Dell PowerStore vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays comparison

Dell Technologies and NetApp are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7, while NetApp is ranked #28 with an average rating of 9.0. Dell Technologies holds a 17.5% mindshare in AFS, compared to NetApp’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and Dell PowerStore are leading solutions in the storage array market. Dell PowerStore often edges out with its advanced features and flexibility, despite NetApp EF-Series being favored for its competitive pricing and reliable support.

Features: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are praised for their high performance and simplicity, offering efficient data protection and management. Dell PowerStore stands out with its scale-up and scale-out architecture, advanced deduplication, and integration with VMware. Users find Dell PowerStore's features more extensive and adaptable to various workloads.

Room for Improvement: NetApp EF-Series users seek more advanced automation capabilities and improved scalability options. Dell PowerStore users express a need for greater stability in software updates and enhanced initial setup processes. Dell PowerStore generally receives more favorable feedback despite these concerns.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetApp EF-Series is commended for its straightforward deployment and robust customer support. Dell PowerStore, while noted for its intuitive deployment experience, faces criticism for occasional complexities in advanced configurations. Both products are supported well, but NetApp EF-Series leads in ease of initial deployment.

Pricing and ROI: NetApp EF-Series is appreciated for its competitive pricing and solid ROI backed by lower setup costs. Dell PowerStore, though seen as an initial higher investment, is valued for its long-term ROI due to its extensive features and performance enhancements. Ultimately, Dell PowerStore's advanced capabilities justify its price for many users.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerStore vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

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 NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 0.6%, down from 0.6% 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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Tayo Olubanke

Managing Director at GCET

Offers flexibility and top-notch technology

You can go to bed peacefully if you have a NetApp. If you have NetApp within your data center, you get to know about power failure if you are using it. Your NetApp will still come alive. Even if it does not come alive, I can say that it is not like other tools when it comes to dealing with power failure. The tool is affordable, and the technology is top-notch. It is the only technology that has software for what we call inline compression and deduplication. All the products under NetApp are aiming to use AI. I know that you can achieve whatever you want to do with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

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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

"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."

"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."

"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

"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 most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."

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

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"My company found the tool to be really easy to use, expand, and manage."

"I have found the most valuable part of Dell PowerStore is the price."

"The use of NVMe is notable, and the speed and performance it provides are commendable."

"The simplicity and performance are great."

"I like the performance of the PowerStore. When you talk about PowerStore, it's mainly about flash systems and high-end IOPS. The 1000T is a midsize box, in terms of the way the vendor positions it, but it is more than enough for our needs."

"Dell PowerStore has good value for money and some scalability features that are better than other products."

"It is a stable solution."

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

More Dell PowerStore pros

"The speed is the most valuable feature."

"Having the option of such high-speed storage in the data center is what makes it valuable."

"It provides multi-protocol, which is what gives the edge when it comes to big lineage PC workloads."

"The product's initial setup phase can be managed easily and completed in 20 to 30 minutes. It is one of the fastest storage tools that you can implement."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its speed."

"The hardware and software of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are easy for us to use."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the performance of the database access."

"Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pros

Cons

"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."

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

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

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

"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."

"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."

"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."

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The performance is good, but the management experience and user interface are lacking."

"More demonstration and training options are needed."

"The product can improve by offering AI-based functionalities to users...Dell PowerStore's throughput limit of the boxes can be improved."

"We'd like to see some improvements on the security side."

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

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

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

"Could be improved by including a synchronizing feature for the file systems."

More Dell PowerStore cons

"The solution's technical support is not as good as it is supposed to be since you have to push them to get support."

"It was difficult to implement and lacks some additional features that would be useful, but as a solution fits a particular need for our organization."

"The pricing could be cheaper and it should have documentation in more languages, specifically, Russian."

"I would like to see higher-capacity drives, as they come out; I have heard that 15 TB are out on a different NetApp series. Getting those on the EFs would be nice."

"The management interface, while very reliable, it seems a little old now and could maybe use a little modernization."

"This solution does not have any compression or deduplication."

"There could be better integration with some of our Cisco products."

"The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"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."

"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."

"The product is expensive."

"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."

"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."

"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"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."

"There are no separate licenses required as all the basic licenses are included in the bundle."

"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."

"Licensing is very simple. Everything is included in the basic license. There are no concerns about having to pay to add a feature. Everything is there."

"With compression, we were able to have a solution within our company's budget. We include a clause in the contract with Dell that states if the compression ratio is not met, we will adjust the workload accordingly."

"The price of Dell PowerStore could improve. The price should be managed more compared to Huawei Dorado or IBM All-Flash series."

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"Dell PowerStore is not a cheap solution."

More Dell PowerStore pricing and cost advice

"It's a way to get relatively low-cost, very high-performance, low-latency block storage as a point solution."

"The price point for EF is considerably lower than the alternatives."

"Price-wise, NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is costlier than Dell. You have to buy a lot of licenses separately."

"Its cost-effectiveness is a major selling point. Compared to other storage vendors, the EF-Series offers excellent value for its price. It's truly a leading product in the industry."

"NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is an expensive product."

"Adding more capacity will increase the cost."

"Most of my customers pay for the license on a yearly basis. It can be expensive depending on the capacity number."

"They provide licenses upon purchase, so there's no need for additional licenses. Regarding additional expenses apart from the standard licensing fees, such as for support or maintenance, there aren't any. Updates take around twenty to thirty minutes, including rebooting the systems, and we haven't faced any problems with the NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. We utilize various other storages like Fujitsu, IBM, and Dalian SIP, but the NetApp EF-Series stands out as we've had no issues throughout the entire year of usage."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays 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

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to rene...

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. I want NetApp's supp...

See all answers

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

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 7% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage 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

NetApp AFF vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 11% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 10% of the time

Dell XtremIO vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 9% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 9% of the time

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

March 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore

April 2025

Download Dell PowerStore product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

March 2025

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays report

Download NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays product report

Also Known As

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

PowerStore

NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series

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

The NetApp EF560 all-flash array is an all-SSD storage system for applications that demand extremely high levels of performance and reliability. Requiring just 2U of rack space, the EF560 all-flash array combines extreme IOPS, microsecond response times, and up to 12GBps of bandwidth with leading, enterprise-proven availability features.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

April 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerStore vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerStore vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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