Dell PowerStore vs Dell SC Series comparison

Dell PowerStore and Dell SC Series are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell PowerStore is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7, while Dell SC Series is ranked #18 with an average rating of 9.0. Dell PowerStore holds a 17.5% mindshare in AFS, compared to Dell SC Series’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell PowerStore users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Dell SC Series users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Dell SC Series and Dell PowerStore compete in the storage solutions market. Dell PowerStore appears superior due to its advanced features, which justify its higher price.

Features: Dell SC Series offers robust automation, data replication, and cost-effectiveness. Dell PowerStore provides advanced data analytics, integrated AI capabilities, and cutting-edge technology that appeals to tech-savvy users.

Room for Improvement: Dell SC Series needs better scalability, higher performance under heavy loads, and improved performance flexibility. Dell PowerStore requires more streamlined firmware updates, an enhanced initial setup process, and software optimization.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell SC Series is praised for straightforward deployment but experiences occasional customer service delays. Dell PowerStore is noted for smooth deployment and consistent high-quality support.

Pricing and ROI: Dell SC Series is considered cost-effective with good ROI despite higher upfront costs. Dell PowerStore, though more expensive, delivers higher ROI due to its innovative features, offering long-term value against initial costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerStore vs. Dell SC Series Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore vs. Dell SC Series

April 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 PowerStore is 17.5%, up from 15.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell SC Series is 0.7%, down from 1.2% 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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Brian Ricci

President at Pinnacle Computer Services, Inc.

It's constantly enhanced and has impressive reliability and data compression

The maintenance is a bit expensive. The service and support are there for three years, but after the third year, it is pretty pricey for renewal. I hope Dell addresses that. Everything is pricey these days anyway. It is not like the old days of Compellent. We used to be able to see the metrics for our customers. On Compellent, we could look up that customer and see all the metrics. That is not allowed for us now. We cannot do that anymore. I have to be explicitly allowed by the customer to do that, and some companies' security does not allow that.

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Steven McClendon

Data Center Server & Storage Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Superior platform with excellent snapshots and cost-saving auto-tiering

I'm a big fan of the SC Series platform. Its feature set is superior to some of the other platforms. The snapshots on SC are excellent, allowing for multiple snapshot schedules for any one system. The auto-tiering functionality intelligently moves new data to the highest performance tier and then progresses it down to less expensive tiers over time, providing cost savings for customers.

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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

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

"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."

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

"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."

"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."

"I appreciate the performance."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"Currently, the features of replication and deduplication have been very important to us."

"The most impactful feature is the data reduction."

"The compression is excellent."

"Typically, high-performance and high-availability features, such as application snapshots and remote and local replication, are highly valued."

"Dell PowerStore is an easy and fast tool to work through our company's data."

"The most valuable features of Dell PowerStore are the resilience, scalability, flexibility of expansion, and ease of managing the entire solution including the servers and storage."

"We have implemented Dell PowerStore for small sites needing mirrored storage. To ensure high availability, the storage is set up in two different locations, possibly in the same building but far apart."

"Pricing is very good. It's very competitive against those of all the others that I looked at in the marketplace, such as Hitachi, IBM, HP, and Pure. Dell is right there in the mix as far as providing the best price point as well as meeting the performance requirements that we have."

More Dell PowerStore pros

"Most valuable features have been the system customization with it, the performance you receive, and their CoPilot Support (or Dell EMC Storage Support)."

"It has good dedupe and compression. Also, the built-in data migration capabilities are pretty good, as is the federation. When we started migrating the workloads from different storage platforms, like NetApp and XtremeIO, it helped us in moving to that direction."

"It is fast and performs well."

"Dell SC Series offers a lot of performance, being one of the best performing storages Dell ever made."

"Everything is sub-5 MS for us. What I've found is that, with all-flash, when an app from my business is slow, I pretty much know it's them and not me. It leads to a performance conversation that has really hit an interesting threshold point where we are better than what they need. So now we get to have that "refactoring your application" conversation a lot quicker because now the performance on the infrastructure side isn't in question anymore."

"They have a feature called Live Migrate; it's been very, very useful."

"With federation, you can have multiple systems across sites. You can treat them as one, and with a live migration, volumes don't go down. You can move them from site to site, doing maintenance, and keep your environment up."

"I can mix and match the drives, using older mechanical devices and the latest SFP drives in a single solution with different enclosures."

More Dell SC Series pros

Cons

"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."

"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."

"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."

"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."

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

"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."

"It is on the expensive side."

"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"Sometimes, you have to go back and forth with the technical support team, where they want you to do something you've already done."

"We are looking for the Dell PowerStore to become more mature to maximize our use cases."

"We need to find a way to ensure the cache data is safe and secure."

"I have not seen anything specific. The only thing I can think of that needs improvement is the price."

"The only thing is that with PowerStore, we don't have a solution for the file object."

"Users can be enrolled in lifecycle extension with pro support. The pricing for that is too high for PowerStore."

"Dell PowerStore can improve the integration with VMware."

"The NAS part is very poor. It's very basic. Even Dell EMC has said that to us. We are waiting for version 3 of PowerStore for that. This must be improved and it is in the roadmap."

More Dell PowerStore cons

"Dell could improve the upgrading process."

"I would like to improve the processing ability."

"I would like to have 100% functionality through the web app."

"The administration and support (on the way that they delivered) was a little bit slow."

"Dell SC Series is no longer available, while Dell PowerStore, which supports NVMe over TCP, is different and not very affordable."

"This solution could be improved if overall performance was improved and operated with a higher speed and supported a higher volume of RAM."

"We had times that we needed a file service solution. We've used FluidFS, but it's a solution that is being transitioned out."

"The price could be improved."

More Dell SC Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."

"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."

"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."

"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."

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

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

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The licensing for this solution is good and is in the mid-range tier."

"Dealing with the licensing part of the product is very simple, especially considering the fact that we don't have many licenses associated with the tool."

"Dell PowerStore is affordable and the license is just a face license which is great."

"The rate is always too high. Nobody likes paying for it. I have not seen a client yet who says that the price should be higher. Initially, people look at it, but when they see what the benefits are, it is a no-brainer. We can give them good pricing at the outset."

"The solution is expensive."

"There's still a cap on the upgrade path, where you can consume all the engines within the frame before you have to go to another frame... Normally, we exceed the IOPS on the frames before we can ever exhaust the storage, so anything they can do to help us avoid stranded storage capacity, capacity that we couldn't get to, would be beneficial."

"We are happy with the pricing that we get from Dell."

"We purchased it with a five-year warranty."

More Dell PowerStore pricing and cost advice

"We have reviewed many platforms over the years. It is probably the best solution for its value."

"It is one of the most cost effective systems for us. We have been able to run it longer than most, getting the most benefit and money out of it."

"We have the basic license for the use of this solution and it is a permanent license. The overall cost could be less, it is expensive."

"The SC Series was priced fairly. I wouldn't call it either expensive or cheap because we had a very tight budget, so if they were able to fit in that type of budget, they met our expectations."

"This product is too expensive compared to others, and I don't see any value in using it."

"The maintenance is usually pretty good. It's not like some of the others where they increase it in the fourth, fifth, or sixth years."

"We were able to afford two tiers of flash storage at a price where the competition was giving us one tier or just a handful of discs."

"This solution could be better priced in comparison with other vendors."

More Dell SC Series 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

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

21%

University

10%

Financial Services Firm

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 do you think about Dell EMC PowerStore? Is it actually a new product?

PowerStore is flexible, scalable, simple, and performant with market-leading economics for a wide range of legacy and...

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How does Dell's EMC PowerStore compare with its EMC Unity XT?

Dell EMC PowerStore is a unified storage platform that has the added benefit of being scalable. The automated managem...

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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 SC Series?

I find this version to be more budget-friendly compared to products from other vendors. This aspect greatly benefits ...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell SC Series?

Cost considerations are crucial when choosing between solutions like Dell and NetApp. Sometimes Dell offers better pe...

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What needs improvement with Dell SC Series?

In the future, I want any box that comes on-premises to have the provision to integrate with cloud storage. If I want...

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Comparisons

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% 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 8% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 7% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 15% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 9% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 8% of the time

More Dell PowerStore Competitors

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell SC Series

Compared 9% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell SC Series

Compared 9% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell SC Series

Compared 9% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell SC Series

Compared 6% of the time

HPE Primera vs Dell SC Series

Compared 5% of the time

More Dell SC Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

April 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore

April 2025

Download Dell PowerStore product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series

April 2025

Download Dell SC Series product report

Also Known As

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

PowerStore

SC Series Storage, Compellent

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 PowerStore stands out for its high performance, flexibility, and easy integration with VMware. It offers notable data compression and deduplication capabilities while providing powerful NVMe support and machine learning to optimize IT operations.

Dell PowerStore is designed to offer a comprehensive approach to IT infrastructure by enhancing performance and simplifying management. It is particularly suitable for companies that require scalable solutions to increase compute or capacity independently. Featuring built-in intelligence, PowerStore allows efficient storage consolidation and reduced footprint, while integration with CloudIQ enhances monitoring and analytics. However, there are areas for improvement, such as stability, enterprise features, and the user interface. Pricing is high, and support responsiveness needs attention. Organizations primarily use PowerStore for VMware environments, storage, and data protection, supporting high-performance databases and VMware workloads. It is utilized in data centers for disaster recovery and hybrid setups.

What are the key features of Dell PowerStore?

Flexibility: Independently scales compute or capacity
High Performance: Offers powerful NVMe support and machine learning
Integration: Easily integrates with VMware
Data Efficiency: Provides data compression and deduplication
Simplified Management: Built-in intelligence for efficient storage management

What benefits should users consider?

Performance Optimization: Enhance IT operations with machine learning
Scalability: Increase compute or storage capacity as needed
Integration Potential: Improve efficiency with VMware and CloudIQ
Data Protection: Reliable for disaster recovery and hybrid environments

In industries like IT, finance, and healthcare, Dell PowerStore supports efficient data management and enhances infrastructure performance. Organizations leverage it to manage extensive data, streamline virtualization processes, and facilitate migration from legacy systems, while integrating cloud and on-premises infrastructures for improved operations.

Dell Technologies

Dell EMC SC Series arrays provide a unified platform for the ultimate in performance, adaptability and machine-driven efficiency. SC Series software delivers modern features that help you meet aggressive workload demands using the fewest drives necessary. With an open, future-ready design, SC Series storage integrates seamlessly with applications and infrastructure, enabling you to scale on a single platform and add capabilities without forklift upgrades.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore vs. Dell SC Series

April 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerStore vs. Dell SC Series

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerStore vs. Dell SC Series and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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