The primary use case is for Tier 0 applications. It is meant for applications which are absolutely mission-critical, when you can't compromise your system performance. We have customers who use it across the board for just mission-critical applications, high availability, and guaranteed performance.
Solution Architect at a tech services company
It offers a high level of availability and near zero downtime
Pros and Cons
- "It offers a high level of availability, so pretty much near zero downtime."
- "The most valuable feature is its global cache, which allows for uncompromised performance."
- "I would like to see continued visibility and analytics in the platform."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
I have customers who are using this for large Oracle and SQL applications and European SAP types of infrastructures. They are integrating PowerMax with ProtectPoint for additional data protection of their data. They are also automating the backup and recovery of those systems through AppSync, which is another product for keeping everything protected in an automated way.
It's a zero light loss upgrade. So, they're upgrading the system without losing any type of light from the communications of the system. Also, it has zero interruption of upgrades.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is its global cache, which allows for uncompromised performance.
It offers a high level of availability, so pretty much near zero downtime.
It is the best platform for just seeing and getting visibility into performance and capacity utilization. It has very positive management. Through CloudIQ and others integrations that Dell EMC provides, visibility has excellent predictive health metrics that we can look at.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see continued visibility and analytics in the platform.
Buyer's Guide
Dell PowerMax NVMe
April 2025

Learn what your peers think about Dell PowerMax NVMe. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2025.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There is nothing more stable in the market today.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very scalable. Depending on what platform you go with, it has both a scale up and scale out architecture. You can scale without compromising performance by adding additional compute nodes to the front-end which allows it pretty much uncompromised capacity expansion and scale-out.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is excellent. It's a very immediate, high level of support. The Mission Critical ProSupport response team that Dell EMC has is the highest level of support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We looked at this system because we analyzed applications and workloads, then understood our customer's business requirements. It is understanding that there is a need for low latency and zero downtime. We were previously using a combination of VNX and Unity.
When we looked at PowerMax, it was extremely low latency: five submillisecond types of latency. From a general performance perspective, most of these systems that we are designing tend to be more than 100,000 IOPS for input/output operations per second. The other thing is that it handles these types of IOPS with very large block sizes. If you really understand your data, it's very easy to optimize it on PowerMax, and it is exceeding our requirements.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward with Dell EMC Services. An organization with this type of investment would want to install it themselves. Therefore, with Dell EMC services, it's very easy to get going.
The migration from older VMAXs to PowerMax is extremely straightforward, as it's a zero downtime migration. You can move systems from one VMAX platform to a PowerMax platform with zero downtime and 100 percent of the data migration compatibility. We typically do that coupled with Dell EMC services, as well. They have a very dialed in process for taking that data over to a brand new platform.
What about the implementation team?
We used resellers for the deployment, as we are resellers. We always use resellers, because that is the best option that customers have.
What was our ROI?
We are implementing PowerMax at a much lower ROI than maintaining maintenance on legacy systems. We have actually seen return on investment in as low as two years from an ROI perspective by leveraging PowerMax for consolidation of workloads, as well as consolidation of maintenance contracts, where they might have across multiple legacy platforms.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
From a general capital investment, it's one of the higher price points in the market. It depends on the size and software features that you would include in a system. So, the cost varies dramatically.
The cost has room for improvement.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Alternatives in the Dell EMC portfolio are primarily XtremIO and Unity. However, PowerMax is the only product which can meet the uptime and latency requirements.
What other advice do I have?
Engage a reseller to analyze the workloads and do the data-driven architecture behind it. Use the data to drive the solution and make sure it meets your requirements.
There is so much innovation in it. They have been very relevant in terms of the Tier 0 workforce. It really differentiates itself in the market.
It meets the needs of what we're trying to do from a file level perspective for performance and capacity.
If you live and breathe by your data, there are a lot of features in PowerMax which allow you to protect yourself from ransomware and other types of relevant threats today. It is not just about a platform for running mission-critical apps. It's also protecting mission-critical apps through features that prevent ransomware infection. If you get infected, it allows for recovery of that data without having to pay the ransom fee or other alternatives.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller.

Senior Storage Engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Because of the compression ratio, we are able to put more on less hardware
Pros and Cons
- "The PowerMax software and CloudIQ let us get an inside view of our compression and compaction, as well as our usage of the storage."
- "The initial setup was complex. ESRS is a very complex solution to put into our environment, because it requires external access to the Internet. That's a very tough thing for us to do, because we are a PCI and PII company. We store a lot of data for people which is personal. Therefore, going out to the Internet is not our preferred path."
What is our primary use case?
We are using it for VMware, virtual infrastructures, and our physical host. All of our virtual infrastructure is pretty much mission-critical, and we have all of our virtual infrastructure migrating into the PowerMax family.
How has it helped my organization?
Because of the compression ratio, we are able to put more on less hardware.
The PowerMax software and CloudIQ let us get an inside view of our compression and compaction, as well as our usage of the storage.
What is most valuable?
- Compression
- Compaction
- A lot of storage in a small box.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The PowerMax software has some room for improvement. We have run into a couple bugs with it so far.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It scales well. We currently buy ours fully maxed out, so we don't really worry a whole lot about the scaling from a new infrastructure standpoint.
How are customer service and technical support?
So far, technical support has been really good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We are migrating from HPE 3PAR, and it's been a very easy transition.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was complex. ESRS is a very complex solution to put into our environment, because it requires external access to the Internet. That's a very tough thing for us to do, because we are a PCI and PII company. We store a lot of data for people which is personal. Therefore, going out to the Internet is not our preferred path.
What about the implementation team?
We used Dell EMC directly for the deployment. The experience has been good, so far.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We generally do a PoC. In this case, we went directly to the PowerMax because we felt it was a good solution. Our upper management chose it.
What other advice do I have?
Study the integration very carefully, as far as how you're going to integrate it into your environment, such as how you're going to use ESRS and the other solutions which Dell EMC offers.
As far as provisioning, storage, and use of the array, it's been very simple to use.
For the PowerMax 8000, a million IOs is our minimum requirement. We have yet to be able to test that, but that is our minimum base requirement for a PowerMax 8000.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
Buyer's Guide
Dell PowerMax NVMe
April 2025

Learn what your peers think about Dell PowerMax NVMe. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Senior Manager - SBR Technical Services at Reliance Industries Ltd
Has good customer support but needs to increase storage and improve scalability
Pros and Cons
- "Dell PowerMax NVMe's tech support is good."
- "Dell PowerMax NVMe needs to increase storage and improve scalability."
What needs improvement?
Dell PowerMax NVMe needs to increase storage and improve scalability.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the product for a couple of months.
How are customer service and support?
Dell PowerMax NVMe's tech support is good.
How was the initial setup?
We can complete Dell PowerMax NVMe's deployment in a week.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the product an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
Regional Alliance Manager at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
It is efficient and very simple for our administrators to use
Pros and Cons
- "It is efficient and very simple for our administrators to use."
- "I would like NVMe to be end-to-end in the next release. Right now, it is not end-to-end."
What is our primary use case?
We use it for tying in high-end analytics services. PowerMax has some tiers which a make difference between the use of the data for our customers. All Dell technologies Solutions have tiers with faster hard disks. This one has special tiers to grant another level of data. That's why we use PowerMax and NVMe technology.
It is best for block storage.
How has it helped my organization?
SAP and Oracle Database are on PowerMax. Most of out critical services are on it. We use SRDF, which is a software. You can utilize the storage. It's very good, because you can make a stretch faster between two data centers.
What is most valuable?
The analytics and transactional data are its most valuable features.
With PowerMax, you don't have to buy new storage, like with the older VMAXs.
It is efficient and very simple for our administrators to use.
What needs improvement?
I would like NVMe to be end-to-end in the next release. Right now, it is not end-to-end.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a high-end storage. It is never down. This high-end technology is designed for mission-critical operations, where systems can't go down or it will affect a business' reputation and/or revenue.
How are customer service and technical support?
With these type of high-end technologies and their uptime, there is no need to contact support.
How was the initial setup?
Compared to VMAX, the initial setup is very easy. Setting up VMAX was a pain versus PowerMax, which was simple and efficient.
To migrate the data from VMAX to PowerMax, we used SRDF. It was fast. In some cases, we used VPLEX.
What about the implementation team?
We used both an integrator and reseller to assist with the deployment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost is expensive. While VMAX now has good pricing, PowerMax is a little expensive.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Our solution is focused using Dell technologies.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: SONDA
Director of Information Technology at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
We consolidate a lot of various disparate storage arrays into one enterprise solution
Pros and Cons
- "Enterprise Cloud Storage is the most valuable feature, along with the data services which come with it, plus the deduplication and compression."
- "We are very interested in NVMe over Fibre Channel, which I understand is on the horizon. We would like to see that come to fruition."
What is our primary use case?
We run a Medicaid data warehouse on a massive enterprise Oracle shop. Therefore, we have a lot of Oracle on PowerMax. We run a big analytics for the New York State Department of Health using Oracle Big Data.
Because of the Big Data analytics, we require immense IOPS, which the PowerMax handles quite well. Our sole purpose in life is to provide endpoint analytics.
How has it helped my organization?
We consolidate a lot of various disparate storage arrays into one enterprise solution.
We primarily use Unisphere for managing and monitoring.
What is most valuable?
Enterprise Cloud Storage is the most valuable feature, along with the data services which come with it, plus the deduplication and compression.
What needs improvement?
We are very interested in NVMe over Fibre Channel, which I understand is on the horizon. We would like to see that come to fruition in its ability to traverse the Fibre Channel SAN.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using VMAX, PowerMax, and Symmetrix for many years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is rock solid.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a solid platform.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support is very good. We have the ESRS call-home function, and it's been rock solid since day one.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have always used Symmetrix and VMAX. Then, it was just a natural progression into the PowerMax solution.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very straightforward. We had a team come in and get everything setup. It was handled very professionally. We had a project manager assigned to the account. It was very smooth.
We used the PowerPath solution for the migration, which allowed us to seamlessly migrate from one storage array to another.
What was our ROI?
We have impeccable uptime in our data center with very strict SLAs. We have had zero downtime.
We run a big Oracle shop, as well as VMware, which is very high performing. It exceeds our needs.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Our costs for the product are three million.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We looked at Hitachi and NetApp, but it really boiled down to our relationship with Dell EMC and the portfolio of the product.
This solution’s architecture influenced our buying decision because of all the data services incorporated, especially the LAN technology. This allows us to replicate from one site to another.
What other advice do I have?
Our SLAs are extremely tight, and we've had zero issues. I would highly advise going with the PowerMax.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
AVP at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Provides good stability and a useful snapshot feature
Pros and Cons
- "We are using the solution's application and snapshot feature."
- "The solution should include more AI features to make it smarter."
What is most valuable?
We are using the solution's application and snapshot feature.
What needs improvement?
The solution should include more AI features to make it smarter.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Dell PowerMax NVMe for a couple of years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Dell PowerMax NVMe is a very stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution has limited scalability. Around three users use Dell PowerMax NVMe in our organization.
I rate the solution’s scalability a seven out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The solution’s technical support is good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What about the implementation team?
Operation-wise, the deployment takes 20 minutes. Our process may take longer for approval. It may take a couple of days.
What other advice do I have?
IBM and Hitachi are Dell PowerMax NVMe's competitors. I would recommend the solution to other users.
Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Sr. Storage Systems Engineer at a pharma/biotech company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Secure, fast performance, and good reporting capabilities
Pros and Cons
- "The UI is very easy to use. We can add volumes and manage them easily."
- "PowerMax Storage needs improvement in the area of monitoring tools. It should have more functions and more complicated analysis options inside the monitoring tools."
What is our primary use case?
I work in data storage as a senior administrator.
I use multiple Dell EMC protection and storage tools like VMAX and PowerMax network for data domains. This product is an onsite data center and we have two PowerMax boxes. One of them is for our main site and the other is for our disaster recovery (DR) site.
We use PowerMax SRDF as our main application.
How has it helped my organization?
With the NVMe technology, performance in terms of IOPS has improved. Things are generally faster, although there are some bottlenecks with the integration of IBM servers.
The biggest way that PowerMax has improved the way our organization functions is through an increase in performance. The business of pharma is complex and the IOPS demand is huge. In the past, we used VMAX storage, and there was a big issue with the performance. Everybody complained about performance, servers, and storage, saying that they didn't have enough space. We tried many different solutions in an attempt to solve the performance issue.
For example, we tried reducing the data that was stored on disk, and we tried removing unused data. We turned to development and asked that some programs have fewer features. Finally, management made the decision to implement the PowerMax solution, and it solved the issue. As soon as we migrated from VMAX to PowerMax NVMe, the performance increased and everybody felt better.
The security is good. We enabled DSE for our encryption.
CloudIQ has made our lives better. It provides notifications, where you receive an email to let you know about your storage and your SAN. It is a powerful tool, although we have had to upgrade it a few times. Overall, it is a good monitoring tool that gives us a powerful and easy way to monitor our servers.
What is most valuable?
This product provides NVMe scale-out capabilities, which is important to us because our performance and IOPS have improved. The administrators have felt better about our environment since we implemented PowerMax. The storage is much better, overall.
We use the NVMe CSM and it's a very powerful feature that makes our business stronger. The performance is improved, making everything faster.
The reporting functionality is very good.
The UI is very easy to use. We can add volumes and manage them easily.
What needs improvement?
We have faced problems integrating IBM servers and adding volumes. The capacity on the IBM servers was not the same and we needed to perform a reclamation process on the DR site to fill the same capacity on the storage site.
The SRDF software has an issue when it's used in conjunction with VMware. In the past, we were using SRDF for VMware but in swapping from VM to DR site, VMs take a very long time. In some cases, where the data on the main size was many terabytes in size, it took a very long time to replicate to the DR site. Some VMs power on automatically, without entering any schedule. We had to migrate to RecoverPoint, which is another solution from Dell, but we still use SRDF for things that are not stored on VMware disks. When we enabled hardware compression, things improved.
PowerMax Storage needs improvement in the area of monitoring tools. It should have more functions and more complicated analysis options inside the monitoring tools. For example, if I need the tool to analyze monitoring logs from one month ago, it can't be done because it retains data only for the past two weeks.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe for more than five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a very scalable product. We have approximately 170 VMs running on the servers.
Between administrative users, including server administration and monitoring, we have approximately 20 users.
How are customer service and support?
The support is very good.
They respond very quickly when we have issues and the responses are good. However, the first-level engineers take more time to investigate some problems. The first level of support could use some improvement. Specifically, they should be faster at solving problems. If there are critical issues then we need them to be solved quickly, and the first level simply takes too long to investigate.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Our management is satisfied with PowerMax. There had been a discussion with IBM about obtaining a storage solution from them but when we saw the power that PowerMax had, we opted for the next version of it instead.
What other advice do I have?
PowerMax SRDF is a very powerful tool that will replicate data to a DR site. It is very fast and has many powerful features including data compression.
This is a powerful solution for us and our performance is 100% better since we implemented it. Overall, for enterprise-level mission-critical workloads, the solution is very powerful.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Solution Architect at Sybyl
A resilient product with good data savings
Pros and Cons
- "You can use PowerMax for all workloads and consolidation. We have used it to scale thousands of VMs."
- "We brought up this question to the implementation engineer. We were comparing use cases where a customer is using RecoverPoint, then goes to PowerMax. In our previous setup with XtremIO, we were using RecpverPoint and keeping snapshots for 30 days, every few seconds. With PowerMax, I requested this for every 15 minutes, keeping it for a week. The engineer's answer was, "There will be too many snapshots. It might slow down the system." This is specifically for the use cases where there is RecoverPoint. While PowerMax works with RecoverPoint, and you can use it, there should be some way where you can have even more snapshots and not to worry about performance and system cache."
What is our primary use case?
We are using it for core banking systems and virtualized enrollment. So, everything for this bank is on PowerMax, including its core banking system, which is running on Solaris, and all the relevant applications running on VMware.
How has it helped my organization?
You can use PowerMax for all workloads and consolidation. We have used it to scale thousands of VMs. This is Dell EMC's selling point.
What is most valuable?
It is a good, resilient product.
The good thing that we have found is the enhanced data savings. For example, in an XtremIO, we were seeing the space savings was 1:4 or 1:3. With PowerMax, I have seen 10:1 and 12:1. This is something that has really come out as a distinctive feature and is helping us a lot.
The Unisphere GUI has been enhanced. A lot of options have been added to the GUI. Though, if somebody is planning to buy PowerMax, they should also have some associated training with that.
What needs improvement?
We brought up this question to the implementation engineer. We were comparing use cases where a customer is using RecoverPoint, then goes to PowerMax. In our previous setup with XtremIO, we were using RecpverPoint and keeping snapshots for 30 days, every few seconds. With PowerMax, I requested this for every 15 minutes, keeping it for a week. The engineer's answer was, "There will be too many snapshots. It might slow down the system." This is specifically for the use cases where there is RecoverPoint. While PowerMax works with RecoverPoint, and you can use it, there should be some way where you can have even more snapshots and not to worry about performance and system cache.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using PowerMax for less than a year. We just installed it recently.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
From my experience, it is stable enough. For our current setup, it is too early to assess stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
They support scalability. We can add more capacity when it is needed.
How are customer service and support?
I always tell my customers that Dell EMC support is good. Specifically with enterprise storage, like PowerMax and VMAX, it is really good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
PowerMax was deployed as a replacement/tech refresh for our existing VNX.
We were using XtremIO before this. We have all of the features that were available there. Relatively, there is nothing new that we are using.
We had some challenges with our core banking system. There were performance issues, which was the reason we went to XtremIO All-Flash. NVME has really helped us here because anything less than XtremIO would have caused us issues. So, PowerMax is the best replacement or fit right now. In fact, we have seen that it has really improved the performance as well.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward.
We are still in the implementation phase.
The ease of administration is okay for me. However, for other team members and specifically our customers, who are not very familiar with it. It has increased provision time. Though, it is just a one-time activity. During implementation, we did the split properly. Therefore, there will not be challenges going forward.
Initially, it took a lot of time to do the initial provisioning, specifically for the Dell EMC engineer who provisioned a couple of hosts. After that, we did all the provisioning, SRDF replication, snapshots, scripting, etc., and that took awhile.
I am hoping that this is just one time. Going ahead, it should be simple to add volumes and not have to go through the cycle.
What about the implementation team?
Implementation was mainly done by a local resource, because we are not a deployment partner. The resource connected to somebody remotely from a site in Egypt. We managed to deploy it in half a day for each site. The first time that we did the provisioning, it took time, but it was a relatively straightforward process.
We had some requirements, like SRM integration, where we needed some guidance. Dell EMC has suggested that we use CloudIQ, so we want to explore that option. However, we are not using it right now.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We have used VMAX in other places. It has helped because it has various options for data protection. I have worked on DMX3, DMX4, and VMAX 10K. I am a fan of VMAX because it is really good. There are various command line options that allow you to do a lot of things.
Most of the products are the same and have similar features. There could even be some which might be better. However, one thing that I always liked about Dell EMC is the support, which is really good. If there is an issue and you can get somebody to resolve it, that is the most important thing. Many products have the same features, e.g., snapshot, replication, and data compression, but the support from Dell EMC is one of the best.
What other advice do I have?
It is a good enterprise-scale storage. I would rate it nine out of 10.
Generally, storage doesn't expose your data unless you have certain protocols. With PowerMax, it is too early to remark on data security because we just deployed it and migrated the data. We have not even done a proper drill or failover for data availability and data security.
It is also too early to remark on workload congestion. Though, since we have been migrating the data, which is live data, I have seen the utilization and that is performing relatively better than our previous Dell EMC platform.
From a technical perspective, you should have some technical training associated with the deployment. That is the one aspect that is complicated. Apart from that, everything is simple.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner

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