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Dell XtremIO pros and cons

3.8 out of 5

Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Thin storage allocation is highly beneficial for applications like Microsoft Exchange, ERP, SQL, and VDI, providing seamless performance compared to physical PCs.
Guaranteed sub-millisecond response time enhances the reliability and speed for data-intensive tasks, even under massive workloads.
Data protection features, including deduplication and compression, optimize storage and ensure outstanding performance for large-scale workloads.
Scalability and easy manageability are significant, allowing for efficient expansion and administration of data storage environments.
Performance improvements up to 70% were noted, making it a preferred choice where speed, stability, and scalability are priorities.

CONS

Management lacks effective tools like snapshot scheduling, leading users to rely on external solutions like XSnapCourier.
Upgrading hardware requires purchasing multiple components at specific capacities, limiting flexibility.
Scalability is cost-prohibitive for smaller businesses, making it unsuitable beyond enterprise-level use.
The system's integration with other products faces challenges, often being vendor-locked.
Technical support and training resources are insufficient, impacting user experience and troubleshooting.
 

Dell XtremIO Pros review quotes

it_user560211 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Storage Engineer at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
Nov 29, 2016
I have leveraged XtremIO to reduce data center foot print significantly saving my company tens of thousands annually in floor space, power, and cooling.
it_user560262 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Storage Engineer at a tech consulting company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Nov 27, 2016
DEV/UAT refresh periods reduced from hours or longer to under five minutes.
it_user566907 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Analyst at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Dec 7, 2016
Flash provides good performance.
Learn what your peers think about Dell XtremIO. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user568230 - PeerSpot reviewer
Windows Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Dec 8, 2016
We have saved costs on storage and our users are getting quick response times for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).
RR
Technical Manager at a recreational facilities/services company with 11-50 employees
Dec 11, 2016
Overall space usage has decreased, plus input/output operations per second (IOPS). Performance has increased exponentially.
AW
Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Dec 19, 2016
Utilizing the snapshot technology (recovery point) has been great for development.
it_user241425 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Technology Engineer at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
Dec 27, 2016
Its consistent speed and replication features are most valuable to us.
reviewer173349 - PeerSpot reviewer
AGT Infrastructure Operations at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Dec 29, 2016
Dedupe, because we achieve 3.5X space savings with XtremIO Snapshot copies Ease of use Improvement in storage efficiency without compromising on performance
DB
Senior Developer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Apr 4, 2017
Thin storage allocation
it_user640419 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Network Administrtor at a consumer goods company with 10,001+ employees
Apr 4, 2017
Speed of operation: We had several SQL databases that pounded EMC CX4-480 and EMC VMAX 20K, and XtremeIO handles the flow well, running on the controller memory rather than straight to the drives.
 

Dell XtremIO Cons review quotes

it_user560211 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Storage Engineer at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
Nov 29, 2016
I have unfortunately had some bad experience with bugs and failed upgrades.
it_user560262 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Storage Engineer at a tech consulting company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Nov 27, 2016
There is a limit of 8192 volumes/LUNs that can be created. This includes all volumes/LUNs presented to hosts along with all snapshots, so it becomes very easy to bump up against the limits in certain circumstances.
it_user566907 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Analyst at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Dec 7, 2016
This solution is good for VDI environments, but not recommended for database workloads.
Learn what your peers think about Dell XtremIO. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user568230 - PeerSpot reviewer
Windows Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Dec 8, 2016
The only item that I can think of, is the ability to add more XtremeIO bricks as one logical partition rather than two separate ones.
RR
Technical Manager at a recreational facilities/services company with 11-50 employees
Dec 11, 2016
The replication and DR capabilities could be improved, since there is no native replication technique with XtremIO.
AW
Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Dec 19, 2016
The earlier version before Version 4.0 had several stability issues.
it_user241425 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Technology Engineer at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
Dec 27, 2016
Replication: EMC should have native replication ability, not something you have to take an outage for in order to install, i.e., if you did not purchase the replication when you rolled out the storage array.
reviewer173349 - PeerSpot reviewer
AGT Infrastructure Operations at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Dec 29, 2016
Integration with other EMC SAN storage array ecosystems like VMAX3, Unity, etc., especially for consistency group protection: This will help to consistently recover applications which are spread across multiple product lines like VMAX3 and XtremIO for various reasons.
DB
Senior Developer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Apr 4, 2017
Management: At the time, there was no snapshot scheduler, so I had to write XSnapCourier to address it. The sad thing is that even after the newest release, which includes a native scheduler, most customers using XSnapCourier chose to stick with it due to a more feature-rich experience.
it_user640419 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Network Administrtor at a consumer goods company with 10,001+ employees
Apr 4, 2017
The technical support was poor, even during the port or 2TB limit.