Dell PowerScale vs. Dell Unity XT Unified Storage

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Dell PowerScale
Score 9.8 out of 10
N/A
Dell Technologies presents Dell PowerScale (replacing EMC Isilon) as a scale-out NAS solution and server technology that provides the flexibility of a software-defined architecture with accelerated hardware innovations to harness the value of data. Isilon Systems was acquired by EMC in 2010; some EMC Isilon NAS appliances are still available and supported under the PowerScale brand.N/A
Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
Dell Unity XT hybrid flash arrays are storage systems for running general purpose workloads that do not require the low latencies and speed of all flash/NVMe architectures. Unity XT hybrid flash arrays balance performance, efficiency, features or outcomes.N/A
Pricing
Dell PowerScaleDell Unity XT Unified Storage
Editions & Modules
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Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Dell PowerScaleDell Unity XT Unified Storage
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Dell PowerScaleDell Unity XT Unified Storage
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Dell PowerScaleDell Unity XT Unified Storage
Enterprise Flash Array Storage
Comparison of Enterprise Flash Array Storage features of Product A and Product B
Dell PowerScale
-
Ratings
Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
9.3
15 Ratings
2% above category average
Flash Array Performance00 Ratings9.413 Ratings
Flash Array Integration00 Ratings9.413 Ratings
Data Compression00 Ratings9.712 Ratings
Non-Intrusive Upgrades00 Ratings8.715 Ratings
Simplicity00 Ratings9.015 Ratings
Power Savings00 Ratings9.514 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Dell PowerScaleDell Unity XT Unified Storage
Small Businesses

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Medium-sized Companies
Pure Storage FlashBlade
Pure Storage FlashBlade
Score 9.0 out of 10
Pure Storage FlashArray
Pure Storage FlashArray
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Pure Storage FlashBlade
Pure Storage FlashBlade
Score 9.0 out of 10
Pure Storage FlashArray
Pure Storage FlashArray
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Dell PowerScaleDell Unity XT Unified Storage
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(5 ratings)
9.5
(20 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(6 ratings)
User Testimonials
Dell PowerScaleDell Unity XT Unified Storage
Likelihood to Recommend
Dell Technologies
EMC Isilon Scale-Out NAS is well suited for larger files (greater the 128 Kb) and where you need to have everything in one common name space. Where it is less appropriate is for many small files (millions of files less than 128 Kb in size) - this causes the protection level to becoming mirroring, which will cost more space.
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Dell Technologies
Dell EMC Unity is an easy system and very flexible component and very easy to navigate while providing effective services and management of multiple project information management and the data pulling from the supported third-party platform is easy and quick. Excellent reporting features and easy to use and the analytics tools are amazing.
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Pros
Dell Technologies
  • NAS Storage
  • Capacity and Performance details of the array
  • Alert and Operations details
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Dell Technologies
  • Enables you to create multiple copies of any database.
  • Data savings feature with compression.
  • Integrity with VMWare, RHEL, Oracle.
  • The best option is a midrange unified storage array in a customer environment.
  • Some models support NMMe.
  • Copy Data Management (iCDM), Data-At-Rest-Encryption (D@RE).
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Cons
Dell Technologies
  • Some upgrades require the entire cluster to be rebooted simultaneously. In this day and age, that should not be necessary. This is my biggest disappointment with Isilon to date.
  • When using multiple storage pools you have to be very careful with your capacity management. Filling up one pool can cause an overflow of data to a pool that is less performance driven. Do not underestimate your capacities or you will find yourself in a tight spot.
  • Block size is almost always an issue with Isilon. It does not handle all types of data well. In many cases PACS and VNA data is best to be stored on a different storage platform that will utilize the capacity more efficiently that Isilon is capable of.
  • Deduplication seems to be less efficient on Isilon than on other platforms for similar types of data.
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Dell Technologies
  • Alerting: receiving an alert when an issue occurs. That is good to know. However, if the alert is cleared, or somehow no longer in alarm, no email is received. At times I will receive the email alert on weekends, not knowing if the issue is resolved or not until Monday when I can access the unit. I have learned in most instances, the alert is a false alarm, which could be a problem.
  • The alerting itself is sometimes not clear. For example, it tells me the link is down, we reset the connection, the link is still down, a tech was dispatched, he troubleshot, and finally the alarm cleared. This incident took almost a week. It went back into alarm after he left, then suddenly it cleared on its own.
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Usability
Dell Technologies
No answers on this topic
Dell Technologies
Very cumbersome compared to other vendors in the same marketplace.
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Support Rating
Dell Technologies
No answers on this topic
Dell Technologies
Not only support for Unity, but for any Dell product, whether for companies or for the end consumer. Support is agile, helpful, and always focused on solving the problem. To date, there has been no problem that Dell's support has failed to resolve and help us with.
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Alternatives Considered
Dell Technologies
Raw disk space vs. logical disk space ratio was significantly better on the Isilon. Fast cache using SSD drives for faster searching is available on the Isilon but not available on the Overland solution. Isilon solution included faster backend switching between nodes.
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Dell Technologies
I was instructed to buy these arrays, but I was not given the opportunity to evaluate other arrays. We evaluated other products in the market that competed with Unity and found that the younger array built from scratch had far better features, software, and ease of use. The Unity system has a unique way of storing the data when compared with other systems.
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Return on Investment
Dell Technologies
  • Isilon provides very high value for money
  • Matches the performance and storage requirements of the arrays
  • EMC provides very skillful and high response team in case of any issues in isilon
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Dell Technologies
  • Less business downtime and reliability is a major business concern. DELL EMC UNITY addresses this concern well and provides robust storage.
  • Investing in UNITY system is less expensive than all-flash storage systems.
  • Managing and provisioning VMware disks became simpler from a single interface in the Vcenter
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