Dell EMC Unity XT reviews

This solution is used for primary storage. We have a single installment with many units throughout our on-premises environment. We only have one XT unit and it is used for one of our core environments. It provides critical services such as DHCP and DNS.

This solution helped us reduce our physical footprint and power consumption. 

The inline deduplication and data reduction capabilities have been the most valuable.

I have been using this solution for five years. 

This is a stable solution.

Scalability of this solution could be improved. 

I would rate support for this solution a six out of ten. A few years ago, I would have rated it an eight or nine out of ten. The biggest challenge is responsiveness and getting to speak to someone who really understands our challenges. 

We previously used VNX. We switched solutions to have an updated platform and integrated NAS services.

The initial setup was very straightforward. It is a plug-and-play deployment. It took half an hour to deploy and required two people. It requires routine updates for maintenance. 

We have experienced a return on investment using this solution. 

This solution offers great pricing. 

We evaluated NetApp before choosing Dell. We are more familiar with Dell's products which is why we decided to use this solution. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

We are using Dell EMC Unity XT for our Oracle EBS on-premise ERP solution for storage. Primarily, for our database needs. We are quite happy with the performance of our SQL Server. 70% of OLTP and 30% reporting is the workload on that particular storage.

The solution overall has high performance.

Dell EMC Unity XT improvement point should be in the area of enhancements or innovation. It would be a benefit to have some kind of intelligence built into the solution with respect to the workload of their firmware. For example, if Dell EMC Unity XT is running an Oracle load or SQL application, we have to do other functions on it, find self remedies, or find self alerts to allow the administrator of the database to good insight into what exactly is happening in the storage layer. We are using different tools to retrieve partial information from the storage.

Having more artificial intelligence tools built into the solution would be a great benefit. This would allow us to see more about the workloads and higher visibility, such as performance degradation. 

I have been using Dell EMC Unity XT for approximately 20 years.

The Dell EMC Unity XT 450F is in production in our organization for the last three years, we have not faced any problems. The new version has been quite stable.

We are quite happy with the performance. The workload we are receiving on this storage solution is 70% for OLTP and 30% for reporting.

We have found the solution to be very scalable. We are in the process of receiving more enclosures that to increase the storage capacity.

We have approximately 1,500 users across the country that are using Dell EMC Unity XT and an additional 200 indirect users using it.

The technical support team from Dell EMC Unity XT has a proactive approach. We don't need to worry about what is going wrong we have them to support us. We have not to need to contact them frequently. They contact us in case of any alert that comes.

We have not used a solution previously.

The installation of Dell EMC Unity XT is not difficult. You only need to do the rack mounting and plug it into the environment. However, configuring it for the application is quite tedious because it doesn't have any built-in templates for different workloads. Installation is plain and the solution is not a challenge but configuring it for the workload is the challenge.

The time it took for the implementation to have the solution to a level we can use for production was approximately 48 hours.

We had support to do the implementation, we did not do it ourselves. We had a couple of engineers from Dell do the implementation and we managed the solution using our onsite team.

There is not a license required for the use of the solution. We purchased a maintenance contract.

We did a thorough evaluation of other solutions and it was clear after the performance evaluation, Dell EMC Unity XT was the best choice. We did a migration of Oracle Storage to different storage. There are other commercial advantages with Dell.

I would highly recommend Dell EMC Unity XT to others. I have experience with several sorts of workloads.

I rate Dell EMC Unity XT a nine out of ten.

We use Unity solutions for our data center operations as a primary storage environment.

We were able to retire all our VNX systems and reduce the footprint in the data center. The Unity systems can scale up quickly, so we use less space in the data center if we employ more Unity systems than the old VNX systems.

Unity is scalable and you can configure it quickly. 

One area of improvement is replication. We are also using Oracle virtual machines, and when you are using systems from other vendors, the process of replicating from Unity through OLVM is more laborious than when we were using VPLEX. It takes a little more work when we are incorporating a third-party environment. 

I've been at my current job for almost five years, and we have been using Unity that whole time.

I believe Unity is stable. However, we haven't used it for long, so I can't really know how stable it is until we have enough time to work with it.

Scalability is one of Unity's biggest advantages. It looks like we're going to need to do a lot of expansion because any capacity we purchase gets consumed pretty fast. We'll have to increase our footprint on Unity.

I rate Dell EMC support 10 out of 10. They respond rapidly and do a good job. When I have an issue and need technical support, I reach out to them either through chat or by submitting a service request, and the response is good.

Positive

My company was using EMC Symmetrix. They moved from Symmetrix to Dell EMC VNX and then Unity. They have not done any other evaluations of other vendors aside from EMC.

Implementing Unity was straightforward. We were able to move through the process of setting up the systems based on the procedure the vendor provided without any problems. Once we got started, I think it was just a couple of days. 

The company purchased a support contract, so we worked with Dell EMC to deploy the system.

We just deployed these new Unity systems a couple of months ago, so we haven't had an opportunity to assess the cost savings yet. As we continue moving ahead, we'll be able to do that. The company is scaling up Unity, so if they are willing to scale up quickly, they like the product, and there is something advantageous to the systems. Whether in terms of money or performance, they seem to be getting some value from the systems.

I'll rate Dell EMC Unity nine out of 10. It's a great, scalable product that performs well. Out of many options, it would be my first choice.

We use it for the hosted data store in VMware environments. I also work with it as a solution itself.

It's easy to use, easy to manage, easy to troubleshoot, and the process support is good. 

We can run our environment as we need and run it in the whole flash. Unity is dynamic. We can only save the usable capacity on Unity. 

We need to improve the controller to work as active-active. We also need to improve the snapshot on the Unity site.

I have been using Dell Unity XT for eight years. 

It is a scalable solution. One engineer and one technician work on this solution.

The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment takes three to four hours.

The technical support team is fast and responsive. 

Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

I've been working with this solution for about six to seven years. It is deployed on-premises and on the cloud.

It is scalable, and we usually recommend Dell Unity XT to small and medium companies.

I would rate technical support at eight out of ten.

Positive

It takes about eight hours to get Dell Unity XT up and running. Fine tuning may take longer.

The installation can be managed by two people and the configuration by one person.

It's an expensive solution, particularly for medium companies. One device costs about 30,000 euros. The support contract is quite expensive as well. We are currently looking for other lower-cost solutions.

Overall, I would rate Dell Unity XT at six out of ten because it's an expensive solution.

I use Unity XT to virtualize the customer's environment into scalable architecture. 

I like Unity XT's software-defined storage. It's a new feature that isn't widely used yet, but customers are impressed with it. 

Our customers are mostly happy with Unity except for the price. We primarily sell to enterprise companies because small companies cannot afford it. 

I have used Unity XT for three years. 

I rate Unity XT nine out of 10 for stability. Our customers are pleased with it. 

Dell Unity XT has a scalable architecture, but none of our customers scale it up significantly. Our client companies typically have 500 to 2,000 users. 

Dell's support is responsive. 

Setting up Unity XT is straightforward, and you need a week to get the solution up and running and migrate everything to the server. 

We typically sell Unity XT as a package solution containing four nodes. It costs about $150,000 for four nodes. 

We have explored solutions from HPE, but we felt Dell has a more comprehensive solution. Some people use VxRail for their VDI solution, but we have not seen anything like that yet.

I rate Dell Unity XT nine out of 10.

It's used for general storage or backup storage throughout the environment.

Inline data reduction is pretty impressive.

The user interface could be improved. The Dell Compellent user interface is fantastic, but the Unity user interface is, in comparison, pretty lousy. It's functional, and I can do what I need, but the Dell Compellent user interface is so much more intuitive and user-friendly.

I wish that the product had some more flexibility. It seems it's purposely designed to not have a lot of flexibility, and as a customer, I don't appreciate it.

I have been using this solution for three years or so.

I've had some unexpected quirkiness, but for the most part, it's pretty good. Its stability is an eight out of ten.

As long as you're buying the right product, it's probably an eight out of ten in terms of scalability. What you don't want to do is get locked into something you don't want. If you want a hybrid, such as a spinning disk in a solid state, you have to know that upfront. That's because some of the models restrict to only SSD. Later on or down the road, if you want the spinning disk for cold storage, it doesn't happen. You can't convert it. You have to get a different array or something else.

Their technical support can be very good. It depends on who you get, but that's how it's with any support organization. The individual makes a difference, but generally, their support has been pretty good. The only thing that I don't like is that you sometimes have to wait to get to a support engineer, but they've gotten better at that.

I would rate it a seven out of ten in terms of the ease of the setup.

Overall, I would rate it a seven out of ten. 

We propose this solution when customers need to expand their workload or storage.

It is great because it can work as a SAN and net storage.

It is expensive, and the pricing could be better.

We have been using this solution for three years, and most companies in Egypt partner with Dell EMC. It is the main storage solution that we sell to customers. It is deployed on-premises.

I rate the stability a nine out of ten.

I rate the scalability a nine out of ten, and we have more than 80 customers in Egypt.

There is a good ROI if the customer has critical applications and file storage.

The licensing is included in the appliance, and I rate the licensing costs an eight out of ten.

I rate this solution an eight out of ten and recommend it to others.

Dell Unity XT is used for almost all types of mid-range requirements, such as databases, virtualization, file services, and other applications, for example, exchange servers.

Dell Unity XT has unified storage which provides both blocks, and file protocols, which helps to get rid of separate storage for each purpose.

The most valuable feature of Dell Unity XT is its support of protocols for both block, and file levels. It has the features a store solution should have.

I have been using Dell Unity XT for approximately five years.

The stability of Dell Unity XT is great. We have not received any complaints about errors or failures in deployments.

We have more than 10 customers using Dell Unity XT. We are focusing on Dell PowerStore more because it is a newer product. We would like to convert our customers from Dell Unity XT to Dell PowerStore.

The scalability of Dell Unity XT is very good.

I rate the scalability of Dell Unity XT a nine out of ten.

I rate technical support from Dell Unity XT a nine out of ten.

Positive

Dell Unity XT is straightforward to set up.

One person can handle the configuration and deployment, but a helper is needed for rack mounting and cabling.

The features of Dell Unity XT allow support of both block-level and file-level protocols and provides a good return on investment because customers don't need to purchase separate storage systems for each protocol.

The pricing of Dell Unity XT is good.

I rate the price of Dell Unity XT a nine out of ten.

If a customer is considering implementing Dell Unity XT, I would advise them to also purchase the implementation from professionals to receive the best results.

I rate Dell Unity XT an eight out of ten.

I am an end user.

We use Dell Unity XT as a block and file system.

The most valuable aspects of this solution are its stability, performance, and ease of updating. Overall, it provides good performance and stability.

There is no de-duplication. Unity used to be Bionics, which had de-duplication; however, in Dell Unity XT, the de-duplication was deprecated and is no longer available. 

The de-duplication function is back in the new Dell PowerStore, but it is missing in Dell Unity XT.

I have been working with Dell Unity XT for four years.

I have started to use a new product from Dell called PowerStore.

I still use Unity, but I stopped using Bionic because it's unsupported and, as far as I can tell, it will be discontinued in January 2022. 

It's nearing the end of support, which is why I purchased a new product known as PowerStore and am in the process of migrating to new storage at PowerStore.

I have time to check and test performance, as well as PowerStore, but I have extensive experience with Unity.

The version depends on whether it is a hardware or software version.

The hardware model is 400, and it is a hybrid store because the storage is shown as SAS and SSD disc.

Dell Unity XT is very stable.

I would rate the stability of Dell Unity XT a five out of five.

Dell Unity XT is scalable. It is easy to scale.

Scalability, I've done it a few times with new enclosures, and it's a simple process to connect and extend. It's straightforward.

I would rate the scalability a five out of five.

The product is not specifically designed for users but I believe it is for a few thousand or more clients. It is for our production where production services and applications are deployed and exposed to our clients.

Technical support is good.

In the four years that we have used this solution, it's been good, and I would rate technical support a five out of five.

It is simple to create a ticket, and they have good skills. 

I have the highest level of support for our mission-critical operations. 

It's very fast with good skills.

I am happy with the technical support.

I used two storage units a year ago. The Unity storage is newer, whereas the Bionic storage is older. However, Dell now manufactures new storage as a Dell PowerStore.

I have two products, Dell Unity XT, and Dell PowerStore.

It has three storage units. It was Bionics first, and Unity is now in production. And we have been using PowerStore for two years. I am still interested in using Unity because the end of support for Unity is in 2025.

Bionics' support is about to expire in a few months. I purchased PowerStore. It's storage; everything after that is flash storage. And I migrate from Bionics to PowerStore, but I believe I will continue to use Unity for a few years.

Bionics was the first product we deployed before moving to Dell Unity XT., and then to Dell PowerStore.

We moved from one location to another because the data center was our private cloud.

I am not familiar with the initial setup, because it was deployed when I went to this company.

I maintain this solution myself.

The license is not required, but we must renew the support every year, every two years.

I believe it is overpriced. I don't have a lot of experience with other vendors, but I believe it is expensive.

I would rate the price a three out of five.

PowerStore support is more efficient now that I have experience with it. I won't go back based on the cost of support; PowerStore is the most straightforward.

I would recommend this solution to others, but it depends on the need for de-duplication. If your data is encrypted or hidden, you don't need de-duplication. Dell Unity XT is good, but if the data isn't encrypted or is hidden, I recommend PowerStore. I would not recommend Unity where the data isn't encrypted and is hidden.

I would rate Dell Unity XT a seven out of ten because the de-duplication is missing.