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Dell Unity XT Unified Storage vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Dell Unity XT Unified Storage

    Score10 out of 10
    N/ADell Unity XT hybrid flash arrays are storage systems for running general purpose workloads that do not require the low latencies and speed of all flash/NVMe architectures. Unity XT hybrid flash arrays balance performance, efficiency, features or outcomes.N/A

    NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

    Score9.3 out of 10
    N/AThe NetApp® EF-Series is a family of entry-level and midrange all-flash storage arrays that accelerate organizations' access to data and help derive value from it. These systems offer NVMe flash storage and provide more affordable to extreme IOPS, boasting response times under 100 microseconds and bandwidth up to 44GBps.N/A
    Pricing
    Dell Unity XT Unified StorageNetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Dell Unity XT Unified StorageNetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Dell Unity XT Unified StorageNetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays
    Considered Both Products
    Dell Technologies
    Chose Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
    From my experience, Dell EMC belongs to the second class of storage arrays due to less popularity and performance compared to "the big heads".
    Incentivized
    NetApp
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    93%
    Would buy again
    14 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    5 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    93%
    Delivers good value for the price
    13 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    15 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    5 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    10 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    12 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
    Features
    Dell Unity XT Unified StorageNetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays
    Enterprise Flash Array Storage
    Comparison of Enterprise Flash Array Storage features of Dell Unity XT Unified Storage and NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays
    Feature
    Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
    9.3
    15 Ratings
    4% above category average
    NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays
    8.9
    5 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Flash Array Performance9.413 Ratings9.35 Ratings
    Flash Array Integration9.413 Ratings9.65 Ratings
    Data Compression9.712 Ratings9.34 Ratings
    Non-Intrusive Upgrades8.815 Ratings8.15 Ratings
    Simplicity9.115 Ratings9.45 Ratings
    Power Savings9.614 Ratings7.95 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Dell Unity XT Unified StorageNetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Dell Compellent (discontinued)
    Score8 out of 10
    Dell Compellent (discontinued)
    Score8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Pure Storage FlashArray
    Score10 out of 10
    Pure Storage FlashArray
    Score10 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Dell Unity XT Unified StorageNetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.9
    (20 ratings)
    9.2
    (5 ratings)
    Usability
    7.0
    (3 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (6 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Dell Unity XT Unified StorageNetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Dell Technologies
    Dell EMC Unity is an easy system and very flexible component and very easy to navigate while providing effective services and management of multiple project information management and the data pulling from the supported third-party platform is easy and quick. Excellent reporting features and easy to use and the analytics tools are amazing.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NetApp
    NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is useful for the application that required high badwidth , IOP's like Video surveillance, analytics (hadoop), online transaction processing applications, fast data backup and restore. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is less appropriate for the application that required low/medium IOP's . i.e log collection application server, snapshot collection ... etc.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Dell Technologies
    • Enables you to create multiple copies of any database.
    • Data savings feature with compression.
    • Integrity with VMWare, RHEL, Oracle.
    • The best option is a midrange unified storage array in a customer environment.
    • Some models support NMMe.
    • Copy Data Management (iCDM), Data-At-Rest-Encryption (D@RE).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NetApp
    • Storage pooling with thin provisioning
    • Solution of MetroCluster in Cluster-Mode known as MCC
    • very good solution for more than 500 users per cluster
    • impressive IOPS, microsecond response times
    • Faster database application
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Dell Technologies
    • Alerting: receiving an alert when an issue occurs. That is good to know. However, if the alert is cleared, or somehow no longer in alarm, no email is received. At times I will receive the email alert on weekends, not knowing if the issue is resolved or not until Monday when I can access the unit. I have learned in most instances, the alert is a false alarm, which could be a problem.
    • The alerting itself is sometimes not clear. For example, it tells me the link is down, we reset the connection, the link is still down, a tech was dispatched, he troubleshot, and finally the alarm cleared. This incident took almost a week. It went back into alarm after he left, then suddenly it cleared on its own.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NetApp
    • NetApp EF-Series All Flash Array need to perform the additional configuration for multipathing
    • Experienced are required to manage this storage
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Dell Technologies
    Very cumbersome compared to other vendors in the same marketplace.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NetApp
    HW and SW of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are easy to use, with very good support.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Dell Technologies
    Not only support for Unity, but for any Dell product, whether for companies or for the end consumer. Support is agile, helpful, and always focused on solving the problem. To date, there has been no problem that Dell's support has failed to resolve and help us with.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NetApp
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Dell Technologies
    I was instructed to buy these arrays, but I was not given the opportunity to evaluate other arrays. We evaluated other products in the market that competed with Unity and found that the younger array built from scratch had far better features, software, and ease of use. The Unity system has a unique way of storing the data when compared with other systems.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NetApp
    I have not been able to work with such a great platform in my career experience. Data storage and networking of all databases have been a great achievement of this platform. The user interface is simple and the dashboard shows clear trends in data infrastructure. There are backup storage systems on our cloud servers in case we lose any data. It has an automated update system that keeps our applications up to date.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Dell Technologies
    • Less business downtime and reliability is a major business concern. DELL EMC UNITY addresses this concern well and provides robust storage.
    • Investing in UNITY system is less expensive than all-flash storage systems.
    • Managing and provisioning VMware disks became simpler from a single interface in the Vcenter
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    NetApp
    • High dedupe ratio
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots