Dell PowerMax NVMe vs Dell VMAX All Flash comparison

Dell PowerMax NVMe and Dell VMAX All Flash are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell PowerMax NVMe is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.5, while Dell VMAX All Flash is ranked #30 with an average rating of 8.5. Additionally, 97% of Dell PowerMax NVMe users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Dell VMAX All Flash users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Dell PowerMax NVMe and Dell VMAX All Flash are two high-performance storage solutions. User reviews show that while Dell PowerMax NVMe excels in certain areas, Dell VMAX All Flash is often considered superior due to its comprehensive features.

Features: Users highlight that Dell PowerMax NVMe offers high-speed data processing, robustness, and strong encryption capabilities. Dell VMAX All Flash is praised for its extensive scalability, performance consistency, and advanced data protection features. The key difference is Dell VMAX All Flash's ability to scale more effectively, which many users find critical.

Room for Improvement: Dell PowerMax NVMe users note issues with complexity in management, need for better analytics, and limited scalability in certain environments. Dell VMAX All Flash users find room for improvement in the areas of initial setup complexity, software upgrades, and documentation clarity. While both products could benefit from enhancements, Dell VMAX All Flash's need for improved setup procedures contrasts with Dell PowerMax NVMe's requirement for better management tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerMax NVMe receives positive feedback for a straightforward deployment process but has mixed reviews regarding ongoing support. Dell VMAX All Flash users indicate challenges during deployment but generally report better customer service experiences. The contrast lies in the initial setup ease of PowerMax NVMe versus the superior ongoing support for VMAX All Flash.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerMax NVMe is noted for its cost-effective setup but offers moderate ROI, according to user feedback. Dell VMAX All Flash is perceived as more expensive initially but provides higher ROI over time due to its reliable performance and longevity. The main distinction is the upfront affordability of PowerMax NVMe against the long-term value offered by VMAX All Flash.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Dell VMAX All Flash Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Dell VMAX All Flash

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

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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BrijeshKumar

Technical Lead at L&T Technology Services

With an easy initial setup phase, the tool is useful for multi-site replication and DR

The configuration part of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. If the product is up and running after, if it goes down, my company has observed that there are multiple failures that occur in the tool, so it needs to be reinstalled from scratch. The tool should have an automated feature or an automated option to handle the aforementioned scenario, which one can simply go and reset, after which the tool should be reinstalled with the same configuration.

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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

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

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."

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

"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."

"The solution is very straightforward to set up."

"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."

"The solution is scalable."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"Dell PowerMax NVMe has been a significant enhancement for data handling in my industry. Its improved security features and data calculation capabilities make it a valuable solution for our customers. The most critical feature of Dell PowerMax NVMe for performance enhancement is its strong network support and integration with other vendors, along with its efficient use of hardware components like CPU and memory. Data reduction technologies in PowerMax have been highly beneficial for our company, allowing us to optimize storage and reduce costs by consolidating files"

"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerMax NVMe is its replication feature."

"A huge benefit of the PowerMax has been the decreasing of our physical footprint. We recently did a consolidation where we went from 58 tiles down to 5. If we had used just the PowerMax, we could have gone from 58 tiles down to 2 tiles, which is huge space savings. If you have 56 newly available floor tiles on a raised floor data center, which you previously had to cool and provide power to, then now, not only are my costs going down, I now have more revenue opportunities because I have more space to put new customers."

"The uptime is the most valuable 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 high availability that other systems don't have. In other systems, there is an owner in the storage processes. But for PowerMAX, there is no owner. All the process storage is passed to all nodes without ownership. So, there is no response feature in the storage in PowerMax. In the other systems, there is a response, which is a very nice feature. No systems have such a feature."

"We're consolidating two to three arrays down to one which means that our data center footprint has decreased by like 90%. So we're saving 90% of our space, and it also is much better on power and everything else in our data center. And on top of that, the performance is much, much better than our older arrays."

"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."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe pros

"The ransomware protection feature is housed in a separate unit, specifically addressing the top twenty most critical threats."

"The product's initial setup phase was good."

"The snapshot feature has been precious for our testing processes, application development, and managing testing environments due to its efficiency and ease of use."

"It works very well."

Cons

"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."

"It is on the expensive side."

"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."

"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."

"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."

"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."

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

"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"We brought up this question to the implementation engineer. We were comparing use cases where a customer is using RecoverPoint, then goes to PowerMax. In our previous setup with XtremIO, we were using RecpverPoint and keeping snapshots for 30 days, every few seconds. With PowerMax, I requested this for every 15 minutes, keeping it for a week. The engineer's answer was, "There will be too many snapshots. It might slow down the system." This is specifically for the use cases where there is RecoverPoint. While PowerMax works with RecoverPoint, and you can use it, there should be some way where you can have even more snapshots and not to worry about performance and system cache."

"The initial setup was complex, as it is a complex system and you have to learn a lot."

"I would like a more informative CloudIQ for iOS. What you can see via the web UI significantly differs from what you can see via the web application."

"Firmware updates are a bit painful because you have to involve their support, as opposed to having the ability to do it yourself."

"The tool needs to improve its performance. Today's applications are demanding a response rate of one millisecond or below. The product should also look into AI integration."

"I'd like to see the dedup and compression improve. Two to one is not very good. We should be getting something like three, four, or five to one."

"PowerMax Storage needs improvement in the area of monitoring tools. It should have more functions and more complicated analysis options inside the monitoring tools."

"The price could be lower, and we are unhappy with the price."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe cons

"The configuration part of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."

"Improvements are needed in both partition recovery and scalability."

"There is room for improvement in the centralized administration."

"We encountered some challenges during large data migrations that could be addressed for smoother transitions."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

"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."

"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."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"The product is expensive."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"From reclaiming data center space which is so tightly constrained these days, it will pay for itself in a short amount of time, which is fantastic. Anything we can do to get more out of our current physical data center space helps us a ton, and PowerMax has helped enable that."

"Dell PowerMax NVMe's price is 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."

"Support pricing is very high. Our support contract is about to expire and Dell EMC provided us with an extremely high renewal quote. It was four times more than the support contract for our previous EMC VNX solution."

"The PowerMax appliance pricing was reasonable. Dell EMC quoted us a substantial discount."

"The tool is very expensive."

"The cost has room for improvement."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe pricing and cost advice

"It is not a cheap product."

"The price falls within the mid-range, neither inexpensive nor high-priced."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

24%

Financial Services Firm

21%

Government

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

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

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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 EMC VMax?

The product's initial setup phase was good.

See all answers

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

It is not a cheap product. As the tool is expensive, I am looking at the market for some products with better prices ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell EMC VMax?

There is room for improvement in the centralized administration. There could be better centralizing the administratio...

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

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% 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

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 5% of the time

More Dell PowerMax NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 28% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 10% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 8% of the time

More Dell VMAX All Flash Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

January 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe

January 2025

Download Dell PowerMax NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

January 2025

Download Dell VMAX All Flash product report

Also Known As

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

Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax

No data available

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 VMAX All Flash is utilized in hyper-converged solutions like VxRail deployments, critical for Data Domain in backup tasks. It supports multi-site replication, disaster recovery, banking IT operations, and high-performance applications.

Dell VMAX All Flash plays a key role in data-intensive environments due to its robust capabilities in storage, data protection, and high throughput tasks. It is crucial in hyper-converged solutions and VxRail deployments, facilitating multi-site replication and disaster recovery. Its applications span across banking and other critical IT operations requiring high performance. The system's ability to support efficient data compression and provide ransomware protection addresses significant security concerns. Multi-site replication and redundancy safeguard data even during power outages or hardware failures, while the snapshot feature aids in testing, application development, and environment management.

What are the key features of Dell VMAX All Flash?

Compression: Efficient data compression capabilities.
Ransomware Protection: Tackles ransomware threats effectively.
Multi-site Replication and Redundancy: Ensures data safety during power outages or hardware issues.
Snapshots: Aids in testing, application development, and environment management.

What benefits should users look for in Dell VMAX All Flash reviews?

Data Protection: Enhanced data security with ransomware protection.
Performance: High throughput for demanding applications.
Reliability: Multi-site replication and redundancy for critical operations continuity.
Support: Adheres to IP strategies with excellent customer support.

Dell VMAX All Flash is critical in industries like banking, where it supports IT operations requiring high performance, and in environments demanding stringent data protection measures. Its role in multi-site replication and disaster recovery makes it invaluable for business continuity and critical data security across sectors.

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Rackspace, Open Line

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Dell VMAX All Flash

January 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Dell VMAX All Flash

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

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