Dell PowerMax NVMe vs HPE Primera comparison

Dell Technologies and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.5, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.1. Dell Technologies holds a 4.1% mindshare in AFS, compared to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s 4.3% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Dell PowerMax NVMe and HPE Primera compete in the enterprise storage solutions category. Dell PowerMax NVMe seems to have the upper hand in data throughput and reliability, while HPE Primera excels in data management and system control.

Features: Dell PowerMax NVMe offers exceptional speed, robust reliability, and strong performance focus. HPE Primera provides AI-driven data management, streamlined performance, and enhanced data insights.

Room for Improvement: Dell PowerMax NVMe users often mention system setup complexity, high learning curve, and need for streamlined management tools. HPE Primera users look for better initial cost-effectiveness, more flexible scalability options, and improved system redundancy features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerMax NVMe deployment is intricate but well-supported by customer service. HPE Primera offers user-friendly deployment but has mixed feedback on customer service consistency.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerMax NVMe has higher upfront costs but offers significant long-term ROI. HPE Primera also incurs high initial expenses but provides quicker ROI through intelligent data management.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. HPE Primera Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. HPE Primera

March 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 March 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerMax NVMe is 4.1%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Primera is 4.3%, down from 5.4% 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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Taufeeq Rauf

Head of IT at NATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL FACILITATION TECHNOLOGIES (PVT.) LTD.

Offers a simple user interface and is useful for data replication

I use HPE Primera for mission-critical applications. My company uses the product as a storage solution for our machines. The availability of HPE Primera in our company is critical for us, considering that we operate in an HA environment where we can't have downtime since we need to deal with cheque clearance for banks. The product's interface is simple to use. I am satisfied with the user experience provided by the product. The ease of use of the product's interface has directly had an impact on our company's operations, along with the improvement in the availability and performance of machines. Compared to HPE Primera, I work with a much more reliable storage solution like Dell PowerStore. Compared to HPE Primera, Dell PowerStore's features related to deduplication are very good, and it also offers a physical storage capacity of eight TB, which can be expanded up to forty TB. I would recommend the product to others who plan to use it only after taking into consideration their usage and requirements. From the price and performance point of view, Dell PowerStore is a better choice. I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

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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

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."

"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."

"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."

"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."

"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."

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

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"We are happy with the monitoring that Dell EMC is doing for us. They have helped us to identify many issues during the routine checks, issues which we were not aware of."

"The PowerMax software and CloudIQ let us get an inside view of our compression and compaction, as well as our usage of the storage."

"We are able to provide storage at the right service levels without overmanaging it."

"It allows us to protect our data using different data centers and replicate bi-directionally between our two main data centers."

"The SRDF replication piece is probably the best feature. It's useful for maintaining recoverability in the event of a disaster."

"The compression and deduplication are the most valuable features because of the cost savings."

"Enterprise Cloud Storage is the most valuable feature, along with the data services which come with it, plus the deduplication and compression."

"Based on our experience with VMAX, there isn't any hardware failure or something like that in PowerMax. Performance-wise also, everything is fine. We haven't faced any performance issues or any hardware failure. Its performance is great as compared to VMAX. Its I/O per second rate is higher than the old model."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe pros

"The initial setup is simple."

"HPE Primera is scalable."

"For over a year, I have not seen any downtime in the product."

"The features that I have found most valuable are the artificial intelligence for the storage inside of the software and firmware because customers do not like functionalities which require manual interruption."

"The interface is simplified."

"The performance of the solution is good."

"HPE provides good support through their customer service."

"The product has better replication features than the previous products."

More HPE Primera pros

Cons

"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."

"We need better data deduplication."

"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."

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

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."

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

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The price cap of Dell PowerMax NVMe is very high."

"Dell should work on their marketing strategies to make the product more visible on the market. They should promote the product's compatibility with IBM, as not everyone knows it."

"Since the merging of EMC and Dell into Dell Technologies, there has been a hurdle that they've had to overcome, and they're not over it yet. It takes two to three times longer for things to get fixed than it did when they were separate companies. That is something that has to be fixed."

"There is room for improvement in adjusting into the existing infrastructure easily without much of the technical contribution."

"Dell needs to offer more midrange storage options with enterprise-class features similar to the PowerMAX."

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

"They should work with the storage engineers to better tweak the management tools to give them improved visibility into their data."

"I would like the scalability to improve, as it requires additional footprints."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe cons

"Increasing the IOPS and throughput values would make the product even better. Improving the scalability of HPE Primera is also recommended."

"The file server embedded in Pure, the GUI, and the tracking and reporting features are better with Pure Storage."

"The price of the product is an area of concern. From an improvement perspective, the solution should be made more affordable in terms of price."

"We face challenges with false alarms, particularly daily alerts related to replication link breaks. I'm not happy with the customer service and support."

"HPE Primera's deduplication area is not as good as the one offered by Dell PowerStore, making it an area where improvements are required."

"We've encountered issues in the past where maintaining a read-only state is essential to prevent data encryption when VPN access is impacted."

"Like most storage, we want to see flash become more and more stable. Like any flash that uses MLC or TLC techniques, over time, the more writes you have, the less usable the storage becomes. They try to plan for this and have a lot of extra space in the arrays, but over time, their performance does degrade. This is true for any flash storage."

"There are certain shortcomings in the technical support offered by HPE where improvements are required."

More HPE Primera cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"Dell PowerMax NVMe's price is expensive."

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

"Our costs for the product are three million."

"The price is really high."

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

"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."

"It scales enormously, but it's expensive to do so."

"I think it is an expensive tool, but it is the best product. I think it is expensive and the cost one must pay for the best solution."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe pricing and cost advice

"HPE Primera is a little bit higher than Dell PowerStore...HPE Primera costs around 80,000 USD."

"The price of this solution is good for medium-sized and large businesses."

"Because it has high availability, the cost is above average. The cost depends upon the sizing, and every customer has a different size. It is slightly above average in terms of cost compared to its competitors, but the value add was that they could know what their maintenance cost was going to be going forward. They knew what their renewal or expansion costs would be."

"The solution is quite cost-effective."

"There is only a one-time license purchase needed and no additional costs. If HP could reduce the training cost, then that would be advantageous to the seller."

"It is basically in the mid-range of the price. It is not cheaper than Hitachi, but it is cheaper than Pure Storage. There are no additional costs. Everything was taken care of in the price."

"The price to capacity ratio is good."

"It’s a reasonable choice. When compared to other options, we've found it to be accessible and within our means."

More HPE Primera pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Educational Organization

44%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

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?

Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...

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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 is starting from $500,000. It's expensive.

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Which would you choose - HPE Nimble Storage or HPE Primera?

HPE Nimble is a versatile synced WAN San solution. It is easy to use and doesn’t require much training for admins. Th...

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What's the difference between HPE 3PAR StoreServ and HPE Primera?

HPE Primera has many great features but one of the best is that it is very easy to deploy. From an overall perspectiv...

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What do you like most about HPE Primera?

For over a year, I have not seen any downtime in the product.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 33% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 6% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 27% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

Dell VMAX All Flash vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

Hitachi VSP 5000 Series vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 2% of the time

More Dell PowerMax NVMe Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 34% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE Primera

Compared 18% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 10% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Primera

Compared 9% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs HPE Primera

Compared 2% of the time

More HPE Primera Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

March 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe

March 2025

Download Dell PowerMax NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera

March 2025

Download HPE Primera product report

Also Known As

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

Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax

Primera

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.

Pure Storage

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 Technologies

HPE introduces HPE Primera, a new storage platform designed to deliver superior simplicity, availability, and performance for mission-critical applications
HPE Primera advances the HPE Intelligent Data Platform, a portfolio of products and solutions designed to help customers transition from delivering storage to unlocking business value with intelligent data

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Rackspace, Open Line

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. HPE Primera

March 2025

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