Cisco MDS Multilayer Fabric Switches vs. Dell Compellent (discontinued) vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

All in all this series great in addressing issues applications that need flash storage as a backend storage supply. It addresses the need for fast, responsive servers that need to boot quickly. It is easy to use and for the most part there are few issues and none that can't be addressed/fixed quickly.

Incentivized

My experience with Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series has been commendable and everything has been running smoothly. Data storage and analysis takes place effectively under this platform system giving our teams best insights on planning and decision making on time. All our financial records have great database that is secure and cannot be easily compromised by unauthorized access. The customer support team is reliable and always ready to offer help where needed 24/7.

Incentivized

• Dell Compellent support (Co-Pilot) and the add-on service (Optimize) are critical services that Dell Compellent does very well. Alerts from the array are sent to Co-Pilot where tickets are automatically generated and customers are notified of events. Of greater importance at times is the proactive support Co-Pilot and Optimize provide by contacting us of inefficiencies in the array and consulting on resolutions.
• Enterprise Manager (Dell's "single pane of glass" management framework) is a useful tool for configuration/evaluation of the array and other Compellent products.
• Ease of management. From firmware upgrades to managing server volumes the process is much simpler than with other arrays.

Incentivized

• It easily updates our systems to comply with international standards.
• Networking our systems with cloud servers

Incentivized

• The GUI could be a little more updated with a lot more information regarding usage.
• There could be some assistance with high I/O times where snapshots go to consolidate. There seems to be issues when that attempts to occur, and there will times where the virtual machine stuns due to the I/O intensity.
• Modification of multiple volumes or the creation of multiple volumes is a pain in the DSM management console.

Incentivized

• I have not experienced any downside that requires improvement.
• No missing functionality across all the features

Incentivized

This is not solely based on the support engineers themselves but more so that the logging and gotcha's that their array has. There have been multiple times where logs are pulled, but the folder is not large enough, and it crashes the array. Other times there are certain aspects that support either does not know of or isn't knowledgable about how to look at particular issues that could be causing problems.

Incentivized

We selected Compellent solely based on price. Honestly I would rate it only slightly better than a QNAP we used (which was even cheaper). If performance and reliability are factors in your decision (and they should be) I would recommend looking at something like a VNXe.

Incentivized

I have not worked with a similar product in our company but this has been a reliable product throughout. It is easy and flexible to work with and the cost is manageable. It has suitable data storage plans that have been favorable to our workload demands. The results have always been positive and Return on Investment was achieved within the planned time. It has been profitable to all our departments meeting all data security requirements and working at reliable speed in file transfer.

Incentivized

• The SC9000 has been able to serve our current and futures needs well enough to not need to upgrade anytime soon.

Incentivized