Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users
Dell PowerVault Logo

Dell PowerVault pros and cons

4.3 out of 5
Badge Ranked 1

Pros & Cons summary

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.
Get the report

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Dell PowerVault provides stability and excellent response time for storage needs.
Its cost-effectiveness, with features like data deduplication and replication, adds value.
The system is easy to manage and set up, offering reliability and stability.
Dell PowerVault offers significant capacity and scalability, ideal for various storage demands.
It delivers good return on investment and competitive pricing compared to other vendors.

CONS

Dell PowerVault could have higher cache and file protocol support to compete with other storage solutions.
The integration with Active Directory is absent, and it is only SAN while others offer SAN and NAS unified storage.
The price is a concern, with the initial acquisition cost being high compared to competitors like Hitachi or IBM.
NVMe hard disk support is lacking, and there have been stability issues during controller software upgrades.
Improvement is needed for deduplication and compression features, and technical support could be better.
 

Dell PowerVault Pros review quotes

it_user5157 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr System Engineer at a outsourcing company with 501-1,000 employees
Mar 18, 2013
In my company there are more than 100 users connecting to this server simultaneously and still the I/O operations are very smooth.
it_user159420 - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder / Lead Network Consultant with 51-200 employees
Oct 29, 2014
The MD3260 is a great unit, inexpensive, hold tons of drives, its expandable, and the cost is low.
it_user162129 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Nov 11, 2014
Customer Service: Very good general Dell Storage support is very responsive.
Learn what your peers think about Dell PowerVault. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.
EE
IT Coordinator at HMY
Oct 27, 2020
The most valuable feature of this solution is that it is easy to manage and easy to use.
RZ
General Manager at Move IT Smart
Jan 11, 2021
The most valuable features are stability and response time.
SM
IT Director at Essra hospital
Aug 7, 2021
The solution is reliable and stable.
reviewer1278084 - PeerSpot reviewer
Pre-sale and Post-sale Engineer at a reseller with 201-500 employees
Feb 3, 2022
The initial setup was easy and simple.
JK
Systems & Support Engineer at CWG Plc
Aug 4, 2022
The most valuable features are that it's easy to set up PowerVault. I also like the provisioning of storage.
Nipuna Nakandala - PeerSpot reviewer
Junior Manager (Virtual Infrastructure) at a maritime company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Aug 31, 2022
The storage has been good.
Abdul Rehman Abid - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager Enterprise Solutions at Megaplus
Jan 9, 2023
The most valuable feature of Dell PowerVault is its ability to provide small to medium-range storage. It doesn't have any specific standout features, but it's great for applications, such as surveillance where a large number of videos need to be recorded and performance isn't a priority.
 

Dell PowerVault Cons review quotes

it_user5157 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr System Engineer at a outsourcing company with 501-1,000 employees
Mar 18, 2013
No LCD panel for viewing status on-board.
it_user159420 - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder / Lead Network Consultant with 51-200 employees
Oct 29, 2014
The MD3220i needs to allow for larger drive sizes.
it_user162129 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Nov 11, 2014
Only once when the storage array seem to be very slow and caused VMware Hosts to not see the volumes.
Learn what your peers think about Dell PowerVault. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.
EE
IT Coordinator at HMY
Oct 27, 2020
In the next release, I would like the deduplication and compression included, as well as the flash technology. It doesn't currently use it.
RZ
General Manager at Move IT Smart
Jan 11, 2021
I would like to see improvements made to the user interface.
SM
IT Director at Essra hospital
Aug 7, 2021
We need higher performance and more reliable storage.
reviewer1278084 - PeerSpot reviewer
Pre-sale and Post-sale Engineer at a reseller with 201-500 employees
Feb 3, 2022
PowerVault could be improved by increasing its memory cache capacity and adding the ability to export data to the cloud.
JK
Systems & Support Engineer at CWG Plc
Aug 4, 2022
I would like Dell to improve on the configuration of the disk groups. Only one group is expandable. Once you configure the other disk group types, you cannot expand them. It limits scalability. If you want maybe to grow a disk group, you lose information, and then you need to build it up again, which is not a good use case for customers.
Nipuna Nakandala - PeerSpot reviewer
Junior Manager (Virtual Infrastructure) at a maritime company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Aug 31, 2022
The implementation process takes a while.
Abdul Rehman Abid - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager Enterprise Solutions at Megaplus
Jan 9, 2023
Dell PowerVault could improve by having a higher cache and file protocol support added.