Dell PowerVault Disk Backup and Discovery (DL, TL & ML Series) Reviews and Ratings

Rating: 8 out of 10

Score

8 out of 10

Reviews

4 Reviews

Dell PowerVault great value for a reasonable price

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

February 25, 2026

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using Dell PowerVault TL1000 equiped with one LTO-8 drive, combined with Veeam Backup & Replication to export backup results from disk to tape. Autoloader is really helpful to reduce human manipulations. Tape labels are read by the autoloader and managed by Veeam to allow inserting and removing correct tape.

Pros

LTO tape writing and reading at fast speed
Reliable
Easy to use

Cons

OpenManage storage management interface should be upgraded / modernized
Compression / Deduplication should be added in addition to tiering
Improve Replication and Data Protection
Better integration with Veeam Backup & Replication

Likelihood to Recommend

Dell PowerVault suits SMB needs, VMware datastores, and backup targets where cost and simplicity matter. It's less ideal for latency-sensitive workloads, or environments needing sophisticated replication and automation.

Verified User

Professional in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

It works and works well.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

August 26, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The core storage for the enterprise front-ended by vmware esxi running the very lastest of Microsoft domain services and Exchange along with 100 virtual desktops. At the time using gigabit links with procurve switches.

I have to say even the EqualLogic stuff is better however PowerVaults are well worth the money.

Pros

iscsi
storage
and it's simple.

Cons

UI is lacking some love.

Likelihood to Recommend

For small to medium sided environments, it's great, or for low demand but being able to hit higher IOPS on demand.

It's still entry-level compared to EqualLogic hardware but a great contender in the field.

Verified User

Technician in Information Technology (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

9 years of experience

PowerVault Review, the Good the Bad and the Ugly

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

August 19, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Dell PowerVault at our college for our storage and tape in our backup and video security solutions.

Pros

Tape Solution
Small Business Solution
Good for direct attached storage purposes like video security.

Cons

The solution isn't really for large enterprise solutions except for direct attached solutions.

Likelihood to Recommend

PowerVault is good for direct attached solutions such as video security, backups and tape storage. We had it as our VMWare storage but dropped it about 5 years because of lack of compatibility with VMWare. I believe it is compatible now, but I still wouldn't recommend it for large enterprise environments.

Joe Wilker

Network and Systems Administrator II - Team Lead in Information Technology at Edgewood College (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

12 years of experience

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Good and Bad

Rating: 4 out of 10

Incentivized

August 17, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have the PowerVault deployed in 3 different locations. We use it internally for corporate infrastructure as well as dedicated to clients. It serves as both primary data storage as well as back up storage for some clients.

Pros

Simple to set up.
Single pane of glass to monitor several arrays.
Ability to scale.

Cons

Maintenance is tough. Dell recommends bringing the unit down for any kind of maintenance of upgrades.
Internal IOPS monitoring could be greatly improved.
Arrays are locked down to Dell licensed disks.

Likelihood to Recommend

Dell PowerVault is:

<ul><li>Well suited to hybrid on premise solutions. </li><li>Not well suited for enterprise cloud solutions.</li></ul>

Ezra Owen

Director of Infrastructure in Engineering at Lume Technologies (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

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