In one project, we needed more scalability that the Unity can provide so we are using Dell EMC Isilon for it. In that case, I needed multiple PB of object storage.

Otherwise, we have not looked at much else. In the future, however, we will probably transition to Dell PowerStore.

We evaluated NetApp before choosing Dell. We are more familiar with Dell's products which is why we decided to use this solution. 

We evaluated HPE Nimble.

We did not evaluate other solutions before choosing Dell Unity XT.

I don't know what other units have that Unity doesn't have. Though I would say to them, "Keep up with your competition."

We evaluated NetApp. We decided on Dell EMC because we are more familiar with them.

We looked at multiple vendors including NetApp, HPE, IBM, and Nimble.

I looked into EMC VNX, NetApp, Isilon, Qumulo, Pure Storage, Nimble Storage, and Tegile.

We have explored solutions from HPE, but we felt Dell has a more comprehensive solution. Some people use VxRail for their VDI solution, but we have not seen anything like that yet.

We did a thorough evaluation of other solutions and it was clear after the performance evaluation, Dell EMC Unity XT was the best choice. We did a migration of Oracle Storage to different storage. There are other commercial advantages with Dell.

We only had EMC on our shortlist.

We're a Dell EMC shop, we don't have any other storage vendors, so we don't really do a good job of looking into the storage vendors either. We have a good relationship with Dell EMC, we have a good sales guy and a good technical account manager. We trust them. When we told them that we had a lot of people asking for all-flash, that was the choice. We don't use enterprise-level stuff, we don't use VMAX. So we went with Unity.

When selecting a vendor, the relationship with the technical support is pretty important. We've been a Dell EMC shop for a long time, so there are some guys in the tech support whose emails I have. I don't necessarily have to open up an SR. If I just have a question I can just email them and I'll usually get a response in a day or two. That keeps me from having to do some of that paperwork. The other thing, when selecting a vendor, if I were the number-crunching guy: Obviously a vendor who's willing to work on price is always going to be helpful.

We are a Dell customer so we did not evaluate options from other vendors.

Everything that we have is Dell unless it is something that is vendor-issued or vendor-specific.

Our shortlist had IBM XIV Gen2. We landed on Unity because we had familiarity with the product. Unity has its roots in VNX and we had a number of VNX arrays.

The local account team and system engineer are the best part of working with Dell EMC.

I did bring up other vendors that I have worked with: NetApp and HPE SAN. Comparing them to my previous work and working with Unity now, I find Unity a lot easier to work with. For example, the NetApp seems to be more complex in just the ease of setting it up.

NetApp and HPE were on our shortlist. HPE support is not good, so we didn't choose them. NetApp does have some good technology, but the relationship that we had with Dell EMC was the reason that we chose them.

Primarily we're Dell EMC. We do have NetApp and they're pretty big, they're petabyte systems and they're primarily for a business-level project, not for enterprise storage. After using them, we definitely wanted to stick with Dell EMC.

We have worked with different vendors. However, right now, we are sticking with Dell EMC Unity as it seems like it is a very solid, mature product.

Absolutely. We offer Dell EMC solutions to partners who always work with several offerings from various manufacturers, targeting the same scenario (mostly NetApp, Huawei, HPE and IBM).

We evaluated HP and NetApp.

We evaluated Pure Storage.

We looked at HPE Nimble but the price of the Unity XT was very good compared to the competition.

We also evaluated HPE and Lenovo.

We looked at all-in-one, hyperconverged storage. We decided not to go that route simply because we've made such a huge investment on the networking side. If we had gone the hyperconverged route we would pretty much have had to rip all that out.

Then we looked at Pure. In the end, we'd been partners with Dell EMC for so long that it didn't make sense to venture out into some unknown when we were talking about the main platform which we were going to build all our VMs off of.

We also looked at iXsystems. We just purchased one of their boxes for storage. I've known iXsystems for a number of years, and they gave us a great price on an absolutely insane amount of storage because all we needed was a box set in a bunker for local backups. The Unity was just outrageously expensive for our needs, so we went with iXsystems. I've managed an iX box in the past. Those guys will bend over backwards to help you as well. So, that's why I chose to go with them.

We looked at a couple. We looked at Rubrik a little bit and we looked at some HPE arrays, but we decided to go with Dell EMC to keep up our partnership with them.

We looked at VxRail, IBM, and Nutanix. Dell EMC Unity work out financially. VxRail was nice, but a lot more expensive and robust. Price-wise, Dell EMC Unity was right where we needed it to be.

We worked with pretty much all of the major array manufacturers, and I can put my junior resources on it and not worry about them provisioning extra storage, scaling it, and adding to it. I don't hear from them anymore with, "How do I do this?", "Is this correct?", or "I broke it."

We only use Dell EMC and Pure for storage. We went with Dell EMC because of cost. We have an aging Isilon that we're also replacing. We do have Pure, we do the flash array there, but that's quite expensive compared to the Unity. What we needed was dependable cheap and deep storage.

No. We only use EMC

We have also used Dell EMC CLARiiON and Symmetrix within the Dell EMC shop. What attracted to us to Dell EMC Unity was its flash disk technology.

Outside of Dell EMC, we looked at IBM and HPE. However, we have VMware as a recovery point for replication, and those VMware solutions work together well with Unity.

Based on the cost and performance the we needed, Unity was the best price. NetApp was not being price competitive.

We were on old Oracle storage and are still on some old Oracle storage. 

There are lots of options for storage solutions, but our technical and customer support team's experience with Dell EMC makes it a no-brainer for us. 

I hate to speak bad of folks, but we can't even get HPE to return our phone calls, in most cases.

We were aiming more towards Dell EMC because that's what we had previously.

Yes, we also looked at IBM and NetApp.

Yes, we still have a VNX5400 (block), before it was at a production storage site, today it is at a disaster recovery site. The change from VNX to Unity was because of the build of the DR site, a new ERP implementation, and to update the storage technology.

Other storage solutions need additional hardware to support file storage and the integration sometimes fails; or they offer fewer features.

We were EMC partners for some time, now Dell EMC partners. Our choices are based in Dell EMC products because we understand that the EMC technology is better when it comes to storage solutions. Among the EMC storage options, the Unity is the best choice when we analyze price, scalability, performance and  features.

We checked out Nimble Storage and HPE MSL.

We evaluated based on performance, scalability, availability, security options, and costs. The Unity was either equal to or better than the other products in all those areas, plus the staff already had previous familiarity with using EMC products, which is why we kept using it.

We evaluated other solutions, namely Nutanix and NetApp.

We evaluated Nimble, NetApp, and Compellent.

I have evaluated Pure Storage.

We had VPLEX, and it's a good merge with Unity. So, we didn't look very much further.

We also looked at HPE and Hitachi. We went with Dell EMC since we are a Dell EMC house.

This one came down to either Dell EMC or Pure. We had a NetApp as well, but we weren't considering that. Pure doesn't really have the depth of product offering, so this was an easy choice for us.

Other competitors in the industry, they had a "me too" box, but I don't know if as much thought went into them as went into the VNX and the Unity.

I have compared Unity x00/x50f versus Unity XT x80f. 

We narrowed it down to Hitachi and Dell EMC. We put it out to bid and Dell EMC won.

Our shortlist also included Nimble. 

We evaluated options from other vendors and, although there were some other very good propositions, we chose DELL/EMC as we have the knowledge and we trust the partner.

I was debating between the Unity 300 and a NetApp Solution. We ended up picking the Unity only because the administration is a lot easier. 

Also, I had used the earlier model in the past, and it was recommended by the supplier as well. 

We previously evaluated Compellent, EqualLogic, MD series, NetApp FAS, Nimble and HPE EVA.

Most of the infrastructure we have is from Dell EMC, so we're locked in with Dell but that's fine. If you're happy with the specific product and vendor, why change?

I wouldn't say that I actually did look at anything else because I'm familiar with EMC and have been really satisfied with them.

NetApp was one that we had, they were in contention. We had an IBM solution that they were going to put in place. EqualLogic was also on the shortlist. But we thought Dell EMC Unity would be a good choice for us.

We looked at Pure. Unity beat out Pure.

No.

We looked at NetApp, Infinidat, Pure. 

We didn’t have any alternatives in mind.

I have compared some similar solutions such as 3par and HDS VSP G Series. Among all the mid-range I have known EMC Unity XT series are designed for new IT requirements such as cloud compatibility, NVME ready, and capacity growth.

The VNX is also a good system, but Unity is a little better. I am not saying it is much better, but it is better than the VNX. 

HPE 3PAR

We did not evaluate other solutions. We have been an EMC shop for a very long time and we will continue to use it.

We have compared HPE 3PAR, Huawei OceanStor, and Lenovo Storage.

Compared IBM Storwize and some Dell storage options.

I personally had other options that I would have liked to explore, but my boss chose this, so I had no choice.

Yes, we looked at Hitachi.

We picked Unity, as it is a mature, established solution.

Yes, HPE 3PAR.

Hitachi.

We did compare it to others at the time, but they have a wide selection of tools and products to meet our use cases. Good support as well.

As I mentioned before, we've used this product to deploy in remote sites, so as an alternative we were contemplating VMware vSAN. But in the end we didn't choose that option. We chose the shared storage option using the Unity 300.

We used VNX previously and although it was fast, the performance was poor.