We performed a comparison between Dell PowerFlex and Dell VxBlock System based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI."A typical system administrator with minimal experience in Hyper-V, VMware, or Windows can do VSAN configuration and maintain VSAN operations."
"We test live failovers every week, and so far, everything has been running smoothly without anything unexpected."
"StarWind has provided us with a top-notch, well-supported, robust vSAN offering when other vendors have moved to hyper-converged solutions that are outside of our average clients' reach from a financial and resource perspective."
"I've had to open a few support cases over the years due to administrator errors, and the support received was top-notch."
"The installation of StarWind Virtual SAN was pretty easy, and the configuration was done in no time."
"The StarWind products have enabled our organization to modernize stations where larger and more expensive equipment was not an option."
"It provides shared storage to multiple hypervisor hosts. Times had changed, however. StarWind Virtual SAN is the “software replaces hardware” for SAN. We have access control and CCTV systems up and running using Microsoft clustering and shared storage"
"The failover protection and the ability to expand storage and nodes with no downtime are by far the best physical features we have benefited from."
"The catalog of APIs for automation has been most valuable, although they are quite limited."
"Dell PowerFlex is a one-stop-shop solution. Storage, compute, network, application monitoring, and support cases are all combined into one solution. It's very easy to administer compared to when you have a reference architecture where you need to design and build everything yourself. You would also then have to work with multiple vendors."
"It is easy to use for management and operations teams because the tools are in one place."
"We've had no issues with scaling the solution."
"The most valuable feature is high availability."
"The most valuable feature is the overall integration and just seeing the three different layers which make up the machine software. Altogether, it's something that I would say is much better than any other solution that I have experienced before."
"It has reduced downtime. Before, on our previous solution, we used to have downtime on some of the servers because of the sort of convention. But currently I've not experienced any downtime on any of the servers, and there is no more resource congestion."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is integration."
"The monitoring and management parts are the most valuable. Monitoring is specifically valuable because you have one console to monitor everything. This console is called Vision."
"In comparison to traditional file load systems, Dell VxBlock System can be deployed quickly and results in monthly cost savings."
"Good flexibility and speed."
"It's a highly optimized piece of equipment that doesn't give us any problems."
"VxBlock has good performance, so that is an advantage."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the speed."
"It's at least 99 percent problem-free because it's factory-built. So from an informational point of view, everyone trusts that VxBlock has been tested well at the factory and has been configured to their requirements."
"Virtual machines for the infrastructure."
"They require more media visibility."
"Regular updates to the software are required, and subtle design changes would be welcome."
"In the next release, they could make some graphs of the real-time loading, speed of storage, and interfaces. Of course, these can be viewed in other places. But, in the event of a malfunction or troubleshooting, this would be convenient."
"Initially, when we first started, the sync was horrible."
"Some of the documentation seems to be a bit older and refers to deprecated items."
"Other vendors such as VMware vSAN have a bigger community of users, so it is easier to find more pre-sale or post-sale information from users."
"Our company was hoping for deduplication and encryption across HCI. That is currently not supported."
"In all areas the product could be made faster."
"We're also running Hyper-V virtual machines. But we recently discovered that migration of the Hyper-V virtual machines is a bit challenging. Maybe if Dell EMC can come out with a tool that will make it very easy for us to migrate the Microsoft Hyper-V machine, that may be an improvement."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface."
"We've had some issues around the licensing."
"The support of containers needs to be improved. At present, it is limited to VMware. There needs to be direct communication with the hardware rather than through a hypervisor."
"They should provide continuous support for data migration."
"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."
"Licensing restrictions can be frustrating."
"They need to work on improving the overhead for protecting the data."
"The hardware lifecycle is not documented very well. For example, now you can buy a piece of equipment, but you don't know if the hardware is going to be a team production next month or next year."
"It's a good product but the price could be lowered. It's expensive."
"The solution could use a clearer description of working methods to tell people more about its use cases."
"This solution does not support Hyper-V, and we would like the new version to be supported and certified to work with Hyper-V."
"Does not support different kinds of mixed applications."
"Scalability is an area that needs to be improved."
"The only thing that I can say is when you procure the VxBlock, obviously you have to complete detailed questionnaires about your architecture including the configuration, et cetera. If you make a mistake on the implementation, then you need to rebuild the entire VxBlock. That is just a point of consideration rather than a flaw. You need to be absolutely sure and validate the upfront configuration information that you provide because your VxBlock comes delivered and built, according to that exact information."
"The consistency of disc quality could be improved."
Dell PowerFlex is ranked 8th in HCI with 20 reviews while Dell VxBlock System is ranked 4th in Converged Infrastructure with 12 reviews. Dell PowerFlex is rated 8.0, while Dell VxBlock System is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Dell PowerFlex writes "Infrastructure management solution that offers rapid provisioning of computer storage but the APIs and enablers for custom automation could be improved". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Dell VxBlock System writes "Can be deployed quickly, is easy to manage, and is stable and resilient". Dell PowerFlex is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE SimpliVity and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance, whereas Dell VxBlock System is most compared with Dell PowerEdge VRTX, FlexPod XCS, Dell Vscale Architecture, IBM VersaStack and Oracle Private Cloud Appliance.
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