Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Dell PowerPath vs Pure Storage FlashArray comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerPath
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Storage Software (3rd)
Pure Storage FlashArray
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
193
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Dell PowerPath and Pure Storage FlashArray aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Dell PowerPath is designed for Storage Software and holds a mindshare of 23.3%, down 25.8% compared to last year.
Pure Storage FlashArray, on the other hand, focuses on All-Flash Storage, holds 7.3% mindshare, down 8.9% since last year.
Storage Software
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Derrick Brockel - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 3, 2024
A resilient and reliable solution that has many load-balancing technologies and provides high availability
We use the solution for load balancing our database and I/Os. It works well with EMC storage The solution has improved our performance, reliability, and redundancy. It is a smart solution. If we bring down an array, it would queue the I/Os. It provides resilience and availability. It performs…
Alfadel Alharthy - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 20, 2022
Effective provisioning, helpful support, and reliable
When we set up the solution we did not require a lot of support from the teams. The good thing about the support is they can access and upgrade the framework and all other aspects. However, the account managers from Pure Storage are not communicating very well with us. We want to talk to them about what features should be used, use cases, best practices, and other technical discussions. Additionally, we would like to know about the new features, the introduction of new technology in the storage itself. It would be nice if they could communicate this information to us. The support is very good. They always call us for technical upgrades and firmware. If we have any issues they log in and we open a session for them, and they help us. The only issue is the time zone difference between our time zone and their time zone. I would rate the support from Pure Storage FlashArray a five out of five.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"OS-aware multipathing is a valuable feature of the product."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that disaster recovery scenarios are very good and easy to use in Dell PowerPath since it is available in a simplified form."
"We have found the solution to be quite flexible and very scalable."
"It provides a high availability and will increase the performance of any server or operating system."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is migration without disruptions."
"The product is very reliable."
"The user interface is good."
"The solution has improved our performance, reliability, and redundancy."
"The most valuable feature is replication."
"Most of the problems that we had in the past with the performance in IOPS have disappeared. It has been a great improvement for our customers' services."
"At this point, I don't know anything that they could provide in a better way."
"Running SAP on Pure Storage helps a lot without doing any further tuning to improve application performance. Our internal clients are happy."
"We have tons of capacity on it."
"I appreciate the ease of provisioning storage on Pure Storage FlashArray."
"The reliability is very good."
"I like FlashArray's ActiveCluster as well as its snapshot and cloning capabilities."
 

Cons

"Although PowerPath is very mature and has been on the market for more than 15 years there are still a lot of bugs that have been profiled with PowerPath, specifically, during any OS upgrade."
"The solution should provide extensive reports on backups and backup failures."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The product must adapt to other storage technologies like HPE 3PAR."
"While I utilize it for data migration, I would love to do that data migration in a GUI from an ease of use perspective."
"The technical support is good but they are not available all the time."
"The solution is quite stable, although they have not quite worked out all of the kinks."
"Customers do not choose PowerPath unless they have Unix or Linux."
"They should work on their upgrades, they're not smooth."
"FlashArray's capacity for forecasting should be improved because it needs to be a bit more current. I think it's bundled with the deduplication and other compression factors. We need more user interfaces for forecasting in this software and more interfaces need to be integrated with this array management tool."
"We understand that they're thinking about it, but one of the things that would be nice is if they added some basic file-level capabilities to the platform. The idea is that they would run a basic NFS or CIF share from the controllers. FlashBlade is the powerhouse for File and Object storage, but if you don't need all that power, a lightweight file function would make FlashArrays more versatile."
"I would like to have support available in Spanish."
"The price should be lower."
"There are many features which need to be added, particularly on the replication side."
"It is not possible to create a cluster on top of multiple arrays."
"I would like some performance analytics which go deeper than today. It should be specific to some hosts and applications. This would be good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the product's price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is affordable, and ten is really expensive. Dell PowerPath is an expensive tool."
"The product is a little bit expensive."
"Pricing is good. I don't have any issues with the pricing of this solution."
"There are no additional costs associated with the product."
"The price of the solution is fair."
"The solution is expensive."
"I'm good with the licensing. Of course, pricing can always be less... It's actually not a bad pricing model, considering I don't have to rip-and-replace."
"We have 16 or 18 arrays. We like to do the three-year support model so that we get Evergreen and therefore, we get free upgrades. We pay around more than 1.5 million dollars."
"The pricing of Pure Storage is all-inclusive. It is very fair, and very easy. In comparison, Dell EMC has licensing that needs to be added if you wan to work in a complex environment or in specific functionalities."
"The license for Pure Storage FlashArray includes the support and there are no additional payments that are needed. This is not an inexpensive solution, you need to understand the value of your data before you use a backup solution."
"We feel that the pricing is fair and the licensing process was easy for both."
"We evaluated Oracle and Hitachi, but Pure Storage had the better pricing."
"In comparison to the competitors, Pure is very price-competitive for the future functionality that it provides."
"The price of Pure Storage FlashArray could always improve. They are still more expensive than some alternative offerings. Cost is always a concern and when there is a battle they tend to be more expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Storage Software solutions are best for your needs.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Healthcare Company
10%
Retailer
10%
Educational Organization
33%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell PowerPath?
The solution has improved our performance, reliability, and redundancy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerPath?
The product is a little bit expensive. It is a little pricey because it provides multipathing with other OSs. I rate the pricing a five out of ten.
What needs improvement with Dell PowerPath?
The product must adapt to other storage technologies like HPE 3PAR. When we use 3PAR storage, we have to use another technology to load balance. The product must be integrated with other products l...
Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Storage. It may be more expensive, but it should pay for itself for its functionalit...
What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashArray?
We consume less physical storage because of the solution’s deduplication and compression.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
We implemented Pure Storage FlashArray nine years ago when it was new to the market and obtained it at a preferential price. However, the current retail price may be relatively high, and discounts ...
 

Also Known As

PowerPath
No data available
 

Learn More

Video not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Healthcare Residential Service Company
Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Find out what your peers are saying about DataCore, NetApp, Dell Technologies and others in Storage Software. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.