We performed a comparison between Dell EMC PowerStore and Pure Storage FlashArray based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both products received high marks from users. Pure Storage FlashArray has a slight edge in the comparison due to its superior customer support.
"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."
"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."
"Pure has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"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."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"This solution is highly flexible and offers efficient online compression capabilities."
"Has a great mapping feature."
"Dell PowerStore is an easy and fast tool to work through our company's data."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of the solution for me is the deduplication part, especially since most of the servers in our organization are Windows-based servers."
"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."
"It's a great product. Integrating PowerStore with the IT workflow is easy."
"The support is very good."
"The speed is the most valuable feature, along with the ease of getting it connected. We were able to get it online in less than a day."
"The most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray are simplicity, ease of use, and dashboard management."
"Technical support has been amazing."
"Simplicity and reliability are the most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray."
"It is easy to deploy and it's all-flash, so it's very fast."
"The security operating system is its most valuable feature because it's very simple, easy to use, and operate. You don't have to do very serious training to operate this equipment. It's user-friendly and pretty straightforward."
"The availability and ease of use are the big features."
"Scalability is one of the best features. You can quickly add more. You can swap out the drives with larger sizes, you can add more shelves. All of that is perfect - the whole concept of keeping it modular..."
"It is on the expensive side."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"The software layer has to improve."
"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."
"We need better data deduplication."
"The solution only does thin provisioning."
"When it comes to Dell PowerStore, I would like to see more integration and more security features included. It's unfortunate that the solution does not feature Flash trace."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"During the installation phase, the licensing part was not straightforward. It was very difficult for the technicians, who are not trained Dell EMC technicians, to do the licensing because the information on their website is not straightforward... Eventually, I had to pass this task to our business partner and they did it for us."
"Many customers are looking for a cyber recovery feature included in PowerStore. We would like to see this added in a future release."
"I would like to see a Snapshot feature. Currently, it is unable to occupy the capacity."
"It was very new when we first deployed it a year ago. Even the upgrade processes and knowing what to expect, as well as documentation, could be more robust."
"It doesn't support SSD or Flash."
"Had some issues with Purity not being entirely compatible with VMware ESXi."
"The GUI is simplistic and basic. I feel like it's explanatory, but not enough, it needs a little more to it."
"It is way in excess of what we need. If anything, we could see a bit more speed. I'm just comparing it with what some of my colleagues who are implementing their own systems do."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve in the area of cryptographic information in the consoles. The user-friendliness could improve. The Pure Storage FlashArray team should come and log into the system with their maintenance credentials and then pull out the information as evidence of cryptography."
"The one major gripe I have is that there is no snapshotting enabled by default on the SAN."
"We would like more extended historical data to help with some of the capacity planning. This is something that we are asking for all the time. E.g., what was the historical performance of this particular volume? So, we would like more historicals."
"When we were doing some tests, we found that there was an I/O freeze when they were switching the controller."
"Its price needs improvement. Its price is almost double than any other flash storage solution."
Dell PowerStore is ranked 1st in All-Flash Storage with 47 reviews while Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 174 reviews. Dell PowerStore is rated 8.6, while Pure Storage FlashArray is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Dell PowerStore writes "It has a very strong NAS that can support a lot of big, heavy environments". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pure Storage FlashArray writes "Effective provisioning, helpful support, and reliable". Dell PowerStore is most compared with Dell Unity XT, IBM FlashSystem, NetApp AFF, Dell PowerMax NVMe and Huawei OceanStor Dorado, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem, VMware vSAN and Dell Unity XT. See our Dell PowerStore vs. Pure Storage FlashArray report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.