Dell EMC Unity XT reviews

We use it for block storage for our entire VMware environment, which runs Windows, Exchange, and SQL Server. The Unity also provides block storage for bare metal Windows Server that run our backup software. We also use file storage primarily to store images.

I use it with three projects that I directly work with. Each of those projects has 80 to 100 virtual servers. We have sysadmins who are dedicated to each project and do all the admin tasks, like checking VMs, servers, storage, etc. There is a larger team of five or six systems engineers who backstop all three of those projects. We focus on architecting and configuring any servers, storage, and networking. We may also be called in to resolve performance concerns.

Unity/Unity XT is significantly more user friendly than VNX.

We can do both block and file storage on one unit. For our projects, we use both of those functions. This is a key feature for us, along with very solid, predictable performance.

We use VMware in a number of projects but there isn't very good visualization of the storage from VMware or vice versa. I'm hopeful this improves in the follow on product, PowerStore.

I have been using this solution for the past seven years, previously at Dell and three years with my current company.

Stability has been very good, even the older models of Unity are quite good. The non-XTs and the XTs have been absolutely stable. We have had a couple of small hardware glitches, e.g., I have had to replace an LCC. That is literally it over the last three years.

This is a newer model for us. Out of the three projects that I have worked on, two of them are using the older model and the XT is primarily in another project. We have tons of scalability in it. We have a whole rack dedicated to Unity, and it is pretty much empty. We have probably close to a petabyte of storage in there, and it is still pretty much empty. Scalability looks really good.

Where we would run into a scalability problem, we are going to do a lot of image storage, and that doesn't compress well. So, flash drives wouldn't really help us. We need a big, scalable object storage system. That is where Isilon comes in. We have about three and a half petabytes of Isilon at each of that project's sites.

The technical support has been really great. I have never had a problem that they were not able to get to the bottom of pretty quickly.

Positive

We do have Dell EMC SC storage, which is very simple and straightforward, which is good for our small remote locations. However, it doesn't have the performance or features that the XT would. As far as block storage, Unity XT is probably the best bank for the buck for us because we can get block and file storage in one package. We don't have to buy a separate Isilon for object storage.

Including VNX, SC, and Unity/Unity XT, Dell EMC has provided all the storage solutions at the company for the last 20 years. 

The initial setup was super easy for the most part. 

I will note one issue. This might be on the sales team, but we had a need for encryption that I am sure we mentioned. However, the Unity that showed up at our data center did not have the licenses for encryption at rest. I would love to see Data At Rest Encryption (D@RE) be just the default since I can't imagine anyone wouldn't want it at this point. It would have made life easier for me. I definitely had to completely wipe out an array three days after we set it up, because it didn't have encryption, then redo it with a new license.

Vendor did initial install. I reinitialized it and did the final install.

There are cost savings from having a single solution that does both file and block storage.

Pricing could always be better. Dell likes to charge a premium price for these products.

I would say the major complaint with pricing is that Dell EMC comes to us and gives us a an initially high price. We usually need to go back and forth to negotiate the price to a more reasonable level. We are not going to just say, 'Yes,' because we are out of time." 

I don't know if the discounting structure needs to be better or more consistent. 

Having worked at Dell EMC previously, I know they have discount floors, etc. I just wish they would note, "This company gets a 55% discount." Just be consistent with it. Company-wide, we buy all our storage from them. They should be able to give us something a little more structured.

In one project, we needed more scalability that the Unity can provide so we are using Dell EMC Isilon for it. In that case, I needed multiple PB of object storage.

Otherwise, we have not looked at much else. In the future, however, we will probably transition to Dell PowerStore.

I would rate it as nine out of 10. It is definitely one of the most robust, solid, well-performing products that I have dealt with. It is set it and forget it, which is wonderful for my piece of mind.

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.

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.

Dell Unity XT is used via iSCSI as a storage system for our infrastructure.

The most valuable features of Dell Unity XT are the data compression for all of our VMs up to four times and the performance is good.

The price of Dell Unity XT could improve.

I have been using Dell Unity XT for approximately one year.

Dell Unity XT is a stable solution.

The scalability of Dell Unity XT is good, it can scale well.

We have many VMs that are using the solution. We have plans to increase the usage of the solution.

I have not used the support from Dell Unity XT.

We used other Dell solutions prior to Dell Unity XT and we use Synology for more simple projects.

The initial setup of Dell Unity XT is straightforward.

We did the deployment of Dell Unity XT in-house. We have three engineers that do the maintenance and support of the solution.

The price of Dell Unity XT could improve. However, it is a one-time purchase.

I rate Dell Unity XT a nine out of ten.