EMC VNX Reviews

What is most valuable?

The VNX 5700 provides a large number of features including the ability to work for both file and block as a unified array. The ability to run a unified array is a great advantage when the company economics would not allow you to have separate... more»

How has it helped my organization?

Our company saved money in maintaining the unified platform in most of our locations and has the ability to perform backups and replication of the unit with similar arrays.

What needs improvement?

Once you establish a replication job, when the file system is synchronizing its data to the target file system, it tends to create a balloon effect where it creates a file system that grows as the new data is synchronizing. It would be very... more»

What is most valuable?

Tiering, because it allows your data to dynamically move among different disk types based on demand in the last 24 hours. This removes the manual work to keep data in certain disk types.

How has it helped my organization?

We actually stopped using the VNX as it was ill-equipped to handle our environment with the way EMC spec’d it out. I do not recommend the Gen 1 VNX to anyone in this day and age. It’s outdated technology and a newer far less expensive array... more»

What needs improvement?

EMC could have made the effort to spec the device appropriately. Instead, they low-balled the config in 2011 to make the price tag look alluring. Then, less than 12 months in, we needed to spend 35% of the cost of the entire array to put... more»

What is most valuable?

One of the best features of the VNX is the ability to combine drives of different types into a virtual Storage Pool. By combining small but fast flash drives, SAS drives, and high-capacity but slower NL-SAS drives, the VNX can intelligently... more»

How has it helped my organization?

By utilizing the Storage Pools feature of the VNX, our organization can provide the required performance without having to over-invest in storage for data that doesn't require expensive drives.

What needs improvement?

The management software used for the VNX is Unicenter. While it is an improvement over Navicenter, used in older EMC SANs, it still feels outdated in comparison to other SAN management software. Reporting is clunky and requires data... more»

What is most valuable?

It is hard to say which features are the most valuable. All other arrays can do pretty much the same, so it's hard to tell. At least I haven't used any feature that would be unique to other arrays.

How has it helped my organization?

As long as I have been working at my current company, it has always been one of EMC's biggest customers, and has had the most EMC certified engineers in the world, so the company's whole business is based on EMC's products.

What needs improvement?

* Upgrade the GUI * Full integration with VMware * The Unisphere for VNX needs improvement as it is old and slow.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the auto-tiering, which helps in the speed of data access. We have a big VMware storage pool in each of our three arrays and we have never had users complain about response of any VM in our environment.

How has it helped my organization?

It is very easy to create new storage for a new requirement. Adding more storage to an existing storage pool is very quick and easy.

What needs improvement?

There is no easy way to defrag a RAID group. It would be nice to be able to reduce the size of a storage pool if the storage is not needed anymore. When you need to defrag a raid group, in earlier array versions of EMC arrays like the CX line... more»