Dell PowerMax NVMe vs VAST Data comparison

Dell Technologies and VAST Data are both solutions in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category. Dell Technologies is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.5, while VAST Data is ranked #8 with an average rating of 10.0. Dell Technologies holds a 9.1% mindshare in N, compared to VAST Data’s 5.9% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of VAST Data users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Dell PowerMax NVMe and VAST Data compete in the enterprise storage solutions category. VAST Data appears superior based on features and user satisfaction, despite Dell PowerMax NVMe’s advantages in pricing and customer support.

Features: Dell PowerMax NVMe has robust data protection, high availability, and excellent integration capabilities. VAST Data stands out with innovative architecture, high performance, and scalability. Users value VAST Data’s simplicity and speed.

Room for Improvement: Dell PowerMax NVMe could enhance scalability, reduce management complexity, and improve documentation. VAST Data needs to simplify initial configuration, enhance documentation, and reduce setup complexity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerMax NVMe is easy to deploy with efficient setup and excellent customer support. VAST Data requires a more complex deployment but offers prompt, knowledgeable service.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerMax NVMe offers competitive pricing and strong ROI with reasonable setup costs. VAST Data is expensive upfront but provides significant long-term ROI due to performance benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. VAST Data Report (Updated: February 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. VAST Data

February 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 NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 2.5%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerMax NVMe is 9.1%, down from 14.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VAST Data is 5.9%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

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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Alan Powers

HPC CTO at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Stability-wise, a device that has been up and running for years

The failover capability and resiliency are some of the solution's valuable features. The big thing is resilience because it has richer coding in it, so multiple devices can't fail. Also, one can still access a number of CBoxes that can allow one to access their file system. Once a device fails, it fails the transparency of the end-user, and it just starts using another resource. The encryption capability, the snapshots, along with a whole bunch of features make the tool valuable. VAST Data keeps adding more and more features all the time.

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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

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The speed and the compatible interface with IBM are the most valuable features of the PowerMax product."

"CloudIQ has become an optimal tool for us to get the full picture of all the different arrays, from mid-tier all the way up. It gives us that single view and the ability to launch the Unisphere. That is really is powerful in being able to manage the array."

"PowerMax is a compact high-performance appliance. It is one of the best devices in terms of performance specs. It includes an NVMe All-Flash Array."

"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."

"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."

"I have been highly satisfied with the resiliency and scalability of the solution."

"The response time, compared to XtremIO, is far better."

"I am impressed with the tool's reliability since we see a few hardware failures with it. Also, the solution's replication configuration is good."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe pros

"This has been one of the most reliable storage systems that I have ever used."

"The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations."

Cons

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

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

"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."

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

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

"We need better data deduplication."

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

"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"I would also like to see a real-time, graphical view of metrics. I don't know how far back in time we can look, but if we could see the performance from two months or three months back, and how it is performing now, that would be helpful."

"I would like them to continue improving the management tools and continue moving towards a RESTful API versus CLI."

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

"I would like it to support NVMe over Fabrics, because that is the next item for consideration on the NVMe roadmap. PowerMax supports NVMe on the back-end, but when it starts supporting NVMe over Fibre Channel, suddenly various hosts can directly communicate with PowerMax, and with NVMe-oF, as well. Suddenly, Gen 6 and Gen 7 switchers will be able to help facilitate that particular communication channel."

"There are definitely some improvements that can be made to the CloudIQ."

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

"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 main feature that I personally want to see is the possibility to upgrade to the next generation without changing all the components and just change the engine, relying on the compatibility matrices between two different generations. Meaning that we could just keep the enclosure and upgrade the engine, integrating the enclosure to the existing pool, then adding automation tools for orchestration."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe cons

"The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement."

"The write performance could be improved because it is less than half of the read performance."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The product is expensive."

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

"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."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

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

"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."

"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."

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."

"The price is really high."

"The pricing is competitive. I would rate the pricing of the solution a six out of ten."

"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..."

"I rate Dell PowerMax NVMe a five out of ten for pricing."

"Dell PowerMax NVMe's price is expensive."

"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."

"Our costs are on a yearly basis."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe pricing and cost advice

"We acquired VAST Data as a one-time, capital purchase."

"Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

University

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.

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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 VAST Data?

The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VAST Data?

Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one.

See all answers

What needs improvement with VAST Data?

The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 34% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% 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 7% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 6% of the time

More Dell PowerMax NVMe Competitors

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs VAST Data

Compared 11% of the time

NetApp AFF vs VAST Data

Compared 10% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs VAST Data

Compared 10% of the time

Qumulo vs VAST Data

Compared 9% of the time

Snowflake vs VAST Data

Compared 8% of the time

More VAST Data Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

February 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe

February 2025

Download Dell PowerMax NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

February 2025

Download VAST Data product report

Also Known As

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

Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax

No data available

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

Innovation to break decades of data storage trade-offs.

VAST Data

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Rackspace, Open Line

Norwest Venture Partners, General Dynamics Information Technology, Ginkgo Bioworks

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. VAST Data

February 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. VAST Data

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