Product reliability
EqualLogic's product reliability score wasn't quite as lofty as its product quality tally, but it dominated the category nonetheless with an overall 7.24. Its top-two box score was 76%, only slightly higher than Compellent's 74%. However, EqualLogic's bottom-two box score was a mere 1% vs. Compellent's 6%. EqualLogic had the best score for "This product experiences very little downtime" (7.48), and rated nearly as well for "This product meets my service-level requirements" (7.41). This was the best score in the group for that statement.

This section proved to be Compellent's weakest, and the only section where the company didn't place among the top two. Even so, its 6.88 rating was to be envied by most of the field. Its best score in the category (a 7.11) was given to the statements "This product meets my service-level requirements" and "The vendor provides comprehensive upgrade guidance."

"I have had zero unplanned downtime," says Community Health Plan's Dahl, who's a Compellent user.

Hitachi's leap into second position (7.07) in this category can be traced directly to our bellwether statement "Patches can be applied nondisruptively," where it smoked the field with a 7.07. EqualLogic placed second with a 6.55, followed by Compellent (6.22). But Hitachi's highest score in the category was a 7.37 for "This product experiences very little downtime." Hitachi also had high marks for "This product requires very few unplanned patches" (7.29).

"The reliability of the Dell on a daily basis is great," says Infocrossing's Burd, who manages Dell CX Series and IBM DS4000 systems. For his IBM systems, he says they "get SNMP and email, and it works." But he prefers the "phone home" feature of the Dell CX.