

I have not seen anything specific. The only thing I can think of that needs improvement is the price.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for six months.

Its stability is very good. It is very reliable.

Its scalability is very good.

Their support is very good. It has always been the best.

Positive

We were using Dell's Unity solution. We switched because our partner offered us this solution. We had very good references from him, and we trusted our partner a lot.

We have not yet seen an ROI because we have not had much time using it, but I am sure that we will see an ROI.

The prices in the market for these storage solutions are very similar, but with the power of duplication, it seems like you are paying less.

We evaluated EMC Unity, but in the end, they are also Dell’s.

In terms of the importance of sustainability when evaluating a storage solution, being from the IT area, I do not value it, but I know that other departments in my company do.

I would rate Dell PowerStore a nine out of ten because I have not had much time working with it, but as of now, I am very happy.

Foreign Language:(Spanish)

Buena tasa de crecimiento, fácil de usar y el mejor soporte

¿Cuánto tiempo llevas usando esta solución?

He estado usando Dell PowerStore durante seis meses.

¿Cuál es su principal caso de uso de esta solución? (Incluya detalles sobre su entorno).

Principalmente lo hemos utilizado para migrar toda la infraestructura que teníamos de un centro de datos a una cabina PowerStore. La verdad es que con el buen índice de duplicación que tiene hemos podido migrar todo a una sola cabina.

Teníamos una gran cantidad de servidores, algunos en particular con una solución SAP que necesitaba muchos datos. Lo que finalmente queríamos era unificar todas estas soluciones en un único almacenamiento.

Comparta cómo Dell PowerStore ha mejorado su organización. Si no fue así, explique por qué.

Para mí su gran valor es principalmente la potencia de duplicación que tiene y su facilidad de uso. Podemos ampliar el almacenamiento, agregar nuevo almacenamiento y duplicarlo. Es muy fácil de usar y no se requieren grandes conocimientos.

Usamos CloudIQ para administrar y analizar nuestro almacenamiento Dell. Lo usamos para todas las cabinas. Siempre me actualiza sobre posibles errores. A menudo anticipa los problemas que puedo tener con el almacenamiento de registros y los resuelve automáticamente. Tengo la tranquilidad de saber que tengo todo el almacenamiento monitoreado.

Ciertamente hemos visto una importante consolidación de datos. Pasamos de tres cabinas de almacenamiento a una.

Cuando se trata de valores ambientales, sociales y de gobernanza (valores ESG), evalúo a Dell Technologies de manera muy positiva. Me gusta que las grandes empresas del sector sean pioneras en estos temas.

¿Qué características le han parecido más valiosas y por qué?

Es muy fácil de usar. El acceso es muy amigable. Te muestra mucha información importante a primera vista.

¿En qué áreas se podría mejorar Dell PowerEdge PowerStore?

No he visto nada concreto. Lo único que se me ocurre es el precio.

¿Utilizó anteriormente una solución diferente? De ser así, ¿por qué la cambió?

Estábamos usando la solución Dell Unity. Cambiamos porque nuestro socio nos ofreció esta solución. Teníamos muy buenas referencias de él y confiábamos mucho en nuestro socio.

Antes de elegir, ¿evaluaste otras opciones? ¿De ser asi, cuales?

Evaluamos EMC Unity, pero al final también son de Dell.

En cuanto a la importancia de la sostenibilidad a la hora de evaluar una solución de almacenamiento, siendo del área de TI no la valoro, pero sé que otros departamentos de mi empresa sí lo hacen.

¿Qué aconseja a otros sobre el costo de instalación, el precio y/o la licencia?

Los precios en el mercado de estas soluciones de almacenamiento son muy similares, pero con su habilidad de duplicación, pareciera que estuvieras pagando menos.

¿Cuáles son sus impresiones sobre la escalabilidad de esta solución?

Su escalabilidad es muy buena.

¿Cuáles son sus impresiones sobre la estabilidad de esta solución?

Su estabilidad es muy buena. Es muy confiable.

¿Has visto el ROI (Retorno de la Inversión)? En caso afirmativo, ¿de qué manera (es decir, métricas/puntos de datos)?

Aún no hemos visto un retorno de la inversion porque no hemos tenido mucho tiempo usándolo, pero estoy seguro de que lo veremos.

Cuéntanos tu experiencia con el servicio y soporte al cliente.

Su apoyo es muy bueno. Siempre ha sido el mejor.

¿Cómo calificaría esta solución en una escala del 1 al 10 en cuanto a servicio y soporte?

10

En una escala del 1 al 10 (1=peor, 10=mejor), ¿cómo calificaría Dell PowerStore? Por favor explique por qué.

Calificaría a Dell PowerStore con un nueve de diez porque no he tenido mucho tiempo trabajando con él, pero hasta ahora estoy muy contento.

I use Dell PowerStore in my company as a storage system.

Dell PowerStore is an easy and fast tool to work through our company's data.

Dell PowerStore is not a powerful tool. From an improvement perspective, Dell PowerStore needs to be a more powerful product.

There are certain shortcomings with the technical support team of Dell PowerStore, where improvements are required.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for five years.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

My company is a bulk user of the product and has around 100 users of Dell PowerStore, consisting of eight to ten IT engineers, and the rest are administrators.

My company plans to increase the use of the solution in the future.

With the technical support team of Dell PowerStore, my company faces certain language barriers.

Negative

The product's initial setup is easy.

I rate the product's initial setup a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is an easy setup phase, and ten is a difficult setup phase.

The solution can be deployed within two to four hours.

One person is required for the deployment of Dell PowerStore. Two people are required for the maintenance of Dell PowerStore.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

Dell PowerStore is not a cheap solution.

I would not recommend Dell PowerStore to those who plan to use it.

As the price of the product is high and it is difficult to contact the support, I rate the overall tool a seven out of ten.

We typically use Dell PowerStore 500T and 1000T models.

We sell and integrate Dell PowerStores to our customers who use it for block storage.

Dell PowerStore has helped our customers manage their systems.

CloudIQ helps our customers mainly if they have a lack of storage space, it alerts them of the failures on the server.

PowerStore does not consume much power.

We have integrated PowerStore with PowerProtect and VMware to benefit our customers.

Our customers sign a data reduction guarantee with every order. 

The most valuable feature is the three-to-one data reduction. The improved reliability is also valuable.

The customer support is slow and has room for improvement.

I have been using Dell PowerStore for four years.

PowerStore scales well. We have sold ten systems and have not required any scaling.

The technical support can be slow at times.

Positive

I would rate Dell PowerStore ten out of ten.