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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Dell Unity XT Unified Storage

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/ADell 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

    VMware ESXi

    Score7.4 out of 10
    N/AA bare-metal hypervisor that installs directly onto a physical server. With direct access to and control of underlying resources, VMware ESXi partitions hardware to consolidate applications and cut costs.N/A
    Pricing
    Dell Unity XT Unified StorageVMware ESXi
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Dell Unity XT Unified StorageVMware ESXi
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Dell Unity XT Unified StorageVMware ESXi
    Considered Both Products
    Dell Technologies
    Chose Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
    I came into Dell EMC SC Series Compellent with only limited knowledge of the Dell EMC Unity. Don't get me wrong, the Dell EMC Unity is fine for what it needs to do. The next series or next class of storage is the Compellent. We had to go this direction with storage, as the …
    Incentivized
    Chose Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
    We were directed to buy these arrays and didn't have the ability to evaluate the other arrays. Once we evaluated the other products in the market that compete with Unity we saw that the younger, more built from the ground up arrays, had much better features, software, and ease …
    Incentivized
    VMware by Broadcom
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    82%
    Would buy again
    14 Answers
    98%
    Would buy again
    93 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    15 Answers
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    86 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    17 Answers
    99%
    Happy with the feature set
    94 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    12 Answers
    99%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    82 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    14 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    91 Answers
    Features
    Dell Unity XT Unified StorageVMware ESXi
    Enterprise Flash Array Storage
    Comparison of Enterprise Flash Array Storage features of Dell Unity XT Unified Storage and VMware ESXi
    Feature
    Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
    9.3
    16 Ratings
    5% above category average
    VMware ESXi
    -
    Ratings
    Flash Array Performance10.014 Ratings00 Ratings
    Flash Array Integration10.014 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data Compression9.013 Ratings00 Ratings
    Non-Intrusive Upgrades9.016 Ratings00 Ratings
    Simplicity9.016 Ratings00 Ratings
    Power Savings9.015 Ratings00 Ratings
    Server Virtualization
    Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Dell Unity XT Unified Storage and VMware ESXi
    Feature
    Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
    -
    Ratings
    VMware ESXi
    8.2
    128 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Virtual machine automated provisioning00 Ratings8.0116 Ratings
    Management console00 Ratings9.0128 Ratings
    Live virtual machine backup00 Ratings8.0112 Ratings
    Live virtual machine migration00 Ratings8.0116 Ratings
    Hypervisor-level security00 Ratings8.0117 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Dell Unity XT Unified StorageVMware ESXi
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    Proxmox VE
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Dell Compellent (discontinued)
    Score8 out of 10
    VMware vSOM (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Everpure FlashArray
    Score8.2 out of 10
    IBM PowerVM
    Score9.7 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Dell Unity XT Unified StorageVMware ESXi
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (21 ratings)
    9.0
    (129 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (6 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (4 ratings)
    9.0
    (6 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (6 ratings)
    10.0
    (55 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.1
    (2 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Dell Unity XT Unified StorageVMware ESXi
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    If you're looking for the industry standard in server virtualization, I would recommend ESXi. After decades of expertise in the field, VMware continues to provide a strong product, production-ready, with an easy-to-learn interface that allows for quick management along with less costly upfront onboarding and training. Grab the free personal-use license and install in your homelab to start!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    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).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    • Resource management. The automatic load balancing works very well to ensure no host is taxed disproportionately compared to the others.
    • Templates and cloning. It is very easy to set up a template and spin up new servers based on a specific setup. This makes server management very streamlined.
    • VM management. The vSphere interface is very easy to use and navigate. Everything is responsive and it works when you need it to. The options are also robust while also being arranged in a straightforward manner.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    • VMware ESXi can improve on the UI that is installed on the bare metal machine. The menus can be hard to navigate when looking for simple configuration items.
    • VMware ESXi can improve on the stability of their overall hypervisor. There have been a few times we had to reinstall due to corruption of VMware ESXi.
    • I would like to see VMware ESXi do better at adding more standard free features in their consumer version of VMware ESXi. For example, having the ability to back up virtual machines is good practice and something that would be very nice if offered in their free version.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Dell Technologies
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    It is critical to our business, what started out as a way to do certain functions, it has now become core to ensuring our product is available to our customers and reducing our costs to operate and reduce our recovery time and provisioning servers. Their support is great and the costs to renew is reasonable.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Dell Technologies
    The Unity was easy to connect, set up and maintain
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    The interface is fairly intuitive for most things, and the areas that are a little less obvious usually have fantastic documentation in the online knowledgebase. In 3-4 years of managing our ESXi hosts, I think that I have only opened 4-5 support cases for things that I could not figure out myself or find answers to on the website.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Dell Technologies
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    Without the need to patch the servers with bug fixes and enhancements we whave not experienced any downtime with VMware issues. Even the bug fixes and updates do not cause of downtime as we just migrate the servers to the opposite node and update the one and then move servers back. Very simple and painless.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Dell Technologies
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    We do not notice any difference between a physical and virtual server running the same workload. In fact we can scale quicker with the virtual server than we can with the physical.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Dell Technologies
    Dell EMC Unity, in my honest opinion, is basically an all-flash VNX with a better interface. There is ZERO innovation coming out of EMC. If you want a company that's going to give you good support and be proud of their product instead of their profit margin, I strongly urge you to look elsewhere as there are better and more innovative products in the marketplace.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    I can't say enough good about VMware's support team. To an individual they take ownership of the case, provide thorough answers, and follow up regularly. On one occasion, a problem we experienced with NSX Endpoint was escalated to development for a permanent resolution after a workaround was found. In my experience, most companies would have tried to find a way to close a case like that instead of taking it all the way. Most importantly, when production is down and every second counts, they VMware teams understand that urgency and treat your issue as if it were the only one they had to deal with. You can't ask for better.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Dell Technologies
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    Jsut read and follow anything your storage provider may require to allow the integration of VMware with storage operations, outside of that VMware jsut works.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    As long as you're using Nutanix AOS on Nutanix hardware and are paying their software support fees, AOS is a valid competitor to VMware and can save money due to not needing a license and having their server management system built into the base host management system. If you aren't using Nutanix hardware, however, VMWare is in most cases the best way to go. I cannot comment on HyperV, but most IT people I know either use it because they have to (most) or they like it better (not many).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Dell Technologies
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    it has been fair and easy to understand. I know VMware is looking at wanting to change from CPU to core pricing so we will see what that looks like when it happens.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Dell Technologies
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    We started out with a two-server cluster and adding a third or fourth is very straightforward and simple with no issues. You just need to be aware of the size of your Vcenter Server to handle the workload, but still the resources needed is very minimal
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    • VMWare ESXi licensing is affordable for our business - and the licensing model is simplistic. Not like that of Microsoft with having to keep track of server licenses and CAL licenses for users.
    • VMWare ESXi also has hardware-monitoring built-in, so that further saves us money from having to be spent with another vendor.
    • As much as I hate the saying "a single pane of glass" does fit for this product. You can manage your servers, monitor hardware status, create and export backup snapshots, manage virtual NICs, connect to various storage devices. We're very happy with this product.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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