Dell SC Series vs HPE Alletra Storage comparison

Dell Technologies and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #18 with an average rating of 9.0, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #5 with an average rating of 9.1. Dell Technologies holds a 0.7% mindshare in AFS, compared to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s 8.8% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Dell SC Series and HPE Alletra Storage compete in the enterprise storage solutions category. HPE Alletra Storage has the upper hand due to its advanced features and cloud-native architecture.

Features: Dell SC Series offers data protection, scalability, and integration capabilities. HPE Alletra Storage is noted for simplicity, performance, and cloud-native architecture. Users find HPE's advanced analytics and automation particularly valuable.

Room for Improvement: Dell SC Series can improve in performance and management capabilities. HPE Alletra Storage users mention high initial costs and a desire for better integration with third-party tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell SC Series is straightforward to deploy and benefits from strong customer service. HPE Alletra Storage is slightly more complex to set up but is also supported by responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Dell SC Series is cost-effective with quicker ROI, appealing to budget-conscious buyers. HPE Alletra Storage, despite higher setup costs, provides long-term benefits due to its advanced features and efficiency.

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

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series vs. HPE Alletra Storage

April 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 848,270 peers since 2012

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 SC Series is 0.7%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Alletra Storage is 8.8%, up from 0.3% 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

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.

Read full review

Lisa Whalen

System Engineer at University of Nebraska

Provides a cloud-like operation model on-prem for managing data infrastructure

I've always said I love that it's easy to use. At one point in time, we had a 3PAR. And with 3PAR, I always thought it was a little more difficult. There was so much more to maintaining it, setting it up, and everything. With the [HPE] Alletra [Storage], it's just easy. It's easy to provision space to use and to set up. InfoSight is invaluable to me. With it, I can just quickly go out there and see what is going on. Alletra provides a cloud-like operation model on-prem for managing data infrastructure. [HPE] Alletra [Storage] is very good for predicting problems and preventing them before they occur. InfoSight has really helped with that. I honestly don't have to look at it much. However, there's the alerting and everything that will tell us what's going on. That said, I check InfoSight every once in a while. [HPE Alletra Storage] reduced the time spent on storage provision. It's so much easier than the 3PAR. It's just so much easier. I don't spend time in there at all. The product improved our storage performance experience in terms of IOPS. Our end users that use the SAP environment were a little concerned at first. We said we were going to switch over from the 3PAR to the Alletra since they've always been more familiar with the 3PAR. However, when we moved them over, they noticed a performance increase.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

"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."

"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The setup is straightforward."

"Performance-wise it's high speed. It's also more stable and scalable."

"I find this version to be more budget-friendly compared to products from other vendors. This aspect greatly benefits my customers. It's highly advantageous due to its affordability. The operational aspect is also noteworthy. Additionally, its availability and performance are commendable. The speaker are also equally powerful."

"I think that Dell EMC is one of the best technical support services in Ukraine."

"The solution is stable."

"It's very scalable, especially with federation. If you outgrow the number of spindles that a unit can support, depending on the model, you can go into federation."

"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."

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

More Dell SC Series pros

"One of the best benefits I can think of is that the support team is top-tier."

"It is the simplicity of the deployment. They have unified all the features they have."

"The workload consolidation is very simple to manage."

"The solution has been rock-solid since we've had it."

"We have the most advanced HPE products available that we can monitor with the HP InfoSight feature, which enables us to check every metric, including bandwidth and latency, at a granular level. Alletra's mechanism is excellent and can handle multiple traffic sources. Anything is possible. Regarding your application, the IO behavior can be random, sequential, or a database. It serves web and e-commerce applications better."

"It's easy to use."

"The most important feature is scalability, which enables us to rapidly scale without any disruptions. We can easily scale up to more arrays without stopping any services."

"It took nothing really to set it up. It was all online, and we were able to set it up and start using it within about three hours."

More HPE Alletra Storage pros

Cons

"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."

"I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert."

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

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

"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."

"We have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."

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

"We need better data deduplication."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"We can definitely see a need for it being a multi-controller system for customers who want to scale beyond the current capability. That's always a downside. A lot of the new systems are scaling vertically, they scale out, and the Compellent, of course, is controllers with shelves under it, so you don't scale out with it, unless you add another one. But if you do, they don't talk to each other, like some of the other solutions that we sell."

"This product should be a lot more user-friendly."

"I would like to improve the processing ability."

"Overall, I'd like to see more synergy between Dell EMC's higher-tier platforms and their mid-tier platforms. What I have said, constantly, to my partners at Dell EMC is that the clear articulation of the path is really important to us. In that vein, what I'd also like to see is, with the migration strategy that's built into this product, a lot more attention paid to Dell's - in particular - legacy platforms and how we get from some of our legacy EMC platforms onto this platform with a straight-through migration and scaling strategy, not host-based migrations and not piecemeal... Dell EMC would do well to focus more on my ability to skip a generation, rather than having me take individual hops because I can't greenfield my way into a software-defined data center fast enough. This journey of multiple hops is not helpful."

"We have seen some degraded throughput with mixed workloads. We have been working with Dell EMC to correct some of these latency issues."

"The configuration could be easier in Dell EMC SC Series."

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

"The connection should be better integrated with the network to offer a better view of the system."

More Dell SC Series cons

"The solution could improve the upgrades. In Brazil, it's difficult. The price is very high and it is not an easy process."

"Some of the upgrades can take a while to come through. The release cadence of versions is a little bit slow."

"The solution could use more monitoring of their split-brain system controllers."

"I'd like to see a smaller chassis in the hybrid arrays."

"They can continue developing their V vaults and peer persistence. They can implement active-active peer persistence so that our organization can use it."

"I need the protocol expected. I want them to include NVMe protocol in VMware compatibilities."

"HPE Alletra Storage is considered expensive compared to competitors like Dell and Huawei. Many times, we lose deals due to price even though it is the best solution in the market."

"One problem we had during the installation of HPE Alletra Storage was the connection to the cloud. Our company does not like cloud connections for storage, but it was necessary. It would be a good thing to start without the GreenLake cloud."

More HPE Alletra Storage cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

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

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"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."

"Pricing depends on varying life cycles."

"Always keep in mind, this is not just a enclosure with disks is a complete SAN as a service. There is software, license, and storage in one single solution."

"There are costs involving the solution, vendor fees and product safety which are additional."

"We have found it to be affordable. Comparing the cost with other hardware, it seems to be right in line with the compute and the storage that we get with it."

"The pricing of this solution is competitive."

"It has a good price point and offers some value-added enterprise features."

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

More Dell SC Series pricing and cost advice

"Its pricing is very competitive."

"The solution is expensive and can cost around five lakhs."

"Its licensing is good. Pricing-wise, there can be a little bit more flexibility. It would help to have different sizes. However, it fits into the budget that we have, so we are happy."

"Overall, it was good. It had a good price per gigabyte."

"So far, so good."

"For us, its price is good."

"There is a license. HPE Alletra uses a cloud-based model."

"It is fairly priced. It is in line with industry standard pricing and cost models."

More HPE Alletra Storage pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

848,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

21%

University

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

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.

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 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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about HPE Alletra?

It offers rich features and high speed for transferring data.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Alletra?

Scheduling a Proof of Concept to demonstrate ROI - Will be a well documented way to portray Alletra's performance, ju...

See all answers

What needs improvement with HPE Alletra?

I would say that maybe the user interface and experience could be improved. There are a few areas where enhancements ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 32% of the time

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 PowerMax NVMe vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 6% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell SC Series

Compared 60% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell SC Series

Compared 10% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell SC Series

Compared 10% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell SC Series

Compared 10% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell SC Series

Compared 6% of the time

More Dell SC Series Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Alletra Storage

Compared 28% of the time

HPE Primera vs HPE Alletra Storage

Compared 15% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs HPE Alletra Storage

Compared 9% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE Alletra Storage

Compared 8% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs HPE Alletra Storage

Compared 6% of the time

More HPE Alletra Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

April 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series

April 2025

Download Dell SC Series product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Alletra Storage

April 2025

Download HPE Alletra Storage product report

Also Known As

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

SC Series Storage, Compellent

No data available

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 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

HPE Alletra Storage is designed for high-performance virtualization, data centers, and hyper-converged infrastructures, supporting applications with block storage and databases across sectors like healthcare and finance.

HPE Alletra Storage excels in delivering low-latency, high-I/O operations and data reduction capabilities. It integrates seamlessly with VMware and vCenter, handling large SQL databases and multiple virtual machines efficiently. Its features, such as NVMe drives and predictive analytics with InfoSight, offer a streamlined management experience. However, users seek improvements in NVMe tier integration, a more compact chassis design, and better energy efficiency. The operational efficiency is increased by reducing data provisioning time and enhancing storage performance for complex environments.

What are the key features of HPE Alletra Storage?

Seamless vCenter Integration: Enhances virtualization management.
High IOPS NVMe Drives: Delivers high-speed and low-latency access.
Deduplication & Replication: Increases storage efficiency and protection.
Cloud-like Models: Simplifies operations with intuitive management.
InfoSight Analytics: Provides predictive diagnostics and proactive problem-solving.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Reduced Provisioning Time: Accelerates deployment processes.
100% Data Availability: Ensures uninterrupted access to data.
Simplified Management: Streamlines storage operations and enhances satisfaction.
Reliability and Performance: Supports demanding applications with reliable performance.

In healthcare and financial industries, HPE Alletra Storage supports the storage of sensitive data and operations of critical applications, facilitating quick access to information and maintaining high availability. However, users recommend improvements in training resources, energy efficiency, and integration with backup solutions like Veeam to enhance implementation efficiency and cost management.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric

Accenture, Aetna, AIG, Airbus, Allianz, American Express, ATT, Bank of America, Barclays, BASF, Bayer, Berkshire Hathaway, Boeing, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Coca Cola, Comcast, Credit Suisse, Dell, Deutsche Bank, ExxonMobil, Ford Motor Company, General Electric, Google, HSBC, IBM, Intel, JPMorgan Chase, Kroger, L'Oreal, Merck

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series vs. HPE Alletra Storage

April 2025

Free Report: Dell SC Series vs. HPE Alletra Storage

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

DOWNLOAD NOW

848,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Dell SC Series vs. HPE Alletra Storage 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.