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Dell SC Series vs Pure Storage FlashArray comparison

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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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
16th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (7th)
Dell SC Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
27th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Frame-Based Disk Arrays (3rd)
Pure Storage FlashArray
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.7%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell SC Series is 0.8%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pure Storage FlashArray is 6.4%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Steven McClendon - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Nabeel Sayegh - PeerSpot reviewer
Supercharges enterprise storage by way of highly optimized hardware, comprehensive data management and a feature rich interface.
During their early years, I was a member of Pure's Customer Advisory Board. In addition, when we first adopted Pure, they did not have replication GA yet. We got into their beta testing program and help them work out certain issues with that technology. One weakness I can say the array has, still to this day, is limited control on scheduling snapshots. Depending on the type of replication schedule you are building, you may or may not have control on specifying the start time of a given replication schedule. This is not a very big problem in the grand scheme of things, but something nonetheless that has bothered me about the scheduler in general. Another area for improvement would be automatic host alias creation. Other platforms such as EMC Unity/PowerStore will automatically detect the host name, create a alias for it and associate the logged in HBA's to it. Pure does not do this for you and as a result, requires manual configuration. This can be very time consuming especially when you are deploying a large number of new servers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"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 standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."
"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."
"This solution is easy to use."
"It had many features, like a snapshot, replication, on-the-file RAID levels, mix-and-match files, those kinds of things."
"The most valuable feature is the no-forklift upgrade. While the thing is running, I can change out the controllers one at a time and keep the customer up and running. I can add shelves and storage and SSD drives or spinning drives to the system, while it's running. I can bring all that in and rebalance the load across the new disks or, if we take disks away, rebalance the load across what's remaining, and it just works."
"It has good dedupe and compression. Also, the built-in data migration capabilities are pretty good, as is the federation. When we started migrating the workloads from different storage platforms, like NetApp and XtremeIO, it helped us in moving to that direction."
"The solution is stable; we've had no problems at all."
"The most valuable feature is the speed for the end-user."
"The product offers good performance and is quite powerful."
"What is most valuable about the Dell EMC SC Series system was its reliability."
"They have really good baked in analytics to show you trends for growth history, so it does help with future planning for data growth."
"On a scale of one to ten, where ten is the most comfortable pricing, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."
"The initial setup is very straightforward. You simply plug it in and turn it on."
"The GUI is very easy to use and intuitive."
"The most valuable features are extremely low latency, high IOPS with VMware, inline deduplication and compression."
"It is pretty much just plug and play. There is not that much to do with it. It is very easy to use."
"It worked flawlessly."
"It reduces space and the polar consumption. It also accelerates the application."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."
"We need better data deduplication."
"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."
"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"I would like to see higher compression, dedupe, faster I/O, and bigger drives."
"I would like to have 100% functionality through the web app."
"We have seen some degraded throughput with mixed workloads. We have been working with Dell EMC to correct some of these latency issues."
"Compellent comes in the form of a component that's not true of a unified storage platform."
"The lack of reporting would be the main issue."
"The initial setup is somewhat complex and should be made simpler to do."
"The price could be improved."
"What I understand is that this is a 13 year old architecture, so it has lived its life and they're phasing it out. Honestly, we were initially struggling with the integration with VMware (but it was fixed with the VMware 6.5) and, then, it was around a 10GB network. At that time, it had the longevity to go to 100GB as well. It got us thinking about, when we go into the containerized architecture, what do we need to do to fix the infrastructure?"
"In the next release I would like to see integration into other third-party player providers like Google."
"I would like to see more detailed reporting on the data. However, it would be nice to know what are the exact VMs usage after deduplication and/or what that VMs actual latency and bandwidth is, outside of VMware."
"What it needs to do is work a little closer with solutions, like VMware, so it understands the particular workloads that are on it. Today, it does not understand the applications which are running against it."
"Historical analytics would be useful. At the moment, they don't have any type of application built for historical analytics."
"The time-to-market could be better at times, but I think that's true for all vendors of hardware."
"It would be beneficial to have a separate pricing point for environments with lower performance requirements or less workload."
"The GUI could improve, it could be more intuitive. There is hidden functionality."
"A noticeable area for improvement is the support for object storage. The FlashArray does not natively support object storage like S3 or Swift, which pushes customers needing these features towards the more expensive FlashBlade."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"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."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"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."
"The product is expensive."
"This product is too expensive compared to others, and I don't see any value in using it."
"Pricing depends on varying life cycles."
"The pricing of Dell EMC Compellent is competitive."
"The maintenance is usually pretty good. It's not like some of the others where they increase it in the fourth, fifth, or sixth years."
"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."
"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."
"The price-to-performance is good. I looked at Pure about three to four years back, but the price-to-performance wasn't right for us. Now, it's right."
"There are no licensing fees or other costs."
"It was less expensive than some of the alternatives. It's not as though it was a premium price to get that kind of quality. It's a very competitive product from a price perspective..."
"The license for Pure Storage FlashArray includes the support and there are no additional payments that are needed. This is not an inexpensive solution, you need to understand the value of your data before you use a backup solution."
"It is not the cheapest one out there. We're paying yearly, but I'm not 100% sure."
"For pricing, you have to take into account their performance on deduplication and compression in a $/GB comparison."
"In the beginning, we saw that the price is not very good. When we made some compilations about the deduplication and the compression and what the equipment does, including the differentiation of upper management of the storage, the price was not so bad. However, in the beginning, the price was very difficult to justify."
"It's expensive, but you get what you pay for."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
22%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
34%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

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.
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive.
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 ...
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...
What needs improvement with Dell SC Series?
If Dell SC Series could have supported the protocol NVMe over TCP, that would have been great. It does not. Additiona...
Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashArray?
We consume less physical storage because of the solution’s deduplication and compression.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
Well...you know the old saying, you get what you pay for. I wont lie...Pure is no cheap. I could easily buy another v...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
SC Series Storage, Compellent
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric
Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell SC Series vs. Pure Storage FlashArray and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.