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Dell Unity XT Unified Storage

Dell Unity XT Unified Storage

Overview

What is Dell Unity XT Unified Storage?

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.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Dell EMC Unity has become an essential tool for many users in various industries. Its versatility allows it to be used for a wide range of …
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Dell EMC Unity Review

9 out of 10
February 19, 2020
Incentivized
Dell EMC Unity is being used by a division of the organization. The EMC Unity I monitor and maintain is at two of the facilities within …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 6 features
  • Power Savings (14)
    9.6
    96%
  • Flash Array Performance (13)
    9.4
    94%
  • Simplicity (15)
    9.0
    90%
  • Non-Intrusive Upgrades (15)
    8.8
    88%
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Product Demos

Dell EMC Unity - Asynchronous Block Replication

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Dell EMC Unity Asynchronous Replication

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Kubernetes CSI 1.1 plugin for Dell EMC Unity

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Installing the Dell EMC Unity CSI plugin for Kubernetes

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Dell EMC Unity – Data at Rest Encryption

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Dell EMC Unity - Asynchronous File Replication

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Features

Enterprise Flash Array Storage

All-flash array storage is a solid state, high performance storage option.

9.3
Avg 9.1
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Product Details

What is Dell Unity XT Unified Storage?

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.

Dell Unity XT Unified Storage Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Reviewers rate Data Compression highest, with a score of 9.7.

The most common users of Dell Unity XT Unified Storage are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(35)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Dell EMC Unity has become an essential tool for many users in various industries. Its versatility allows it to be used for a wide range of applications and environments. For example, in the development and pre-production environment, Dell EMC Unity is often employed for Oracle databases, providing easy data moving and monitoring of multiple processes. Users have also found value in the creation of multiple copies of databases through array snapshots, resulting in cost-effective data compression and space savings. Additionally, Dell EMC Unity serves as a hybrid block storage array, offering auto-tiering options and cost-effectiveness. It is frequently utilized as primary storage for virtual servers, oracle virtual disks, and databases, as well as for disk mapping to physical servers. The straightforward graphical interface simplifies configuration and management tasks, making it accessible even to less experienced users. Moreover, Dell EMC Unity plays a crucial role in maintaining data backup for Linux servers by providing sufficient storage capacity. In VMware environments, it serves as reliable storage for file sharing purposes and pre-production environment servers. The product's ability to create multiple database copies and facilitate storage upgrades has made it highly regarded among its users. Additionally, Dell EMC Unity is valued as a NAS file server, supporting file sharing for various departments with data replication between data centers with low RPO. In this capacity, it ensures high availability, reliability, and redundancy of critical files. Another notable use case is as a centralized storage solution for retaining an organization's intellectual property securely. Lastly, Dell EMC Unity offers a reliable and efficient path for migrating away from legacy systems. Overall, the product's flexibility and ease-of-use have contributed to its adoption across different industries and use cases.

User-Friendly Interface: Many users have found the user interface of Dell EMC Unity to be excellent and very user-friendly, making it easy to operate on a daily basis. The intuitive design and layout of the interface have been praised by numerous reviewers.

Reliable Performance: The Dell EMC Unity storage arrays have been consistently performing up to expectations, earning praise from users for their reliability and stability. With no issues of latency reported, the performance of Dell EMC Unity, especially with its all-flash storage option, has been deemed fast and reliable.

Seamless Integration: The integration of Dell EMC Unity with VMware has been highlighted as a valuable feature by several reviewers. This seamless integration enhances the overall management experience, providing users with a streamlined workflow and efficient data management capabilities.

Configuration Complexity: Several users have found the initial configuration and setup process to be time-consuming, difficult, and not as straightforward as other products in the market. Some reviewers mentioned that it was especially challenging compared to newer solutions.

Limited Monitoring Options: Users expressed disappointment with the limited options available in the monitoring dashboard and the inability to create custom reports. This limitation could hinder their ability to effectively monitor and analyze system performance.

Support Challenges: Users mentioned frustration with Dell EMC's support, stating that it can sometimes be difficult to get an experienced support professional for certain less common issues, leading to delays in issue resolution.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-19 of 19)
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Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Dell EMC Unity as a storage array for VMware storage. Also, we use the unity array for file storage based on Windows File sharing. For connection, we use the onboard CNA connections at 10GBit\s. The array is managed thru a user-friendly GUI. For the support and upgrades, we rely on the Dell EMC support team.
  • Storage management.
  • User-friendly GUI.
  • GUI Dashboards.
  • Data deduplication is only available on a full flash array.
Dell EMC unity is well suited for storage environments in the small range, mid-range up to high-end range storage array's. Configuration is made easy with user-friendly GU, even the first deployment can be done with GUI.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use the Dell EMC Unity as a NAS file server hosting file shares for the majority of our users. Prior the unity we were using a Physical server running Windows OS to host the file shares. We were looking for a solution that would replicated the file data between two data centers with very low RPO. The EMC unity's hosted in both datacenters allows for a 60 minute RPO in case of a DR event.
  • High availability
  • Data Replication
  • Ease of use and management
  • Some administrative settings can only be changed using CLI
  • Some version do not allow for de-duplication
  • Upgrades through support have long lead times
The Dell EMC Unity is best suited for SMB workloads where ease of use and administration needs to be the focus. For our specific use case it is perfectly suited as a NAS file server and is easy to upgrade storage when required (although not inexpensive). In prior positions it was also used for vmware datastores which worked similarly as the older VNX models.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We used Dell EMC Unity storage for Linux servers to maintain the data backup of applications and databases which are running over the Linux servers. Dell EMC Unity has provided enough storage capacity, which is sufficient for our environments.
  • Dell EMC Unity Storage interface is easy to operate for daily operation
  • Dell EMC Unity provides a simple method for disk provision and mapping to Unix servers as per demand
  • Dell EMC Unity storage provides the good backup solution for application data
  • Dell EMC Unity provides the data stability
  • We did not face any critical business issues since we started using this storage. Overall we have good experience with this system.
Dell EMC Unity Storage is well suited for every environment and organization, but it depends on how and where you use this storage. Dell EMC Unity storage is capable of managing every type of business requirement to maintain the data. We are using this storage in our Linux environments to maintain the application data backup.
Jagmender Kharb | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Dell EMC Unity is an easy solution and all its components are easy to set and understand how they perform. Dell EMC Unity allow easy data moving and easy to monitor multiple processor of different application and data base.
  • Data Security are excellent.
  • Easy to setup and use for daily operation.
  • Perfect suit for NAS file server.
  • Disk provisioning.
  • More integrated feature.
  • Initial configuration take much time.
  • Monitoring for multiple services.
Dell EMC Unity is an easy system and very flexible components, easily we can use all its functions. EMC Unity is well suited for all types of projects and organizations small, mid, and large. Reliable storage solution with great technical support.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Dell EMC Unity currently used as storage for both structured data and unstructured data. Storing the different type of images related to data. Dell EMC Unity is the easy solution and its all components are easy to set and understand how they perform.
  • Its good platform to store the both structured data and unstructured data
  • Reliable, stable
  • User Interface are easy to manage work in daily
  • Ability to monitored the data transfer operation
  • Multiple service monitoring
  • Initial configuration takes too much time
Its really well designed where we need to maintain and store different type of data like structured and unstructured, images etc.
Great reporting feature and easy to use. Its well suited for all type of environments and provide the high performance.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using Dell EMC Unity as storage for VMware Storage and file sharing for Windows based in our clients' projects. We also used this storage for pre-production environment servers. This product allows us to create multiple copies of any database. We have used this product as a NAS file server and it's easy to upgrade storage when required.
  • Data saving with compression
  • This storage are good for Pre-production environments
  • Easy to set up
  • Perfectly suited as a NAS File server
  • Product cost
  • GUI Should be improves with all features
  • More integrated features
Dell EMC Unity is well designed for pre-production environments and other normal usage. A big company setup may not consider this product for critical production environments.
Vinay Damle | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Dell EMC Unity is used as storage for 1. Any type of data is structured or unstructured 2. Storing the various types of image-related data 3. Archiving any type of historical data in a compressed manner
  • It is really awesome to store structured data along with unstructured data.
  • Excellent UI, very user friendly in terms of use.
  • Reliable, stable, easy to work and easy to maintain.
  • Networking file system integration could be made better.
  • UI depiction of data seems to be lagging a bit.
  • The configuration is way too much and time taking.
It is well suited when needs to deal with different types of data like structured, unstructured, image, blobs, etc. It is not so good when dealing with networking file system data.
Jeniffer Luis | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Dell EMC Unity is an easy solution and all its components are easy to set and understand how they perform and easy manipulation through the system dashboard which is also very simple to adapt. Dell EMC Unity allows easy data moving and easy to monitor multiple processes of different data and other information easily and the reporting using Dell EMC Unity is cost-effective.
  • Data security is excellent on Dell EMC Unity.
  • Ability to monitor data transfer operations.
  • Easy to get effective operations reports.
  • Interface security setting for new users.
  • Monitoring of multiple services.
  • Getting to adapt on the tool advance functionalities.
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.
Lukas Mizera | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The client uses the solution for Oracle databases in the development and pre-production environment. It doesn't affect the gold and silver application area. The Dell EMC Unity storage enables customer developers to create multiple copies of any databases within its feature of array snapshot. Not forgetting, DEU applied to the Oracle databases analysis, how it can help customers with data compression and space savings. These savings are visible in the storage space cost.
  • 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).
  • Time-consuming configuration.
  • Missing HW support on the customer site.
Midrange storage level solution for customers who want "test" databases functionality in a pre-production environment. Ideal for development environment with compares to other storage products. Costs are less than for faster performance-tuned types. A very important factor is to have not only support from Dell but a local person with knowledge of DEU elements.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The Dell EMC Unity is being used as a network-attached storage file server that hosts file sharing for the bulk of our employees. Prior to Unity, the file shares were hosted on a physical server running Windows OS. We needed a system that could do exactly what the file data between two data storage servers connected to a computer network providing data access to a heterogeneous group of clients.
  • Carbon copy of the Data used In the storage system.
  • Convenient to use.
  • Available for one to use whenever or however one wishes.
  • Refurbished data obtained takes a lot of time to complete.
  • The replica of stored data cannot be accessible.
After considering some of the solutions from other vendors, we chose Dell EMC Unity. We were price-conscious and wanted to choose a device that would bring a familiar amount of money to the table. I was looking for a device that could support a flash drive as a read cache for my frequently used files, but I also needed a device that fits my size and budget.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Dell EMC Unity was used as one of the Production storage platforms for the whole organization. It provided a reliable and efficient solution to migrate away from legacy systems hence eliminating technical debt.
  • Fast all Flash storage
  • Ease of installation
  • Ease of Use
  • More efficient deduplication
  • More efficient compression
Dell EMC Unity is well suited as a Production storage where footprint is at a premium. It packs excellent performance and storage in a small U-factor. The learning curve to managing the Unity is not steep at all thus can be used in environments such small businesses where a dedicated storage administrator is not needed.
September 19, 2020

Dell EMC Unity

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Dell EMC Unity is used across the entire organization. It is used as a dedicated SAN as well as a shared customer environment SAN. It is used for hosting applications from basic web server all the way through large database applications.
  • Dell EMC Unity once stood up is reliable and performs to expectations.
  • Dell EMC Unity has improved on the end user management experience over their older product suites
  • Difficult to configure and set up out of the box compared to newer solutions in the market
Has caused us a need to look elsewhere for a better solution for our business
August 27, 2020

Dell EMC Unity Review

Roni Peterson Alvarenga | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Dell EMC Unity300 for the entire organization. We use it within our VMware cluster and also for file storage and engineering. There is also an area for editing our institutional TV. As it provides a hybrid environment, we can take advantage of the available block and NAS functionality. We acquired it because of its auto-tiering options, cost-effectiveness, and great support from Dell.
  • Auto-tiering
  • Provisioning LUNs
  • Management reports
  • Integration with VMWare
  • LUNs with greater storage capacity
  • NAS with greater storage capacity
  • More user-friendly provisioning for end users
Dell EMC Unity is a hybrid solution. That is, it is indicated for environments that do not need specific and customized solutions. For general use, it guarantees an excellent performance, with the possibility of delivering 60TB NAS to end-users. However, if the environment is critical, there are solutions, from Dell itself, that are more appropriate. For example, do not try to use it as database storage, it will not have acceptable performance.
Muhammad Mulla | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My organization was using our Dell EMC Unity in production up until a few months ago. It is now used for our proof of concept and test environments. It was used for block storage only, serving VMware environments. Unity is a good hybrid block storage array with a mix of both flash and, HDD and slow disk providing auto-tiering.
  • Tiering.
  • Integration with vCenter.
  • Legacy tech.
  • Not as dynamic as other products.
The Dell EMC Unity is well suited to general usage VM storage or NAS usage if required. We found that using it both for file and block had a performance impact on our VMs. It is not for fast access servers, such as Oracle DBs, etc.
February 19, 2020

Dell EMC Unity Review

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Dell EMC Unity is being used by a division of the organization. The EMC Unity I monitor and maintain is at two of the facilities within that division. EMC Unity is used by all departments. The EMC Unity is the SAN where the departmental data is stored and accessed. Data availability, reliability, and redundancy are critical to our business. Dell Unity delivers.
  • Flexibility
  • Reliability
  • 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.
Dell EMC Unity is best suited for small to mid-size organizations. The facility has up to 100 end-users and 5 TB of space. In 4 years time, there is still some room to grow. Overall, Dell EMC Unity did what it was designed to do. A large organization may want to consider the Dell EMC as part of the HA solution, but maybe not production.
January 17, 2019

Unity SAN in Healthcare

Kevin Blackburn | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Dell EMC Unity exclusively for block storage. We have ESXi, Windows, Linux, and AIX hosts attached to this SAN.
  • Simple management interface
  • Performance has been very good. No issues with latency.
  • Management is too simple. It would be nice if there was a mode for more advanced users. This is Unity's biggest weakness in my opinion. For an engineer that has been managing enterprise storage for 10+ years, I feel like the Unity is a step backward. While it is super simple for newer engineers, there are configuration options that I wish were available to me as a more experienced user.
  • VMware integrations are somewhat clunky and operations are time-consuming.
Functionally it is perfect for us and what we are using it for. I just wish it had a more advanced and less simplistic interface.
Timothy Sawah | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Dell EMC Unity is our primary storage system. It is used by the whole enterprise and managed by the IT department. The storage system hosts virtual servers disks, oracle virtual disks, databases and disk mapping to traditional physical servers. The Dell EMC Unity can be attached through fiber links. It is easily configured and managed through a straightforward graphical interface.
  • Very reliable arrays with a notification system when a disk fails
  • Simple disk provisioning and mapping
  • Easy to upgrade the firmware
  • Fast access with a relatively cheap storage combination of flash and SATA drives
  • integrates with Vmware vcenter
  • The NAS part is not capable of auto-fail to the secondary node.
  • Monitoring Dashboard has very limited options
  • custom reporting capabilities are not possible
The UNITY storage system is perfect for medium-size enterprises. The auto-tiering feature can boost performance for commonly used apps while moving less utilized apps disks to cheaper storage arrays. This said, UNITY suits best an enterprise with a mix of heavily used and rarely used applications. On the other hand, enterprises with applications requiring heavy access are recommended to get the more expensive all-flash storage systems.
January 11, 2019

Dell EMC Unity Review

Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Dell EMC Unity is used across the entire organization. It is used as a dedicated SAN as well as a shared customer environment SAN. It is used for hosting applications from basic web server all the way through large database applications.
  • Dell EMC Unity has improved on the end user management experience over their older product suites.
  • Dell EMC Unity once stood up is reliable and performs to expectations.
  • Dell EMC Unity allows for small entry into the the product suite and can grow based on needs.
  • Difficult to configure and set up out of the box compared to newer solutions in the market.
  • Software and firmware updates are complicated compared to many other new storage players in the market.
  • Support with Dell EMC is sometimes very difficult to get an experienced support professional to assist you with certain less often seen issues.
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.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The Dell EMC Unity device currently in use on campus is used by the entirety of our organization. The primary use case of the device is for CIFS based file shares, which are broke up into several named CIF servers, down to the department level. The use of the Dell EMC Unity allows for centralized storage and retention of the organization's intellectual property.
  • The Dell EMC Unity has great Active Directory integration, which allows for NTFS based permissions as needed on a device or file share level.
  • The Dell EMC Unity has great capabilities for data replication to another Dell EMC Unity devices.
  • The Dell EMC Unity has great integration for NDMP based backups.
  • I would like for the Dell EMC Unity to have an easier path to navigation for creating and adjusting Windows-based file share permissions.
Great support, easy to use, and does exactly as it was promised. Support actively reaches out to upgrade the microcode of the devices if I have not been keeping the device up to date. The Unity works fantastic for our situation. The Unity also has some development deployments supported by allowing for Iscsi connections across the multiple types of adapters the kit was configured with.
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