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Dell PowerFlex vs Red Hat Ceph Storage comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerFlex
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
HCI (4th)
Red Hat Ceph Storage
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (2nd), File and Object Storage (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Dell PowerFlex and Red Hat Ceph Storage aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Dell PowerFlex is designed for HCI and holds a mindshare of 12.1%, up 9.1% compared to last year.
Red Hat Ceph Storage, on the other hand, focuses on Software Defined Storage (SDS), holds 21.1% mindshare, down 22.2% since last year.
HCI
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

Serdar De - PeerSpot reviewer
Initial setup has been straightforward and it has reasonable pricing
We are new to this, so we are still learning about the valuable features The solution is okay overall. It could be easier to learn. We haven't had any issues. They could have more AI functionality in the future.  I have been using the solution for six months. I have not encountered any problems…
ANDRE VINICIUS HAMERSKI - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers cost-effective scalability through open-source storage integration
Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage. We appreciate the scalability of the open-source solution, allowing us to address our growing data needs without encountering major issues. Having used it as a pilot system in Brazil, we gained significant knowledge and the ability to manage our infrastructure as code.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"My overall product rating would be nine out of ten."
"It has reduced downtime. Before, on our previous solution, we used to have downtime on some of the servers because of the sort of convention. But currently I've not experienced any downtime on any of the servers, and there is no more resource congestion."
"The solution is quite stable."
"The catalog of APIs for automation has been most valuable, although they are quite limited."
"Dell PowerFlex is a one-stop-shop solution. Storage, compute, network, application monitoring, and support cases are all combined into one solution. It's very easy to administer compared to when you have a reference architecture where you need to design and build everything yourself. You would also then have to work with multiple vendors."
"The solution was connected to alternate storage. It provides great scalability and reliability."
"Dell PowerFlex improves our latency which allowed us to reduce a lot of our Microsoft Enterprise SQL licenses."
"It was easy to deploy."
"The scalability feature is used by all users and is critical for our operations."
"Ceph has simplified my storage integration. I no longer need two or three storage systems, as Ceph can support all my storage needs. I no longer need OpenStack Swift for REST object storage access, I no longer need NFS or GlusterFS for filesystem sharing, and most importantly, I no longer need LVM or DRBD for my virtual machines in OpenStack."
"I like the distributed and self-healing nature of the product."
"The ability to provide block storage and object storage from the same storage cluster is very valuable for us."
"Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage."
"We have not encountered any stability issues for the product."
"Most valuable features include replication and compression."
"Replicated and erasure coded pools have allowed for multiple copies to be kept, easy scale-out of additional nodes, and easy replacement of failed hard drives. The solution continues working even when there are errors."
 

Cons

"The initial deployment was complicated and required a lot of data nodes, IPs, internal vLANs, data vLANs, and many other things."
"The tool is a bit difficult to configure, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Needs some more monitoring tools."
"We're also running Hyper-V virtual machines. But we recently discovered that migration of the Hyper-V virtual machines is a bit challenging. Maybe if Dell EMC can come out with a tool that will make it very easy for us to migrate the Microsoft Hyper-V machine, that may be an improvement."
"It could be easier to learn."
"Exporting data from the dashboard is not very user-friendly. It's just designed in a way that it's going to cover let's say 90%, 80%, of the end-users needs. If you need more sophisticated reporting it's not easy to have."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface."
"They should provide continuous support for data migration."
"If troubleshooting is needed, the response should be faster."
"The management features are pretty good, but they still have room for improvement."
"An area for improvement would be that it's pretty difficult to manage synchronous replication over multiple regions."
"This product uses a lot of CPU and network bandwidth. It needs some deduplication features and to use delta for rebalancing."
"Please create a failback solution for OpenStack replication and maybe QoS to allow guaranteed IOPS."
"The licensing cost is excessively high. This is a significant issue from my perspective."
"Rebalancing and recovery are a bit slow."
"I have encountered issues with stability when replication factor was not 3, which is the default and recommended value. Go below 3 and problems will arise."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users."
"The solution's price is medium."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as eight and a half. The tool is expensive."
"The price could be improved."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."
"The solution's pricing could be much cheaper and affordable."
"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."
"The price of Red Hat Ceph Storage is reasonable."
"The price of this product isn't high."
"The operational overhead is higher compared to Azure because we own the hardware."
"We never used the paid support."
"Most of time, you can get Ceph with the OpenStack solution in a subscription​​ as a bundle.​"
"If you can afford a product like Red Hat Ceph Storage then go for it. If you cannot, then you need to test Ceph and get your hands dirty."
"The other big advantage is that Ceph is free software. Compared to traditional SAN based storage, it is very economical."
"There is no cost for software."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?
VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if the user is working with a l...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerFlex?
I don't know the cost of PowerFlex. I understand it is reasonable.
How does Red Hat Ceph Storage compare with MiniO?
Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This solution allows for multiple copies of replicated and coded pools to be kept, ea...
What do you like most about Red Hat Ceph Storage?
The high availability of the solution is important to us.
What needs improvement with Red Hat Ceph Storage?
I have not identified any drawbacks, however, the response to public platform inquiries could be faster.
 

Also Known As

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex
Ceph
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Canopy, 8x8Inc., Atos, Canadian Pacific, City of Denton, CenturyLink, BNP Paribas, Asyaport, EDF, CSC, Fox Sports, Insight, Hunter, KPIT, Paetec, Rosetta Stone, Sonda, Xerox
Dell, DreamHost
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851,174 professionals have used our research since 2012.
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