Likelihood to Recommend For SMB file storage Exablox is great, but as an ESXi datastore it still needs work.
Read full review Quantum StorNext is well suited in environments with a high, fast paced workflow, with lots and lots of client systems connected, all needing to share the same assets, where you cannot have one moment of downtime. With the pace nowadays that clients expect work to get done, as opposed to 10 years or so ago (pre-iPhone social media instant instant gotta have it right away days), even downtime of 30 minutes can back up your whole workflow. As they say, time is money and Quantum StorNext almost certainly guarantees you have little to no downtime at all. It just works, silently, quietly in the background, making sure everyone is performing at 100% of their potential or more.
Read full review Pros Exablox is simple to setup and relatively easy to use. Exablox is priced very competitively and is a good value for the cost. Exablox has good customer service. Read full review Quantum StorNext just works and by that, I mean it just works flawlessly in the background, while your artists are doing their creative work on jobs with clients. Technical issues and hold-ups should never get in the way of the creative process. There is a lot of flexibility with StorNext and options available in software and hardware, to customize the best solution for your workflow. Great customer support and response times when things do need supporting, whether there is an issue with a piece of hardware (i.e. battery backup to a controller unit that needs replacing). Quantum along with our local support vendor are fast to respond. Read full review Cons Exablox is still in its infancy as a company and in some respects the product feels like a version 1.0. Integration with VMware ESXi has some bugs that need to be figured out. Read full review Price. Obviously, when you are at the level of performance that is needed for our work, Quantum can only go so low as a company on cost, to give their customers a blockbuster deal. But any possible discount here and there helps, and Quantum does their best to lower it as low as possible with bundles and pricing deals. By no means is price a deterring factor, for if you are playing at this level (Ferrari vs Camaro), you know it's going to expensive, but it's a solid investment if you want the reliability and performance. And it's actually cheaper when you compare it to other competitors, along with upgrade paths down the road that will cost you less. Read full review Likelihood to Renew The price for Exablox was very appealing. If we can resolve the NFS datastore issues we are seeing in VMware, this is a perfect solution for a ESXi datastore. Once that issue is resolved, I will give Exablox a higher rating.
Read full review Usability Again, the initial install, setup and config was simple through a web browser.
Read full review Reliability and Availability Since the day we installed Exablox we have not had any down-time. The storage resources have been available 100% of the time.
Read full review Performance SMB file access has been very responsive. We have not seen any slowness. Also, in using Exablox as tier 1 storage in our VMware environment, the VMs performed great. No slowness issues.
Read full review Support Rating Exablox has been very responsive to our requests. They communicate very well and are extremely knowledgable
Read full review Implementation Rating Straightforward and simple implementation. We completed the implementation in less than 2 hours.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Exablox was much less expensive than other storage arrays and I think there are a lot of reasons to purchase them. I believe that as the product matures, it will be a great option for storage.
Read full review Our first shared storage was from Facilis. This is a great company, with great hardware and software, of which we use in our NYC office. At the time, it did what we needed it to do and performed smoothly. But then our workflow expanded dramatically and needed to look for the level of SANs in the Quantum range. We passed our Facilis along to the NYC office and ended up getting an Active Storage SAN, which ran on StorNext. That company unfortunately went out of business a few years back (they are back in business within the last year, but I think Chinese owned), so we looked into getting a fully integrated all-in-one Quantum system that included its branded storage and MDCs to work with StorNext.
Read full review Scalability We have not tried to scale Exablox so we are not familiar with this.
Read full review Return on Investment We purchased Exablox specifically for our ESXi environment, so we are hoping to get the wrinkles worked out to see a greater return on our investment. Read full review Quantum StorNext has allowed us to not only perform at a higher level, but greatly expand how many client systems are connected to the SAN. Prior to Quantum, our old SAN could barely handle the workload of half the client systems we have now. So for ROI, I'm not involved with the actual numbers, but I know our work with clients has expanded ten fold and there is no sign of it slowing down. Confidence and my time not wasted, working with the support vendors to solve a problem. My time is then spent on other areas and projects in the company, not on phone calls and emails. Read full review ScreenShots