We performed a comparison between Dell SC Series and SolidFire 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."It simplifies storage."
"The tool is simple and easy to use. It has neat features like protection from device removal. Moreover, you can undo the deletes. The solution is easy to work with and not as complicated as CAC"
"I find two features of Pure Storage most valuable. The first is the "safe mode" function, and the second is its simplicity."
"The all-flash disc is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"Performance, dedupe, and that it works well with database workloads are its most valuable features."
"The most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray is its high stability level."
"Non-disruptive upgrades: You can upgrade at anytime without worry."
"It is easy to manage. You don't have to have the same people who used to manage the Dell EMC arrays because the solution is more intuitive."
"We see very low latency with very high IOPS for mixed workloads."
"It had many features, like a snapshot, replication, on-the-file RAID levels, mix-and-match files, those kinds of things."
"We replicate between SAN to SAN for a lot of features and supportability. It also helps us when we want to upgrade to a newer SC Series or move the data from one data center to another."
"What is most valuable about the Dell EMC SC Series system was its reliability."
"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."
"The solution is stable; we've had no problems at all."
"Customers are most impressed with SC's provisioning because you don't need to buy a large amount of storage upfront. It's pay-as-you-grow. It also has solid compression and duplication features."
"Most valuable features have been the system customization with it, the performance you receive, and their CoPilot Support (or Dell EMC Storage Support)."
"The quality of service for minimum iOS, to maximum iOS in a multi-terminal environment is very powerful. The SQL service feature is the best part of SolidFire."
"The scalability and being able to implement it quickly."
"The most valuable feature is the performance, as well as how you manage performance on the system."
"It is very easy to scale up SolidFire."
"SolidFire is one of the products that does have great APIs right out-of-the-box. It works great. The tools and the other stuff seem to work a little better right out-of-the-box than the ONTAP stuff does, C-Mode."
"Individual settings you can put on each individual volume, if you want to do that."
"SolidFire has seamless performance for the nodes and extensions. I also like the tool’s scalability. The product’s performance does not get affected when we scale either up or down. This is not the case with other products."
"The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance which is particularly valuable for tasks like data mining, where quick results are essential."
"The integration capabilities could be improved."
"A three wave application or multi wave application synchronization would be an improvement."
"The initial setup of the product is complex."
"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."
"In the next release of the solution I would like to see Vormetric native block encryption."
"This product has only two active controllers, whereas other solutions can have more. This is something that needs to improve."
"From a scalability perspective, it is a very small storage solution, so it's not very expandable."
"I would like to see data tiering to AWS."
"The price could be improved."
"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 configuration could be easier in Dell EMC SC Series."
"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."
"I would like to see higher compression, dedupe, faster I/O, and bigger drives."
"From a performance point of view, it's getting a bit old."
"We had times that we needed a file service solution. We've used FluidFS, but it's a solution that is being transitioned out."
"The ease of use could be improved. It took me a while to learn it."
"The tool should improve its initial cost which is expensive compared to other products."
"We are looking for, potentially, on the Active IQ reporting side, to do reporting based on the datastore. Right now, I can report on the whole SolidFire, or I can report on just a certain datastore or a volume. I'd like to take all of my VDI infrastructure, which as an example would be multiple datastores."
"The upgrade process could be better."
"This solution would be improved if it were made to be more compatible with other products."
"So feature-wise, I would say more reporting tools that could be merged into it."
"When you set up the nodes, we have to serial into each one of these nodes to configure the IP ranges. It's still very easy, but it's time consuming."
"We have a large fiber channel infrastructure, and that's one area that we haven't seen implemented in SolidFire, its more iSCSI."
"For example, the ease of use with the reporting. Right now it's not impossible, but you have to know Sequel. It's a little time consuming to get those customized reports in there."
Dell SC Series is ranked 24th in All-Flash Storage with 49 reviews while SolidFire is ranked 19th in All-Flash Storage with 33 reviews. Dell SC Series is rated 8.4, while SolidFire is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Dell SC Series writes "Automated architecture that proactively optimizes your database ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolidFire writes "A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance". Dell SC Series is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, IBM FlashSystem, Huawei OceanStor and HPE Nimble Storage, whereas SolidFire is most compared with NetApp AFF, Dell PowerStore and VMware vSAN. See our Dell SC Series vs. SolidFire report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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