Dell PowerMax NVMe vs Dell SC Series comparison

Dell PowerMax NVMe and Dell SC Series are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell PowerMax NVMe is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.5, while Dell SC Series is ranked #27 with an average rating of 9.3. Dell PowerMax NVMe holds a 3.9% mindshare in AFS, compared to Dell SC Series’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell PowerMax NVMe users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Dell SC Series users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Dell SC Series and Dell PowerMax NVMe are often compared for enterprise storage solutions. Dell PowerMax NVMe demonstrates superior performance and scalability, while Dell SC Series is preferred by users for its affordability and support.

Features: Dell SC Series offers efficient storage management, data deduplication, and effective disaster recovery options. Dell PowerMax NVMe excels with high-speed data access, advanced encryption, and a robust multi-tenant architecture for performance-intensive environments.

Room for Improvement: Users of Dell SC Series suggest improving integration capabilities, enhancing user interface, and increasing support for newer technologies. Dell PowerMax NVMe users highlight the need for better cost efficiency, simpler management tools, and improved compatibility with third-party software.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell SC Series users appreciate its straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. Dell PowerMax NVMe, though requiring more complex initial setup, is backed by highly specialized support teams for ongoing maintenance.

Pricing and ROI: Dell SC Series is praised for its lower setup costs and satisfactory ROI. Conversely, Dell PowerMax NVMe offers substantial long-term ROI despite higher initial investment, justified by its advanced features and performance.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Dell SC Series Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Dell SC Series

January 2025

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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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerMax NVMe is 3.9%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell SC Series is 0.9%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature

One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.

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Haseeb Khalid Sheikh

Senior Manager Enterprise Solutions at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

End-to-end NVMe capabilities helps improve availability, performance, and capacity

The solution's most valuable feature is the data reduction ratio. You can store a 5:1 ratio of your data in Dell PowerMax NVMe. For example, if you have 200 terabytes of usable capacity, you can save up to five times of data on that capacity. That means you can save one petabyte of data on just 200 terabytes of usable capacity. The solution's end-to-end NVMe capabilities have improved our operations. Everything is fast, and you don't have to map your storage to old hybrid storage technologies. Our organization has experienced positive change, and the solution has improved our uptime, availability, performance, and capacity.

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Steven McClendon

Data Center Server & Storage Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Superior platform with excellent snapshots and cost-saving auto-tiering

I'm a big fan of the SC Series platform. Its feature set is superior to some of the other platforms. The snapshots on SC are excellent, allowing for multiple snapshot schedules for any one system. The auto-tiering functionality intelligently moves new data to the highest performance tier and then progresses it down to less expensive tiers over time, providing cost savings for customers.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."

"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."

"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."

"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"We are using the solution's application and snapshot feature."

"The smaller footprint of the device has been really nice. We have gone from eight bays to one bay. Having one floor tile in our data center has been pretty awesome. A lot less power and HVAC cooling is being consumed."

"The solution's snapshot capabilities and replication are very good features. Snapshots are allowing us to quickly build analytical models directly from production data. This gives us amazing insights into market trends and allows us to build more effective trading algorithms. Replication offers us unparalleled levels of resilience."

"It significantly simplifies storage."

"It is easy to manage and upgrade."

"NVMe technology improves input/output performance."

"Uptime by far is the most important thing, and also the replication ability (SRDF). Most of the customers who need this type of availability also want the protection of multiple data centers, and it is able to easily switchover workloads to their other data centers."

"PowerMax, with version 9.02, which we installed recently, has some very good features, such as CloudIQ."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe pros

"In terms of stability, it's good enough. It's okay."

"We replicate between SAN to SAN for a lot of features and supportability. It also helps us when we want to upgrade to a newer SC Series or move the data from one data center to another."

"It has been one of the most stable products in our data center."

"I find this version to be more budget-friendly compared to products from other vendors. This aspect greatly benefits my customers. It's highly advantageous due to its affordability. The operational aspect is also noteworthy. Additionally, its availability and performance are commendable. The speaker are also equally powerful."

"The Dell support is helpful and the response is quick. The agents' knowledge is very good."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to replicate. We are running a financial company and it needs to be available 24/7. We can't afford any downtime."

"Easy management of volumes: You can create volumes and easily assign them to VMware clusters, increasing their size."

"Technical support is very good. I do use it from time to time and it's always excellent."

More Dell SC Series pros

Cons

"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."

"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."

"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."

"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."

"I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert."

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."

"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."

"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"Dell PowerMax needs more connectivity options for projects that require separate web access."

"PowerMax's software is highly stable, but we faced two hardware issues in one year. We had a failure of the storage director module, and the physical disk failed on another occasion. Dell EMC should improve its hardware quality."

"There are so many configurations in the tool that cannot be done by anyone who is not a Dell personnel."

"The REST API needs improvement. We are a very big automation company, and this would be big for us."

"We would like more documentation, a guide to the features of the PowerMax."

"There is room for improvement in terms of integration with various service providers for public clouds."

"There are some stability issues that we just recently experienced. We hope the next release will solve these problems."

"The initial setup was a little bit complicated."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe cons

"The lack of reporting would be the main issue."

"From a performance point of view, it's getting a bit old."

"Some menus aren't so intuitive."

"This solution could be improved if overall performance was improved and operated with a higher speed and supported a higher volume of RAM."

"While there's always room for improvement in everything, I can't really think of a specific feature of the solution that requires immediate attention."

"An issue we had was that the controller went down during an upgrade because of their upgrading the code. One side of the switch was down."

"In terms of additional features, I would like to see some kind of I/O meter, to indicate what we are using in terms of performance. I would like to see automation with that, where it would give me the trends. I want to know those things easily, to help me know where issues are going to occur."

"While the price is competitive, in the next release it would be better if they could reduce the fees."

More Dell SC Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."

"The product is expensive."

"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."

"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."

"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The cost has room for improvement."

"Our costs for the product are three million."

"It is high-end storage and it is a bit expensive, but it is doing what it is meant for: running business-critical applications or latency-sensitive applications..."

"Dell PowerMax NVMe's price is expensive."

"The cost is expensive. While VMAX now has good pricing, PowerMax is a little expensive."

"Our costs are on a yearly basis."

"Dell is expensive compared to other products and I would rate its pricing a four out of ten."

"In terms of price-performance, it beat out other competitors when we were taking a look and comparing it to the market. That was one of the biggest driving points for us."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe pricing and cost advice

"We have found it to be affordable. Comparing the cost with other hardware, it seems to be right in line with the compute and the storage that we get with it."

"The scalability seems a bit more expensive than even buying a brand new one so far. That has been kind of a drawback."

"There are costs involving the solution, vendor fees and product safety which are additional."

"We have found the solution to be affordable."

"The pricing is reasonable, but it is expensive."

"We were able to afford two tiers of flash storage at a price where the competition was giving us one tier or just a handful of discs."

"We have reviewed many platforms over the years. It is probably the best solution for its value."

"This solution could be better priced in comparison with other vendors."

More Dell SC Series pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

24%

Financial Services Firm

University

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

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What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive.

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What's the difference between DELL EMC Powerstore and Powermax NVMe?

Dell PowerStore is an all-solid-state midrange storage system. It has many internal elements taken from other Dell of...

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What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe?

First, it's an enterprise storage solution. This is very important for us. Another important feature is replication.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe?

The price of Dell PowerMax depends on the project size. It is the best choice for large projects in terms of price an...

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What do you like most about Dell SC Series?

I find this version to be more budget-friendly compared to products from other vendors. This aspect greatly benefits ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell SC Series?

Cost considerations are crucial when choosing between solutions like Dell and NetApp. Sometimes Dell offers better pe...

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What needs improvement with Dell SC Series?

If Dell SC Series could have supported the protocol NVMe over TCP, that would have been great. It does not. Additiona...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 38% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 26% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 6% of the time

Dell VMAX All Flash vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 6% of the time

More Dell PowerMax NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell SC Series

Compared 68% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell SC Series

Compared 12% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell SC Series

Compared 12% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell SC Series

Compared 9% of the time

More Dell SC Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

December 2024

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe

January 2025

Download Dell PowerMax NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series

January 2025

Download Dell SC Series product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax

SC Series Storage, Compellent

Learn More

Pure Storage

Dell Technologies

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

Dell PowerMax is the industry’s most secure mission-critical storage platform. With NVMe Dynamic Fabric technology, PowerMax breaks from traditional storage limitations, enabling seamless integration with cloud-native and legacy applications. Designed with a powerful scale-up and scale-out architecture, PowerMax supports mission-critical applications at scale with zero downtime and ultra-low latency. The latest PowerMaxOS 10 release harnesses AI-driven efficiencies for trusted performance, capacity, and security. By choosing PowerMax, you can trust in a secure, intelligent, and always modern storage solution that unlocks the full potential of your data to drive business success.

Dell EMC SC Series arrays provide a unified platform for the ultimate in performance, adaptability and machine-driven efficiency. SC Series software delivers modern features that help you meet aggressive workload demands using the fewest drives necessary. With an open, future-ready design, SC Series storage integrates seamlessly with applications and infrastructure, enabling you to scale on a single platform and add capabilities without forklift upgrades.

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Rackspace, Open Line

TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Dell SC Series

January 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Dell SC Series

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Dell SC Series and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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