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Dell PowerStore vs NetApp AFF A-Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
17th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Dell PowerStore
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
164
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (4th), NAS (1st), Enterprise SAN (1st), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (1st)
NetApp AFF A-Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
18th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise SAN (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 14.7%, down from 17.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF A-Series is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Dell PowerStore14.7%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe1.4%
NetApp AFF A-Series0.5%
Other83.4%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at Lambda256
Supports efficient storage management through volume snapshots and offers reliable non-disruptive upgrades
I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, but it does not show the performance by 4K byte unit. It displays IOPS and bandwidth, but IOPS is about real use, and I want to know how many IOPS are currently running in 4K byte units. I cannot see that IOPS because most storage systems report their performance by 4K byte unit. I want to see Pure Storage performance by 4K byte unit to compare with other storage or other internal NVMe SSD.
reviewer2304864 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vmware Windows Senior Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Resilience has supported proactive management and secured audit readiness across multiple sites
The resilience in Dell PowerStore benefits my company from an auditing perspective because we know we have that resilience in place. I see Dell PowerStore playing a bigger role in the future because we are starting to use it more, and that is pushing it. The biggest return on investment for me when using Dell PowerStore is scalability. Scalability is key. I can amplify that scalability is the biggest return on investment because we have redundancy between two sites; if something goes down, we have to manage it, but we want to do it proactively.
MS
Senior Storage Engineer at Orange Business
Efficient data management leads to significant cost savings through advanced inline deduplication
NetApp's inline deduplication and compression are unmatched compared to other vendors. With both deduplication and compression inline, we experience no cost in terms of performance on the systems, however, we have huge savings on the storage side. We can turn it on for everyone and save storage space, allowing us to sell more to customers. NetApp also provides us with an interface for VLAN separation that no other vendor can provide, allowing our customers distinct, separated network layers in between.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"The best features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe include the volume snapshot capabilities, which allow us to save most of the storage space by volume snapshots periodically."
"The solution is scalable."
"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."
"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"The data encryption is good and available in a standard license. There are snapshot and backup capabilities."
"The administration tools take advantage of machine learning and make recommendations to the admins, and that makes the administration easier."
"The resilience in Dell PowerStore benefits my company from an auditing perspective because we know we have that resilience in place."
"The resilience in Dell PowerStore benefits my company from an auditing perspective because we know we have that resilience in place."
"Dell PowerStore has supported the growth and operational success of our organization by reducing the footprint, rack space, power consumption, and the resources needed to run the backend storage, which has been consolidated into just 2U, thereby enhancing efficiency."
"It is very easy to use. Access is very friendly. It shows you a lot of important information at the first glance. It has been very easy to use."
"Dell PowerStore is GUI-based applications storage, it is easy to use and understand, making storage management tasks such as provisioning and reclaim activity quite manageable."
"Dell PowerStore is a great machine for storage with big performance when data is needed."
"NetApp's inline deduplication and compression are unmatched compared to other vendors."
"MetroCluster is the best product on the market. It synchronizes the storage. NetApp's update packages are a huge advantage because the firmware and server updates are in one package."
"We've reduced downtime. Without all of NetApp's benefits, we would have had to reconfigure parts of storage that would have required downtime. We have dramatically reduced our downtime through successive generations of NetApp, allowing us to get Five 9s availability."
"NetApp's hot and cold storage are its most valuable features. We currently use the A series. Immutable snapshots are another advanced security feature that is positive."
"The deduplication and compression options from NetApp AFF A-Series are good to use for efficient storage capacity."
"NetApp helps us get the fastest output."
"NetApp support is fantastic."
"NetApp AFF A-Series is faster and more robust compared to the all-flash storage of NetApp."
 

Cons

"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"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."
"The software layer has to improve."
"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."
"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."
"In terms of improving Dell PowerStore, they should have simplified documents available for customers, not just for the support team."
"Many customers are looking for a cyber recovery feature included in PowerStore. We would like to see this added in a future release."
"There is an issue with Dell PowerStore related to future expansions which are software-related."
"The only problem is that it came out a bit early; before version 3.6, it didn't have the features that customers expected, and it was difficult to work with because we didn't have metro-cluster."
"Having all the services consolidated makes it hard to scale."
"Sometimes they have equipment in stock. Sometimes they don't, so they have to arrange it from somewhere. That's been a challenge, and it's a negative point from a support perspective."
"The interface of Dell PowerStore reminds me of the Cisco mentality where it's just boxes moving around as you're clicking; it's not easy to understand what you're trying to do, and you have to have solid documentation to navigate the system and make changes to ensure you're not jeopardizing your system as you present and remove storage and expand LUNs."
"There is no Synchronize replication feature on the storage."
"I really don't have a lot of complaints. In the past, there were issues, however, they've really done a great job of reaching out."
"NetApp is shifting to the cloud and adopting AI, but it is not improving its core technology to deliver faster storage. We're still waiting to see if it improves speed with solutions like the 90 series."
"NetApp AFF A-Series should work on cost. The solutions, especially enterprise-level storage, should be more affordable to improve their appeal to businesses."
"The solution's ransomware protection could be improved."
"It would be helpful if our partner organized a yearly session with my team to discuss the new feature sets on our current solutions and other ways NetApp can help us. Perhaps we are missing some information to help us make the right decision."
"We have several problems with the limitations of NetApp systems in terms of volume shares. We have a brick in a 700 or a controller, and we sometimes make small volumes, but Kubernetes container volumes don't allow us."
"Pricing could always be lower."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"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."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"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."
"We are happy with the pricing that we get from Dell."
"Dell PowerStore charges for the hardware warranty every three years. The price will depend on the storage model or how much hardware it has."
"When we compared it with the other solutions, the pricing of PowerStore was equal. The pricing is good."
"The solution is expensive."
"The price of Dell EMC PowerStore could be better, it is a bit expensive."
"Dell PowerStore is more expensive than Dell EMC Unity All Flash. Dell PowerStore's performance metrics were way higher than what Dell EMC Unity All Flash offered."
"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."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business54
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise81
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Large Enterprise8
 

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could ...
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...
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...
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...
What needs improvement with NetApp AFF A-Series?
NetApp is doing great with cloud integration; however, there may be room for improvement in integrating with existing...
What advice do you have for others considering NetApp AFF A-Series?
It would be great to see some automation from NetApp. I rate NetApp AFF A-Series a nine out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp AFF A-Series?
With respect to pricing, NetApp can be competitive but hasn't been explored to a large extent.
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
PowerStore
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Information Not Available
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerStore vs. NetApp AFF A-Series and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
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