We've been looking into SMB SANs and based on the competitive pricing I've been getting we're really liking these two array's. There are some pro's to both solutions, but I've unable to really decide which to choose. The EMC offers better expandability since you can buy an additional shelf (roughly $1200) and can add drives then to the array. However, the Dell unit is still very nice.

Can anyone comment on their experiences with the two and thoughts on this?

Also, to get the VMware Storage API support you need VMware Enterprise. How much additional performance does this provide? It's roughly $15k more than the Essentials Plus bundle we're looking at (this is a small environment [3 Hosts 1 Array].