We performed a comparison between Dell Unity XT and Pure FlashArray X NVMe 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."I like the speed, and I like the API and how programmable it is."
"The management is simple in Pure Storage FlashArray."
"The initial setup is very straightforward. You simply plug it in and turn it on."
"Data deduplication features make it easier to manage storage and forecast growth."
"They are quite responsive and our local team was pretty good."
"It helps to simplify storage because it has an easy front-end to access everything."
"It helps simplify storage. When you're running Pure all-flash, you don't have to do a lot of the old Oracle best practices. You don't have to worry about putting log files on a different disk channel than the data files, and those types of issues... That has made it vastly easier to do large volumes, rapid provisioning in databases, without taking a performance hit."
"We were actually able to do multiple upgrades, including head upgrades and moving between the platforms, M20 and M50, over the years. We have never once lost a ping and have never had an outage due to an OS upgrade or a complete head upgrade."
"The most valuable features are its performance and simplicity."
"It is simple to use and easy to manage. We don't touch it after we set it up."
"It is a workhorse and will run even demanding workloads."
"It gives me the flexibility with its ability to replicate to itself and the ability to use the Dell EMC Cloud as an option. That's always sitting there and waiting if we need it."
"It’s helped with the overall stability of our VMware environment."
"I like Unity XT's software-defined storage. It's a new feature that isn't widely used yet, but customers are impressed with it."
"We run about 100 virtual servers on it. We have about 100 users accessing the file shares from there, and I've seen no problem with that. We have about a 10GB backbone. Whatever we throw at it, it hasn't shown any sign of weakness or anything. It's been really good."
"We just started doing a bunch of automation where, if an end-user's home directory or departmental share gets filled, I can set certain things through a Unity API so that if it reaches 95 or 98 percent full, it will automatically expand. Now, instead of our getting a ticket and having to go in and do it manually, it does that for us."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle."
"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."
"Pure has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"The time-to-market could be better at times, but I think that's true for all vendors of hardware."
"Areas for improvement would be the financial operations. In the next release, I would like to see a NAS protocol included."
"I would like to see a Nagios monitoring plugin which watches the health and performance of the system. The only one available just checks volume capacity."
"This product has only two active controllers, whereas other solutions can have more. This is something that needs to improve."
"The data reduction that we had initially anticipated when we bought Pure and we move over, is way lower than the expected reduction. It depends on the workloads, of course. But that has been a challenge at times."
"Historical analytics would be useful. At the moment, they don't have any type of application built for historical analytics."
"The solution is not cheap."
"FlashArray's capacity for forecasting should be improved because it needs to be a bit more current. I think it's bundled with the deduplication and other compression factors. We need more user interfaces for forecasting in this software and more interfaces need to be integrated with this array management tool."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say its capacity and its connection."
"I would like to see more compression and deduplication added to the solution. Today, our compression is about 2:1 and other solutions give us about 4:1 or 5:1."
"As the solution continues to grow and gain more traction, things will come up that will just continue to deepen the integration between VMware, vCenter, and all those other components. Anything in the divisibility there and additional tools is always great."
"Since Dell took over EMC, the support has been very bad. Before, the support was fine. Now, the support is slow or they don't react."
"It should be lighter. It takes up a ton of rack space. It would be nice to have a smaller footprint."
"It might be nice to have more integrated features instead of having everything as a separate module, like the networking. The networking is attached separately in the back. It would be nice if that was more integrated with less ports."
"We are running VMware, and with the VNXe it was possible to restore. We're using Veeam for VMware backups and with the predecessor, it was possible to mount a backup or restore a backup from a storage snapshot. With the Unity 300, this is not possible."
"I would like it to be a little bit easier to contact support. We can contact support, but we have to go through a phone tree. We get routed to different places. I might call support to say that I need a drive replaced and get transferred to three different groups before I get to the group I actually need."
"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."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
Dell Unity XT is ranked 4th in All-Flash Storage with 186 reviews while Pure FlashArray X NVMe is ranked 14th in All-Flash Storage with 28 reviews. Dell Unity XT is rated 8.4, while Pure FlashArray X NVMe is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Dell Unity XT writes "Easy to set up with good data compression technology and useful deduplication". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pure FlashArray X NVMe writes "Works well, is easy to implement, and has upgrade analysis capabilities". Dell Unity XT is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem and HPE 3PAR StoreServ, whereas Pure FlashArray X NVMe is most compared with Dell PowerStore, HPE Nimble Storage, Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform, Pure Storage FlashBlade and Dell PowerMax NVMe. See our Dell Unity XT vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe report.
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