We performed a comparison between Dell PowerMax NVMe and Pure Storage FlashArray based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"The solution is scalable."
"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."
"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."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."
"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."
"The performance is very good. Our predominant workloads are all less than 5 milliseconds and it's most common to have a sub-1-millisecond response time for our applications. In terms of efficiency, we've turned on compression and we're able to get as high as two-to-one compression on our workloads, on average."
"Technical support has been excellent."
"It is easy to manage and upgrade."
"It is efficient and very simple for our administrators to use."
"The compression and deduplication are always on. We get more than 4:1 capacity savings using them. The efficiency benefits from compression and deduplication are through a specialized hardware module within the storage itself, and that means there is no overhead to the compression and dedupe."
"The smaller footprint of the device has been really nice. We have gone from eight bays to one bay. Having one floor tile in our data center has been pretty awesome. A lot less power and HVAC cooling is being consumed."
"You can use PowerMax for all workloads and consolidation. We have used it to scale thousands of VMs."
"PowerMax is a compact high-performance appliance. It is one of the best devices in terms of performance specs. It includes an NVMe All-Flash Array."
"It is easy to manage. You don't have to have the same people who used to manage the Dell EMC arrays because the solution is more intuitive."
"With Pure Storage, we don't see any latency or IOPS. It has been a very seamless integration."
"We have tons of capacity on it."
"We can store more for a cheaper price as opposed to paying for larger devices and larger rack spaces which get outdated sooner and which we'd have to change every two years. It simplifies storage for us."
"The deduplication and compression meet all of our system requirements."
"The initial setup was very straightforward and very quick. It was up and running in our data center within 24 hours of receiving it."
"Their support system has insight into errors on our SAN fabric that we can't see. They've brought attention to and raised awareness for us about things that we couldn't see, when we were experiencing problems."
"The predictive performance analytics is a very good feature, as our system is performing better than before."
"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."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"The REST API needs improvement. We are a very big automation company, and this would be big for us."
"There is room for improvement in terms of integration with various service providers for public clouds."
"The GUI interface is very complicated and could be improved by streamlining the number of steps in the process."
"I would like to see more development in the cloud environment. It would be good if it comes in the cloud kind of setup."
"The initial setup was a little bit complicated."
"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."
"We had challenges again with the initial setup. I don't know if there was a gap during the requirement-collection phase, but the box was partially delivered to us with missing parts and it delayed the implementation by about 60 days. It was not as smooth as I would have hoped."
"If you go to Pure or you go to NetApp, they deliver in one month. If you go to Dell or HP, they will take up to six months for delivery. This is not a business model for today."
"I would rate this solution an eight. There's always room for improvement, nobody is perfect to get a ten out of ten. They do what they do well. It's not cheap but we it's for uses that we needed."
"The way Pure Storage does the controller storage warranty or replacement has been an issue for some people who just replace the controllers every couple of years, and that's where some of the confusion with pricing and support has come in. They should be clear on the way the controller replacements happen, as it is important to know whether or not you can get a good return on them, because it can be a little confusing."
"I would love for them to have a hyper-converged solution."
"On a couple of occasions, the waiting time for an upgrade has been pretty substantial."
"The price of Pure Storage FlashArray could be better."
"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."
"It was not proactive communication."
"The price could be better."
Dell PowerMax NVMe is ranked 8th in All-Flash Storage with 66 reviews while Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 174 reviews. Dell PowerMax NVMe is rated 8.8, while Pure Storage FlashArray is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Dell PowerMax NVMe writes "Simplified storage provisioning for us, enabling us to assign any volumes in two to three minutes". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pure Storage FlashArray writes "Effective provisioning, helpful support, and reliable". Dell PowerMax NVMe is most compared with Dell PowerStore, IBM FlashSystem, Dell Unity XT, Huawei OceanStor Dorado and Dell XtremIO, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem and INFINIDAT InfiniBox. See our Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Pure Storage FlashArray report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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