Dell Compellent (discontinued) Reviews and Ratings

Rating: 8 out of 10

Score

8 out of 10

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Dell Compellent (discontinued) are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Business Problems Solved

Compellent, a part of the Dell EMC SC Series, is widely used as a tier one storage solution for various systems such as SQL databases and other business applications that require fast and reliable storage. Users have reported significant improvements in input/output operations per second for critical data by leveraging the flexibility to set RAID levels based on data access frequency. This has resulted in enhanced performance and responsiveness for these important systems.

One of the key use cases of Compellent is its ability to simplify and streamline data storage management. The storage center allows users to effortlessly move data between different storage tiers, optimizing resource utilization while ensuring high availability. This not only cuts down on time and cost associated with managing storage but also provides robust data protection against potential downtime and disasters.

Another valuable use case of Compellent is its capability to consolidate various data storage solutions onto a single platform, making it easier for administrators to manage their storage infrastructure. This consolidation brings efficiency and convenience by centralizing control and simplifying data management tasks. Moreover, this product caters to the demand for mixed media usage by efficiently supporting both virtualized environments and physical servers, offering fast and responsive servers with high I/O responsiveness.

Overall, Compellent has been lauded by users for providing a cost-effective solution that maximizes the utility of purchased storage resources. It offers a range of functionalities that address the diverse needs of organizations, resulting in improved performance, simplified management, and enhanced data protection.

Reviews

6 Reviews

Dell EMC SC Series- GREAT review

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

December 13, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

[Dell EMC SC Series (Compellent)] allows us to manage data at a higher level. We utilize it to manage storage easily and move data between storage tiers. In deployment situations, this program has been used to protect data against any downtown and disaster. The storage center helps us cut the time and the cost/risk of managing the storage.

Pros

Decreases time management
Easy to manage
Meets all business needs

Cons

Works poorly when there are massive issues such as snapshots
Modification of multiple volumes or the creation of them
Assistance with high I/O times where snapshots are consolidating

Likelihood to Recommend

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.

Verified User

Director (5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

Flash storage with an outdated management console

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

November 19, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We primarily use Dell ENC SC Series (Compellent) for our mixed media usage for virtual servers and physical servers, as well. This is being used across the organization, and it primarily addresses issues applications that need flash storage as a backend storage supply. It addresses the needs for fast, responsive servers that need to be able to boot quickly and has high I/O responsiveness.

Pros

Dell EMC SC Series (Compellent) does work well most of the time, but when there are massive i/o issues such as snapshot consolidation, it seems to function poorly.
Dell EMC SC Series (Compellent) is an easy to use array. Simple to configure volumes, add servers, and adjust policies.
The updates seem to be easily resolvable, with very little to no issues coming from any problematic update paths.

Cons

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.

Likelihood to Recommend

This type of array works excellent in small environments that don't have high I/O usage servers. Once the servers start to become more and more high intensity I/O, you can begin to tell that this array cannot handle the spikes. This mainly can cause issues when doing snapshot-based backups, and the I/O is high when the consolidation occurs. We have seen this happen a good amount with the SC9000 but not the Vmax array.

Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology (5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Dell SC9000 all flash SAN serves up all the data at the Frost Museum of Science

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

June 19, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use our flash based SC9000 in our main datacenter to serve all of the museum's data storage needs.

Pros

The speed of the all flash based SC9000 allows us to host all of our servers on one central storage array.
Reliability of the SC9000 has been key with 100% uptime over the 2 years we have been using it.
The SC9000 has been very easy to maintain and support.

Cons

Expensive to support after the initial warranty expires.

Likelihood to Recommend

The SC9000 is able to store off the mMuseum's server data while being fully redundant and supported 24x7 by Dell.

Brooks Weisblat

Vice President of Technology in Information Technology at Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

View profile

Great Price, performance an reliability are questionable

Rating: 2 out of 10

Incentivized

August 5, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We used Compellent for vmware storage for clusters used by our development group. It was used by 100+ developers.

Pros

Very competitively priced
No need to manage individual RAID groups
Honestly I can only come up with 2 good things.

Cons

Reliability. We had several times where VMFS luns would become corrupted and we'd have to move all VM's off to other storage
Performance. 1g iSCSI performance was abysmal (although the unit we used was an older device)
Management and Monitoring. Both management and monitoring are pretty primitive. We were never able to integrate monitoring into Nagios.

Likelihood to Recommend

Most appropriate where cost is primary driver. Least appropriate when performance and reliability are critical.

Jeff Stockamp

Principal Systems Administrator in Information Technology at Concur (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

View profile

My New Compellent Review4U

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

August 2, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our organization was merging technical teams and assets and we faced a need to consolidate our data storage solution onto a single platform for ease of management. We had storage arrays from EMC and Hitachi presently but both were aging and we needed a cost-effective solution that would provide ROI in terms of letting us get the most usefulness out of our purchased storage.

Pros

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.

Cons

The Dell Compellent model is migrating away from the WebGUI in future controller firmware versions and is focusing solely on their Enterprise Manger product (soon to be Dell Storage Manager) for managing all of their products (arrays and NAS devices). I personally like to have multiple vectors of access, or have the option to enable these if needed. Since the Enterprise Manager product relies on a separate in-house server, this presents a unique single point of failure in the event of an outage unless other highly available precautions are taken.
Since this review concerns Compellent as a whole, I would like to mention the Compellent NAS solution: FS8600. This is a product that I believe was acquired and customized into the FluidFS architecture as an after-thought. We have a 4-node FS cluster and have not been satisfied with the product's ability to handle SMB connections (very low for an "enterprise" product like this). We feel as if we are in a constant state of debugging the software for whatever current release we find ourselves in. Firmware upgrades have not been an issue, however Compellent support is not equipped to handle calls from FS8600 users as there is generally much shuffling and transferring of the call (it seems as if there are a limited number of qualified technicians to service this product).
The add-on service "Optimize" is a great resource for Compellent knowledge and proactive notifications and Co-Pilot support is great for any issues that arise. The only issue with these services is that, with the way the system is engineered, the services are almost mandatory as without them you would have no way of knowing how inefficient your RAID stripping was at any given time and even if you did there would be no way for you to fix it. As a customer you have the Enterprise Manager product and a set of Powershell cmdlets at your disposal, but the complete suite of support tools only resides with support, therefore you are required to not only purchase support (which should be done regardless), but if you have a large array and a very busy environment it is a good idea to purchase the Optimize service as well. They are a benefit to the customer, but they are because they have been designed that way as quid pro quo back to Dell.

Likelihood to Recommend

Dell Compellent has a decent portfolio of products for varying sizes of business. Their licensing model is suited for those not wanting total a la carte fare, and administration is intuitive as compared to other storage arrays. This combined with Co-Pilot support gives Dell a good presence in a vast number of scenarios where networked storage is required over a DAS solution. It's only fallback is its own NAS solution, which itself may be better suited to smaller environments.

Verified User

Technician in Information Technology (5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

Why Compellent is the right SAN for your business needs.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

December 8, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Compellent as our tier one storage for all of our systems. What really sold us on Compellent vs. the other vendors was their approach to block level storage that at the time was unique. Their ability to set RAID levels based on how often that particular block of data is accessed tremendously increases IOPS for data that is most in need. We store all of our SQL databases on our main array, as well as any other business systems that require the fastest storage. I would highly recommend anyone looking for an enterprise class SAN to consider Compellent. Their feature set, support, and pricing model is top notch in my book.

Pros

Block level RAID with data tiered based on how often those blocks are read or written.
You can mix and match different ways of accessing the SAN, FC or ISCSI.
They offer the ability to mix and match drive speeds and sizes within racks. This provides for larger, slower drives to store old data, while providing fast SSD storage for data that is constantly in use.

Cons

I would like to see better options for data replication between sites.

Likelihood to Recommend

Compellent fits very well in the mid-sized business market. I wouldn't call it a system that would do well with a company the size of Google or Apple. The cost, features, and speed is what makes Compellent a perfect fit for any business that needs a quality SAN that can scale as needed.

Justin Stumpf

IT Manager in Information Technology at CyberCoders (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile

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My New Compellent Review4U

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

August 2, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

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.

Cons

The Dell Compellent model is migrating away from the WebGUI in future controller firmware versions and is focusing solely on their Enterprise Manger product (soon to be Dell Storage Manager) for managing all of their products (arrays and NAS devices). I personally like to have multiple vectors of access, or have the option to enable these if needed. Since the Enterprise Manager product relies on a separate in-house server, this presents a unique single point of failure in the event of an outage unless other highly available precautions are taken.
Since this review concerns Compellent as a whole, I would like to mention the Compellent NAS solution: FS8600. This is a product that I believe was acquired and customized into the FluidFS architecture as an after-thought. We have a 4-node FS cluster and have not been satisfied with the product's ability to handle SMB connections (very low for an "enterprise" product like this). We feel as if we are in a constant state of debugging the software for whatever current release we find ourselves in. Firmware upgrades have not been an issue, however Compellent support is not equipped to handle calls from FS8600 users as there is generally much shuffling and transferring of the call (it seems as if there are a limited number of qualified technicians to service this product).
The add-on service "Optimize" is a great resource for Compellent knowledge and proactive notifications and Co-Pilot support is great for any issues that arise. The only issue with these services is that, with the way the system is engineered, the services are almost mandatory as without them you would have no way of knowing how inefficient your RAID stripping was at any given time and even if you did there would be no way for you to fix it. As a customer you have the Enterprise Manager product and a set of Powershell cmdlets at your disposal, but the complete suite of support tools only resides with support, therefore you are required to not only purchase support (which should be done regardless), but if you have a large array and a very busy environment it is a good idea to purchase the Optimize service as well. They are a benefit to the customer, but they are because they have been designed that way as quid pro quo back to Dell.

Likelihood to Recommend

Verified User

Technician in Information Technology (5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience