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Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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

Dell PowerStore
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
1st
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (4th), NAS (2nd), Enterprise SAN (1st)
Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
15th
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
6th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 23.4%, down from 27.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 2.5%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
 

Featured Reviews

Ken Boyer - PeerSpot reviewer
Reduces the footprint, is easy to use, and can handle heavy workloads
The systems I currently have in place are old, and their support is running out. They're at the end of their life cycle. One of the key improvements that PowerStore is going to bring is that it will enable me to shrink the physical footprint. I'll be going from 5 physical HP arrays, which are about 12 racks in size, down to 4 PowerStores, which can fit on one rack. As a result, I'll be able to shrink the footprint, save power, cooling, etc. I will also be able to improve the existing performance and longevity of the platform. When we put the PowerStore in for the Oracle database, it was previously on NetApp. The staff wanted to do snapshots but also clone, and then be able to clone from a clone to add it to another system. PowerStore enabled them to do just that. They not only got their performance back to where it needed to be from previously being on the NetApp array but also got some of the feature functions that they require for the application.
Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"PowerStore is easy to use, powerful, reliable, and highly customizable to customer's needs."
"It provides a big benefit when upgrading a new VMware environment. For example, in a big environment with 10 to 30 ESXs, you can take everything and put that into PowerStore. So, it is cost-effective, which is very important and has been massive for us. You reduce almost 80% from the hardware and work directly from PowerStore. Building hardware, especially in a big VMware environment, is a big issue for my organization."
"Dell EMC PowerStore is scalable."
"PowerStore is easy to use. All the drives use soft encryption. To upgrade it, you download the app, and it runs by itself. It's very easy to deploy, share, and create volumes."
"Gives us flexibility, performance, and ease of use. It also has some very good compression capabilities. We were looking for a solution that was easy to install in our VMware environment, that was flexible. PowerStore X is a type of a VMware cluster that you install inside your environment. If you have a VMware environment, like we have in production, it's easy to install and use."
"The most valuable aspects of Dell PowerStore are integration with VMware and reliability."
"It's a great product. Integrating PowerStore with the IT workflow is easy."
"The product is reliable and stable."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."
"The solution is scalable."
"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."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."
"I use the tool for Oracle databases, Oracle virtual machines, and Oracle Linux databases. I'm on the storage side, not a database administrator."
 

Cons

"AI will be a challenge and we must manage different kinds of data with more performance and security."
"Dell PowerStore currently only allows us to copy data from our main production system to the disaster recovery site."
"Horizontal scaling has room for improvement."
"The cost always has room for improvement."
"We need to find a way to ensure the cache data is safe and secure."
"The pricing could be lower. It is very expensive."
"There could be better reporting."
"While using Dell PowerStore's interface in our organization, we sometimes miss out on some information."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"There are no separate licenses required as all the basic licenses are included in the bundle."
"Pricing depends on the model and negotiation. Sometimes we manage to get good discounts, sometimes not."
"The licensing for this solution is good and is in the mid-range tier."
"In the pricing and licensing department, the product is always too expensive."
"I rate the price of Dell PowerStore a seven out of ten."
"The solution is expensive."
"The solution’s pricing is always too high."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"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."
"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."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"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."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 next-gen apps. It is only Flash and can support many workloads from today's app...
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 management of resources feature provides a more simple administration. I found the flex...
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 offerings and integrated into the PowerStoreOS. The installation and setup have a ...
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 needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges. This is one of the main things organizations need.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerStore vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.