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Dell Unity XT vs SolidFire 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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
4th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
224
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell Unity XT
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
198
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolidFire
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
33rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 7.5%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell Unity XT is 6.0%, down from 7.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolidFire is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray7.5%
Dell Unity XT6.0%
SolidFire0.8%
Other85.7%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
NR
TSG Manager at Navigator Systems
Ease of implementation and robust performance enhance multi-OEM support experience
We are limited only to hardware replacement, not administration tasks. We work on AMC products through Annual Maintenance Contracts. We provide support up to the 680 model. The XT680F is a newer model, and we support from 380F to 680F. The FlashSystem 8000 series is all-flash, and there is also a 5000 series flash model. We can compare IBM DS series, including the 8000 series for recommendations. For NetApp, we can recommend the FAS 8000 series.
Ramil Cerrada - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution lead at Globe Mobile
A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance
The most significant benefit lies in its exceptional performance, driven by its Flash-based architecture. This enhances routing speed and, consequently, database performance. The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance which is particularly valuable for tasks like data mining, where quick results are essential.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Running SAP on Pure Storage helps a lot without doing any further tuning to improve application performance. Our internal clients are happy."
"The data reduction technology part of the scalability has been impressive, like its ability to host additional workloads, volumes of data, and databases."
"The availability and ease of use are the big features."
"We like the data reduction rates. That has been really helpful. You get 4U of Pure storage replacing something like two racks of spinning disks. One of the things that has contributed to that are the data reduction rates."
"It is fast and reliable. It works."
"Pure Storage has the right business model and will be around for a long time."
"The deduplication and compression meet all of our system requirements."
"We chose Pure Storage because it had the best performance of all the products that we tested."
"As far as cost is concerned, it does great deduplication, and from a storage perspective, we save money being able to dedupe right on the disk."
"It is nice the way ESRS works with remote support, being able to remote in and take a look at problems proactively."
"The most valuable features of Dell Unity XT are the data compression for all of our VMs up to four times and the performance is good."
"I have found Dell EMC Unity XT to be stable."
"The complete block and file sharing are the most usable features."
"What they really like is the easy licensing now - Dell EMC has caught up to a lot of their competitors - based on not having to charge for everything, and they can get everything in one bundle."
"A lot of the Unisphere interfaces are greatly improved in terms of monitoring capabilities, alerting, and ease of use. Setting up the storage and the file system are all just a few clicks away."
"As far as how Dell EMC Unity XT has performed, I don't think I've ever seen latencies above 10 milliseconds, unless it was something that wasn't the array that was messing up."
"In terms of solving those challenges, it's simple, it's straightforward, it literally just runs itself, and the scalability."
"Feature-wise, it is a good solution allowing users to monitor and simplify their networks. The solution also provides its users with flexibility by enabling them to utilize its extensions."
"Based on those use cases we get really good efficiencies."
"It's got full API functionality and the performance is pretty steady."
"We can just buy them, scale them as we need on demand, and we don't have to spend so many front end cycles on designing the architecture."
"With this solution, you can actually do more with less, having more tenants and more applications with less space and a lower dollar per gigabyte by increasing utilization up to four or five times."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its scalability."
"The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance which is particularly valuable for tasks like data mining, where quick results are essential."
 

Cons

"There are many features which need to be added, particularly on the replication side."
"Areas for improvement would be the financial operations. In the next release, I would like to see a NAS protocol included."
"The integration capabilities could be improved."
"It would be beneficial to have a separate pricing point for environments with lower performance requirements or less workload."
"We haven't seen ROI."
"In the next release of the solution I would like to see Vormetric native block encryption."
"We need to add more storage in Pure Storage FlashArray with the cluster mode activated for us to have better performance."
"I can't see where they can make anything better, unless, of course, they lower their prices even more."
"We've got massive issues at the moment with IBM AIX. It's not stable. We have a lot of disk errors, production crashes sometimes."
"I don't know where the hybrid cloud might be going or what connectivity there is between what was recently released as far as AWS and being able to manage both of them."
"The price of this product can be more cost-effective."
"This solution could be improved by offering containerization. This is something many of my customers are looking for."
"In some countries, spare part availability is an issue for us."
"We had some issues recently because of a bug in the system. We were presenting LANs to the Unity array but I think it caused a disruption to the host."
"It is expensive, and the pricing could be better."
"The technical support sometimes takes three to four days to get hardware to facilities. I would rate customer service four out of ten."
"There is room for improvement with a focus on creating a centralized storage system, functioning similar to AWS."
"The inclusion of more protocols and interfaces would make it easier to integrate with other products."
"We have had to stop using this solution because the price was too high for global implementation."
"Though it is a stable solution, its users may face some security issues at times...The security provided by the solution is one area that can be improved."
"We have a large fiber channel infrastructure, and that's one area that we haven't seen implemented in SolidFire, its more iSCSI."
"I think there is room for improvement needed with its storage capability."
"This solution would be improved if it were made to be more compatible with other products."
"We had some false positives, power supplies failing, and that's really been about it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We would like them to improve the pricing, so we could put them to use some more product, like backup or long-term storage. In the future, if the price goes down, then we could buy different types of products."
"The pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray is reasonable."
"We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership."
"We consume it as a service, and that's actually something we really like, or at least I really like from the technical perspective. That's because it means there is no hassle when we need to upgrade arrays to add capacity. We just interact directly with technical counterparts, and we say, "Hey, we're filling up," and they say, "All right, here's another data pack." They ship it in, and we install it. So, the as-a-service model has worked very well. Given the outstanding data reduction rates, it has improved our profitability because we're selling allocated volumes as part of the cloud service or recovering those costs from our tenants. It is very efficient, but that has offset the premium price. It started out that way, but over time, as we've added capacity, the price per gig has gone down a lot because we have a lot of it."
"My organization has a yearly license, but I believe that Pure Storage FlashArray has capacity-based licenses as well. I'm definitely happy with the pricing."
"Our Evergreen Storage subscription is supposed to be good when we go to upgrade."
"There are no licensing fees or other costs."
"I have had a couple of customers who have complained about the cost. It can be a little more expensive than some of the other platforms. After it has been installed, I have never had a customer say, "I wish we wouldn't have spent all that extra money." They have always been happy with the product after it has been installed. They might be on the fence about it because of the price, but everybody who I have ever seen install it, they are always happy with it."
"The support you're getting with it is probably an underestimated value that comes with the box you're buying."
"One of the most valuable features is its cost. It was inexpensive compared to other arrays that we were looking at."
"It's an expensive solution, particularly for medium companies. One device costs about 30,000 euros. The support contract is quite expensive as well. We are currently looking for other lower-cost solutions."
"The solution’s pricing is competitive."
"The pricing is reasonable. We're using the Flex on Demand pricing. It's really good for us when we pay for what we use. It made it easy to get it inside since it's an OpEx and instead of CapEx expense."
"I rate Dell Unity XT’s pricing a nine out of ten."
"The price is good for commercial grade storage arrays."
"Its biggest valuable feature is its price point for the amount of storage and performance you get. It's a sweet spot. It's cheaper than the other SANs out there, but performs well enough. It fits that nice, middle-ground portfolio."
"We would probably use SolidFire more, except we're getting more bang for our buck with our purchases of ONTAP right now, and the deal we made with NetApp, so it's more of just a cost decision"
"Based on what I heard from other people, its price was on the higher side."
"It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for what you get."
"The price of this solution is more expensive than others."
"On a scale where one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the solution between three and four. It is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Construction Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business69
Midsize Enterprise37
Large Enterprise156
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise48
Large Enterprise96
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

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 needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I do not have any improvements at the moment; I like how it is. I have nothing to add about needed improvements.
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
I saw that you have doubts about what you chose. I have a lot of experience with the constructor, honestly I can reco...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
They’re both great solutions and I’ve used both. EMC is being VERY aggressive on pricing which may be the undoing of...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
First of all the decision should be taken looking at similar products in terms of capacity and performance. I will sh...
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Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
EMC Unity, Dell EMC Unity
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Draper, Rio Grande Pacific, Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre
California Public Utilities Commission, RFA, 1&1, Ultimate Software , Endicia, ezVerify, MercadoLibre, Sungard Availability Services, ServInt, Elastx, Hosted Network, Colt, Crucial, iWeb, Datapipe, Databarracks
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Unity XT vs. SolidFire and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
896,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.