When Dell PowerStore launched in 2020, the writing was on the wall for Dell Unity All Flash arrays. Not immediately, to be sure; PowerStore didn't have enough functionality on day one to fully replace Unity. A steady stream of PowerStore enhancements means that day has mostly arrived. Dell recently announced an August 1, 2025 end-of-sale for Unity; Dell Unity XT hybrid storage arrays will continue to be sold as the only Dell enterprise dual controller array supporting spinning drives. Before we wave bon voyage, any Unity purchased before August 2025 will have at least five years of standard support and three years of upgrades.
A brief history of Dell Unity All Flash arrays
Dell Unity All Flash (AFA) arrays arrived as the replacement for the outgoing VNX, which itself was the final incarnation of the storied Clariion and Celerra lines. Compared to what came before, Unity brought greatly simplified management and an actual unified platform. On top of that, inline data reduction was a headlining feature, first with compression only and later with deduplication. Coming on the heels of the VMAX AFA launch, Unity brought all flash to the portfolio at a price point that made it consumable by a larger customer population and did it with a form factor that could go practically anywhere.
Other innovations happened here like Dynamic Pools, where parity protection was disaggregated from the drives themselves, allowing for single drive upgrades. This makes sense as drive capacities cross 15TB and data reduction turns that 15TB into 75TB (5:1 DRR). Online data in-place upgrades allowed for the hot upgrade of storage controllers to larger models without the extreme downtime required in the VNX era. A virtualized version of Unity, Unity VSA, enabled Unity's enterprise IP services like iSCSI and NFS/SMB to go anywhere including a public cloud. Finally, MetroSync allowed synchronous file replication with automated failover, reducing file downtime to near zero in metro distances.
Refreshing Dell Unity AFA with Dell PowerStore
All of Unity's key data services and more are part of PowerStore at this point. What's more, PowerStore has import abilities where it can bring in NAS servers and block volumes from Unity, easing the transition. To me, PowerStore has better performance, more features, and better expandability, so for all but hybrid storage workloads, PowerStore would be what I'd use first. Its management feels related to Unity but I find it simpler, particularly when dealing with multi-appliance clusters. These clusters get you non-disruptive intra-cluster workload mobility for all block protocols, including next-gen NVMe protocols.
There has never been a better time to explore PowerStore than now. I have written extensively about its capabilities over the past few years and have spent a lot of time using it, including numerous product betas. The PowerStore platform is nice to use and my experience with the Dell PowerStore support team has been wonderful. I'm happy to share my thoughts with you. To learn more, contact your WWT account team, try a PowerStore lab, or reach out to me directly.
