Dell PowerMax NVMe vs IBM FlashSystem comparison

Dell Technologies and IBM are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.5, while IBM is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.5. Dell Technologies holds a 4.0% mindshare in AFS, compared to IBM’s 6.7% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of IBM users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

IBM FlashSystem and Dell PowerMax NVMe are high-performance storage solutions. Dell PowerMax NVMe holds the upper hand due to its advanced features, justifying the higher cost.

Features: IBM FlashSystem’s valuable features include efficient data compression, ease of management, and competitive pricing. Dell PowerMax NVMe features robust data services, high performance, and advanced data replication.

Room for Improvement: IBM FlashSystem needs better scalability, improved integration capabilities, and enhanced user documentation. Dell PowerMax NVMe can improve its initial setup process, simplify user interface, and offer better user documentation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM FlashSystem is known for straightforward deployment and responsive customer support. Dell PowerMax NVMe has a complex setup but offers comprehensive support once deployment is complete.

Pricing and ROI: IBM FlashSystem offers a cost-effective solution with faster ROI. Dell PowerMax NVMe, despite higher initial costs, provides justified investment through its advanced capabilities and performance gains.

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

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. IBM FlashSystem

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 April 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 4.0%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem is 6.7%, down from 6.8% 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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Raanan Sitton

Vice President Sales at BELOCAL LTD

Offers cost-effective storage for small companies with budget constraints

IBM FlashSystem 5300 is offered at a very low cost in Israel, which is advantageous for small companies. However, other features like deduplication and compression do not perform effectively. The price sensitivity makes it a viable option for clients with budgetary constraints, as it allows us to secure deals based on the cost rather than advanced performance.

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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

"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."

"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."

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

"The solution is scalable."

"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."

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

"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"This platform is reliable in supporting our data availability. We now have a higher performing platform and have been able to consolidate our workloads into one single platform."

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

"Key features include performance, replication time, and dedup and compression."

"The most valuable feature is its global cache, which allows for uncompromised performance."

"The UI is very easy to use. We can add volumes and manage them easily."

"The support team was very cooperative and responsive."

"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."

"My storage engineers are very happy with PowerMax. They are very pleased with the performance, decreased latency, and dependability. From the team, the RESTful API makes management so much easier for them versus the command line interface."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe pros

"The most valuable feature of the solution is SCM (Storage Class Memory), which has the lowest latency value in the storage industry."

"IBM FlashSystem is a stable solution."

"IBM FlashSystem is a powerful effective storage solution. Additionally, it is user-friendly, anyone can use it."

"The speed, performance, and stability are the best features of IBM FlashSystem."

"This solution is convenient, user-friendly, convenient and reliable."

"The solution is scalable and has varying degrees of scalability."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"The GUI is very easy and performance is also good."

More IBM FlashSystem pros

Cons

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

"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."

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

"We have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."

"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."

"It is on the expensive side."

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

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"Dell PowerMax NVMe is costly compared to other solutions."

"I would like NVMe to be end-to-end in the next release. Right now, it is not end-to-end."

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

"Although they call it unified storage where you have SAN and NAS, with a NAS implementation on top of a SAN, the NAS implementation is a little complicated and clumsy. As SAN, as block storage, it is very powerful... If they could provide a very good NAS implementation, it would be better, so that customers don't have to look for other simple solutions for NAS."

"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."

"There is room for improvement in the replication. It's an important requirement for us."

"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."

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

More Dell PowerMax NVMe cons

"The only issue my team faced was transferring the data from the old system to IBM FlashSystem, which is an area for improvement in the solution."

"When you provision a datastore auto-format takes a long time"

"The array level RAID does not seem available."

"The support could improve by allowing you to speak to someone when you call rather than them calling you back. However, once we do have contact with one of their technicians they are excellent."

"The initial setup is complex."

"The deduplication and compression ratio is not very good. It's not reaching a very high ratio."

"Events/log analysis tools."

"They don't offer subscription-based payments."

More IBM FlashSystem cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"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."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"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."

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

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The cost of the solution is quite noticeable, but it provides a good fit regarding the price of the hardware and all of the required licenses."

"One area for improvement, one that everybody always comes to, is price... it's still quite expensive to purchase these big arrays... For us, the pricing doesn't make Dell EMC uncompetitive."

"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."

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

"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..."

"From a general capital investment, it's one of the higher price points in the market. It depends on the size and software features that you would include in a system. So, the cost varies dramatically."

"Since Dell PowerMax NVMe is an enterprise storage, its price is premium."

"Our costs are on a yearly basis."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe pricing and cost advice

"This solution is expensive compared to other solutions."

"The price depends of the technology that our customers need. The price can come at a lower cost but this may increase as storage is added."

"IBM V7000 has a new license and price structure which provides intuitive licensing based on the functions customers wish to enable and use the most."

"There are no licensing fees, it is a one-time purchase of the IBM FlashSystem."

"I would rate the pricing of this solution a four out of five."

"The pricing is competitive in our country."

"Overall the price of the solution is expensive and this includes the license."

"You purchase it as a bundle and the price is comparable."

More IBM FlashSystem 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

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

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?

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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What do you like most about IBM FlashSystem?

It is simple to make an update.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem?

Many factors affect purchasing directly from IBM, often involving a multi-step process. Customers, especially in bank...

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What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem?

The GUI needs some improvement. An additional function that could be helpful is reducing the time it takes to delete ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 32% 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

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% 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 14% of the time

Dell VMAX All Flash vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 5% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 4% of the time

More Dell PowerMax NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 24% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 8% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 8% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 8% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 4% of the time

More IBM FlashSystem 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

IBM FlashSystem

March 2025

Download IBM FlashSystem product report

Also Known As

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

Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax

IBM Storwize

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

IBM FlashSystem products are enterprise computer data storage systems that store data on flash memory chips. Unlike storage systems that use standard solid-state drives, IBM FlashSystem products incorporate custom hardware based on technology from the 2012 acquisition of Texas Memory Systems. This hardware provides performance, reliability, and efficiency benefits versus competitive offerings.

IBM

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Rackspace, Open Line

Celero, Friedhelm Loh Group, Clarks, Mingkang Natregro Health Food Group, Sofia, Etisalat Fights Fraud, UF Health Shands Hospital, Generali, Elecon Engineering Company Limited, Ventiv , Technology, CPFL Energia, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., SciQuest, Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated, Paddy Power, Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, Interconnect Services, Severstal IP-Only AB, PVU Group GmbH

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. IBM FlashSystem

March 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. IBM FlashSystem

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. IBM FlashSystem and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

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