I've been an EMC storage engineer for a long time, since the CX700. Good solid products. Had great service. I was very monogamous to EMC in all the jobs I had. Then Dell bought them, and I just knew that EMC would be forced to adopt the Dell form of service, which is the "who cares about supporting our customers as long as they buy our stuff." mantra. And of course, that happened.

Around the same time Dell bought EMC, the company I work for started branching out and we bought our first NetApp arrays. Then bought a couple more. One thing I have learned is that while the feature set is a bit different, both are solid storage platforms. The other thing I learned, is the support is VASTLY different.

With DellEMC I have to fight to get things done. I have to fight to get cases sent to the right team. Even call homes, sometimes linger for up to 5 days with me prodding them before I get replacement parts shipped, it's terrible.

With NetApp it just happens, fast, efficient, and accurately.

So after many years of being a die hard EMC fan, I'm super close to leaving them behind completely at this point. We have a big buy coming up (5 brand new arrays) and have gotten competing quotes from EMC and NetApp. I've been pushing with my management and the money people hard to move to NetApp for this buy, and finally last week they relented and said that I could go with whatever vendor I wanted. My choice.

So as long as there is no last minute mind changes by management, I'm going to stop buying EMC.