We performed a comparison between Dell Unity XT and Pure Storage FlashArray 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."The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"The latency is good."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."
"One, it's easy to use and understand. You don't have to be an engineer or an expert to use this storage solution. That's the bad part of Dell PowerMAX. You have to go through very expensive education for one or two weeks and pay ten thousand dollars just to be able to use the product. With Pure Storage, you have a half-day workshop, and you know everything you need to know."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"We have Dell EMC engineers helping us out and doing some over the shoulder training. They are working with our customer right now doing data migration over to Unities from the legacy Oracle stuff. While they're doing this, they're showing people how the Unities work and the ins and outs of the software interface."
"I like the ease of configuration, the quick setup and the fact that it seems to be hardened. We haven't had any issues with them. In terms of simplicity of ownership, once they're running you don't have to touch them. They're also simple to manage. We came from the VNXe 3200s so it's very similar."
"It has a very intuitive web console that runs in HTML5 and makes navigation and administration fairly easy."
"The technical support is very professional and provides quick responses."
"We're able to access it from just about anywhere, as long as we have access to a browser. That feature is really neat because sometimes we will go to a different data center or a different site, and if we need to access it to see a LUN or to see any type of storage, we can do that. That's one of the big takeaways with Unity."
"I don't think I've ever seen latencies above 10 milliseconds unless it was something that wasn't the array that was messing up. The thing is rock-solid."
"Unified block and file storage without the need of control stations and data movers. This simplifies administration and deployment and requires less rack space."
"It’s helped with the overall stability of our VMware environment."
"Its array houses our entire production environment."
"The availability and ease of use are the big features."
"The initial setup was straightforward in the way that it was a database vacuum storage."
"Pure is simple to set up and manage on a day-to-day basis."
"NVMe data storage platform that's easy to set up and easy to use. It's stable, with a lower response time, and quick technical support."
"It has made working with storage as easy and simple as it should be."
"The ease of management is one of the most valuable features of this solution. I would have also said that it's pretty fast but now our SQL servers are starting to beat it up pretty bad."
"We like the data reduction rates. That has been really helpful. You get 4U of Pure storage replacing something like two racks of spinning disks. One of the things that has contributed to that are the data reduction rates."
"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."
"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"It is on the expensive side."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"The reporting should be better. In other systems, you can create many different kinds of reports but this is not the case with Dell."
"The user interface could be improved. The Dell Compellent user interface is fantastic, but the Unity user interface is, in comparison, pretty lousy. It's functional, and I can do what I need, but the Dell Compellent user interface is so much more intuitive and user-friendly."
"For the integration of the VPLEX function for Cross IDC structure, they should integrate the function into the SP controller."
"I think Dell EMC should be more careful in appointing partners, and they need to have better control over their partners. And if their partner has some problems with them, we should not suffer."
"I would like the device to have the ability to pull down its own firmware. That would be a great thing."
"We do a lot of VMware. It only integrates with VMware in one way, which is virtual volumes. I don't really have any visibility on anything else. From VMware, I can't look into Unity. From Unity, I can't look into VMware unless I am using virtual volumes, where they integrate together happily, but we are not using that. I would like better integration for non-virtual volume VMware use."
"Currently, the protocol SNMP is not implemented. That's a problem, as we follow this protocol and I can't check the integrity of this equipment."
"I would like better monitoring capabilities: more historical data with more insight into the performance for the database. We now use a separate tool for it. Therefore, it would be nice if we could have that straight from the tool."
"I would like to see more detailed reporting on the data. However, it would be nice to know what are the exact VMs usage after deduplication and/or what that VMs actual latency and bandwidth is, outside of VMware."
"Pure Storage support could be a little better."
"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."
"It goes at about 95 percent, so we have had some performance issues. It is hard to clear them."
"I would like to see the NAS add-on component become more fault-tolerant than just a single virtual machine running inside the array. I'm unwilling to use it for that reason."
"The price should be lower."
"In the next release, I would like to see file-level encryption."
"The scalability of the solution is not as good as it probably could be."
Dell Unity XT is ranked 4th in All-Flash Storage with 186 reviews while Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 174 reviews. Dell Unity XT is rated 8.4, while Pure Storage FlashArray 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 Storage FlashArray writes "Effective provisioning, helpful support, and reliable". Dell Unity XT is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem and HPE 3PAR StoreServ, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem and Pure Storage FlashBlade. See our Dell Unity XT vs. Pure Storage FlashArray report.
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