We performed a comparison between Dell PowerMax NVMe and Dell SC Series based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."
"The latency is good."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."
"We're consolidating two to three arrays down to one which means that our data center footprint has decreased by like 90%. So we're saving 90% of our space, and it also is much better on power and everything else in our data center. And on top of that, the performance is much, much better than our older arrays."
"The PowerMax software and CloudIQ let us get an inside view of our compression and compaction, as well as our usage of the storage."
"The number one most valuable feature is reliability. I want to go home at the end of the day and come in the next day knowing it works, especially since we have storage offshore."
"The tool is a fast-performing asset. It can perform millions of transactions within a second. I like the tool's architecture as well."
"It is easy to manage and upgrade."
"It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"We can consistently replicate mainframe and open system and have a single recovery point."
"Based on our experience with VMAX, there isn't any hardware failure or something like that in PowerMax. Performance-wise also, everything is fine. We haven't faced any performance issues or any hardware failure. Its performance is great as compared to VMAX. Its I/O per second rate is higher than the old model."
"Everything is sub-5 MS for us. What I've found is that, with all-flash, when an app from my business is slow, I pretty much know it's them and not me. It leads to a performance conversation that has really hit an interesting threshold point where we are better than what they need. So now we get to have that "refactoring your application" conversation a lot quicker because now the performance on the infrastructure side isn't in question anymore."
"It's very scalable, especially with federation. If you outgrow the number of spindles that a unit can support, depending on the model, you can go into federation."
"It has good dedupe and compression. Also, the built-in data migration capabilities are pretty good, as is the federation. When we started migrating the workloads from different storage platforms, like NetApp and XtremeIO, it helped us in moving to that direction."
"Easy management of volumes: You can create volumes and easily assign them to VMware clusters, increasing their size."
"The solution has a wide variety of valuable features. The data progression works well. We use the snapshot functionality quite a bit and really like it."
"The most valuable feature is the speed for the end-user."
"What is most valuable about the Dell EMC SC Series system was its reliability."
"The user interface is good, I would rate it a nine out of ten."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."
"We have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."
"The initial setup process is difficult."
"The tool needs to improve its performance. Today's applications are demanding a response rate of one millisecond or below. The product should also look into AI integration."
"We would like more documentation, a guide to the features of the PowerMax."
"The price could be lower, and we are unhappy with the price."
"They should work with the storage engineers to better tweak the management tools to give them improved visibility into their data."
"The main feature that I personally want to see is the possibility to upgrade to the next generation without changing all the components and just change the engine, relying on the compatibility matrices between two different generations. Meaning that we could just keep the enclosure and upgrade the engine, integrating the enclosure to the existing pool, then adding automation tools for orchestration."
"The tool is costly compared to other similar products. The product's pricing needs to be improved. I would like the product to include the replication feature in its future releases."
"I would like a more informative CloudIQ for iOS. What you can see via the web UI significantly differs from what you can see via the web application."
"It's not very efficient anymore. There are better products out there."
"Overall, I'd like to see more synergy between Dell EMC's higher-tier platforms and their mid-tier platforms. What I have said, constantly, to my partners at Dell EMC is that the clear articulation of the path is really important to us. In that vein, what I'd also like to see is, with the migration strategy that's built into this product, a lot more attention paid to Dell's - in particular - legacy platforms and how we get from some of our legacy EMC platforms onto this platform with a straight-through migration and scaling strategy, not host-based migrations and not piecemeal... Dell EMC would do well to focus more on my ability to skip a generation, rather than having me take individual hops because I can't greenfield my way into a software-defined data center fast enough. This journey of multiple hops is not helpful."
"The lack of reporting would be the main issue."
"The administration and support (on the way that they delivered) was a little bit slow."
"This product should be a lot more user-friendly."
"Technical support should respond more quickly because the turnaround time is very high."
"This solution could be improved if overall performance was improved and operated with a higher speed and supported a higher volume of RAM."
"While there's always room for improvement in everything, I can't really think of a specific feature of the solution that requires immediate attention."
Dell PowerMax NVMe is ranked 8th in All-Flash Storage with 66 reviews while Dell SC Series is ranked 24th in All-Flash Storage with 49 reviews. Dell PowerMax NVMe is rated 8.8, while Dell SC Series is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Dell PowerMax NVMe writes "Simplified storage provisioning for us, enabling us to assign any volumes in two to three minutes". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Dell SC Series writes "Automated architecture that proactively optimizes your database ". Dell PowerMax NVMe is most compared with Dell PowerStore, IBM FlashSystem, Dell Unity XT, Pure Storage FlashArray and Huawei OceanStor Dorado, whereas Dell SC Series is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, IBM FlashSystem, Huawei OceanStor and IBM System Storage DS8000 Series. See our Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Dell SC Series report.
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