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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
7.9
Number of Reviews
196
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 22.8%, down 23.8% compared to last year.
Pure Storage FlashArray, on the other hand, focuses on All-Flash Storage, holds 7.1% mindshare, down 8.8% since last year.
Storage Software
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Derrick Brockel - PeerSpot reviewer
A resilient and reliable solution that has many load-balancing technologies and provides high availability
People who want to buy the solution must create a scorecard of Dell PowerPath against other products. They must run database tests. They must consider factors like pricing, performance, ease of use, visibility, and reliability. They must also run tests to understand which product recovers faster. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
Alfadel Alharthy - PeerSpot reviewer
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."
"It provides a high availability and will increase the performance of any server or operating system."
"The user interface is good."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is migration without disruptions."
"The product is very reliable."
"The solution has improved our performance, reliability, and redundancy."
"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."
"The reliability is very good."
"It is noticeably easier to manage than other appliances that we have."
"This solution has improved our organization. In the past, we had reports that were taking up to two hours and after switching to SSD storage the overall processing power dropped to half an hour. The end users saw an immediate performance gain."
"Access speed and power consumption are most valuable."
"It has good stability for our company."
"Before we used Pure Storage it took 93 days of employees who run the database to back up and restore databases. The scale of deployment basically went from several days to a few minutes."
"I have seen a huge increase in speed and performance on our databases."
"Pure Storage FlashArray is simple and easy to use. It offers protection when removing devices. It has the ability to undo deletes."
 

Cons

"Customers do not choose PowerPath unless they have Unix or Linux."
"The solution is quite stable, although they have not quite worked out all of the kinks."
"The solution should provide extensive reports on backups and backup failures."
"The technical support is good but they are not available all the time."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"While I utilize it for data migration, I would love to do that data migration in a GUI from an ease of use perspective."
"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 product must adapt to other storage technologies like HPE 3PAR."
"The solution could improve by having a multi-tenant feature."
"The primary drawback is the cost, which can be prohibitive for small configurations."
"I would like to see support for NVMe, end-to-end."
"I would rate this solution an eight. To make it a ten it would have to be a little cheaper."
"The GUI could improve, it could be more intuitive. There is hidden functionality."
"Its price could be cheaper. It is not the cheapest one out there, but I'm not directly involved in the figures and negotiations."
"The internal garbage collection process has been fixed recently in some OS updates so it is more efficient but that could be just a little better."
"The problem is that we can only make a few groups, around five or six groups. I like groups and we need a lot of them. We had to put all the information in only a few groups and cannot make a more detailed separation of them."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."
"The solution is expensive."
"The licensing is $100,000."
"It's expensive, but you get what you pay for."
"Cost-wise, I imagine that the product's price would probably give you a nosebleed if you were a younger company."
"You get what you pay for. It is expensive, but it really works."
"The solution could be cheaper."
"Its price is almost double than any other flash storage solution."
"FlashArray is expensive, but the quality justifies the price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
11%
Healthcare Company
11%
Retailer
10%
Educational Organization
34%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

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?
Pure Storage FlashArray is a premium product, but the introduction of the C-series has been a strategic move to make it more accessible to budget-conscious customers.
 

Also Known As

PowerPath
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Learn More

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Healthcare Residential Service Company
Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
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