We performed a comparison between Dell PowerStore and Dell SC Series based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Dell PowerStore came out ahead of Dell SC Series. Although both products have good service and support and have brought positive ROI, SC Series is more difficult to deploy and has more areas that require improvements.
"We've been using FlashArray's snapshot for backups. Their replication across sites and response time are also excellent."
"It is an easy to use product for all of my team members."
"The most valuable feature is test performance. It helps us store large amounts of data along with providing us faster retrieval of data."
"The tool has reduced our power consumption."
"The product cheaper compared to other solutions concerning the technology that they are using."
"The amount of throughput that we're getting is really nice."
"The speed is the most valuable feature, along with the ease of getting it connected. We were able to get it online in less than a day."
"It is easy to deploy and it's all-flash, so it's very fast."
"The most valuable feature is that it is easy to use this frame. I am a SAN administrator, but I was able to train my colleague, who had only been a VMware administrator, on the PowerStore in about half a day. Now he's autonomous in assigning volumes and creating data stores..."
"The most valuable features of Dell PowerStore are the support for NVMe and SCM, which provides end-to-end performance and high IOPS, minimizing latency. It is a full-fledged storage solution."
"Migrations are very easy and fast."
"PowerStore is easy to use. All the drives use soft encryption. To upgrade it, you download the app, and it runs by itself. It's very easy to deploy, share, and create volumes."
"This solution is very useful to us as we use it internally for all of the services that we need. We use it as a lab and we showcase new technology to the customers and how it can help them going forward."
"Its flexibility is valuable because we have had some moments where we had to adapt, and it has been quite flexible."
"The supportability of SCME drives for faster data access from the PowerStore and is the most valuable feature."
"The deduplication functionality provided by the solution is fairly good. The speed offered by the product is enough for our organization."
"The most valuable features are the with back-end dedupe, and the thin nodes. For a 20TB or 60TB, we're using almost a one-to-two ratio."
"I think that Dell EMC is one of the best technical support services in Ukraine."
"A valuable feature is the performance of the auto-tiering. It will move hot data up to your fastest Tier 1 or move your slow data down. Data progression is what it's called. With the auto-tiering you can have multiple tiers, you can have your Tier 1 be either spinning or flash, all the way down to 7.2K. It will change the RAID on the fly so your writes come in at RAID 10. After they sit for a while, they get converted to RAID 5, then they'll cool off and move down the tiers. Your performance is kept going, while the cold data is moved to your slow, non-performance tiers."
"The solution is stable."
"The setup and installation is much simpler now, because Dell has standardized the configure process."
"I find this version to be more budget-friendly compared to products from other vendors. This aspect greatly benefits my customers. It's highly advantageous due to its affordability. The operational aspect is also noteworthy. Additionally, its availability and performance are commendable. The speaker are also equally powerful."
"The interface is easy to use which makes the product user-friendly."
"They have a feature called Live Migrate; it's been very, very useful."
"The credentials on the iSCSI interface are only available to type in with the Chrome browser, and not with the Firefox browser."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve some aspects. There are certain features that are good and there are some features that I see some issues with at the technical level. Those issues are related to replication. They need to resolve those issues, which I have already highlighted to the Pure team. Additionally, there are some issues in the active cluster that could improve."
"The 3PAR SSD arrays that we have are still failing a lot so even though we're under warranty, we still have to get someone out and usually have someone troubleshoot so that usually adds onto the cost. With Pure, we've had a disc fail and we pop it out and you pop it in and it's good to go."
"Just some nit picky stuff, like allowing servers and volumes to be grouped. Therefore, it would easier to work with them in the GUI."
"Historical analytics would be useful. At the moment, they don't have any type of application built for historical analytics."
"The initial setup of the product is complex."
"I would like to get a weekly report of how our storage has been used, and if there is any storage sitting there not being used."
"The one major gripe I have is that there is no snapshotting enabled by default on the SAN."
"It was very new when we first deployed it a year ago. Even the upgrade processes and knowing what to expect, as well as documentation, could be more robust."
"I would like to see a Snapshot feature. Currently, it is unable to occupy the capacity."
"It's also only supported with a limited amount of switches."
"I do not like having to use VPLEX for synchronous replication, as opposed to having the store software built-in."
"The NAS part is very poor. It's very basic. Even Dell EMC has said that to us. We are waiting for version 3 of PowerStore for that. This must be improved and it is in the roadmap."
"Horizontal scaling has room for improvement."
"The UI should be a little more user-friendly to manage."
"The price is on the higher side."
"In some customer cases, customers experienced more performance or latency."
"The configuration could be easier in Dell EMC SC Series."
"This solution could be improved if overall performance was improved and operated with a higher speed and supported a higher volume of RAM."
"The lack of reporting would be the main issue."
"The interface could be improved. It should have an application point of view."
"The connection should be better integrated with the network to offer a better view of the system."
"The lower model, the 3000, should have duplication. It doesn't right now. It's only from 5000 that this is offered, but it depends on the performance. It could be they don't offer it on lower models because the duplication is too much of a burden to the performance."
"Dell could improve the upgrading process."
Dell PowerStore is ranked 1st in All-Flash Storage with 46 reviews while Dell SC Series is ranked 24th in All-Flash Storage with 49 reviews. Dell PowerStore is rated 8.6, while Dell SC Series is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Dell PowerStore writes "It has a very strong NAS that can support a lot of big, heavy environments". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Dell SC Series writes "Automated architecture that proactively optimizes your database ". Dell PowerStore is most compared with Dell Unity XT, IBM FlashSystem, NetApp AFF, Dell PowerMax NVMe and Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform, whereas Dell SC Series is most compared with Dell Unity XT, IBM FlashSystem, Huawei OceanStor, HPE Nimble Storage and NetApp AFF. See our Dell PowerStore vs. Dell SC Series report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
