DDN IntelliFlash vs Dell PowerStore comparison

DataDirect Networks and Dell Technologies are both solutions in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category. DataDirect Networks is ranked #14 with an average rating of 9.0, while Dell Technologies is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7. DataDirect Networks holds a 1.2% mindshare in N, compared to Dell Technologies’s 21.5% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of DataDirect Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Dell Technologies users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

DDN IntelliFlash and Dell PowerStore are two competing storage solutions. Dell PowerStore has the upper hand due to its extensive feature set, better customer service, and higher long-term ROI.

Features: According to user reviews, DDN IntelliFlash is valued for its performance, hybrid storage capabilities, and ease of deployment. Dell PowerStore is praised for its scalability, advanced data services, and comprehensive feature set.

Room for Improvement: DDN IntelliFlash users have noted issues with software updates, integration with third-party tools, and customer service response times. Dell PowerStore users highlight a need for better documentation, enhancements in replication features, and more straightforward deployment processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: DDN IntelliFlash is appreciated for its straightforward deployment but has mixed reviews about customer service. Dell PowerStore deployment is noted to be more complex, but users find the customer service responsive and helpful.

Pricing and ROI: Users find DDN IntelliFlash setup costs to be reasonable with satisfactory ROI. Dell PowerStore is more expensive upfront, but users report higher long-term ROI due to its robust features.

To learn more, read our detailed DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell PowerStore Report (Updated: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell PowerStore

August 2025

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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 September 2025, in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 3.1%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DDN IntelliFlash is 1.2%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 21.5%, down from 24.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell PowerStore	21.5%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	3.1%
DDN IntelliFlash	1.2%
Other	74.2%

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh

Chief Technology Officer at Lambda256

Supports efficient storage management through volume snapshots and offers reliable non-disruptive upgrades

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, but it does not show the performance by 4K byte unit. It displays IOPS and bandwidth, but IOPS is about real use, and I want to know how many IOPS are currently running in 4K byte units. I cannot see that IOPS because most storage systems report their performance by 4K byte unit. I want to see Pure Storage performance by 4K byte unit to compare with other storage or other internal NVMe SSD.

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Anil Rahulwar

Storage Engineer at Movate

Good customer service and support and suitable for large environments

It is very easy to install. Users don't need to remember anything while deploying IntelliFlash because everything will be taken care of by tech support. They can easily modify the installation or change the password with the help of the tech support. It is very easy to integrate IntelliFlash with other solutions. We have plugins that can be integrated with other solutions. It will require maintenance. It is the same as any other storage solution: updates and upgrades, firmware upgrades, and drive upgrades.

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Hassan_Zaki

Senior Presales Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Integrated AI and clustering enhance storage operations effectively

I promote and recommend Dell PowerStore for all workloads to my clients and customers. Most of my customers have one appliance per site. Approximately 80% of my customers have Dell PowerStore implemented in their data centers. We always use CLS as another Dell solution for cybersecurity and data security. The CLS is integrated with the Data Domain, PowerProtect Data Domain, not with Dell PowerStore. Windows, Linux, and some customers use Red Hat or SUSE. We have many operating systems working with Dell PowerStore in the same environments and data centers. CloudIQ and Storage IQ are used by some customers, but Apex AIOps has not been widely adopted yet. Dell PowerStore has integration with VMware and Kubernetes. Most workloads work fine and have very good integration with Dell PowerStore, except for one or two specific workloads in the market. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Dell PowerStore a nine.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."

"I appreciate the performance."

"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."

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

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."

"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."

"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"It's very fast. We were seeing read latencies of less than one millisecond. It is robust."

"EasyTier/hotcaching: Valuable because it allows greater performance than standard SAS disks"

"It performed great originally, and when it performed great, it was awesome."

"We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways."

"High performance and ease-of-management are the most valuable features."

"It has reduced our electricity usage by reducing the amount of disks needed for the virtual environment."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"Data Compression: Up to 80% space reduction in the database"

More DDN IntelliFlash pros

"PowerStore is easy to use, powerful, reliable, and highly customizable to customer's needs."

"That's the value Dell creates; you invest less, and you get a better ROI."

"Though the initial investment might seem high, achieving five times deduplication compression provides good value for money."

"It is a stable solution."

"I have seen some return on investment. Since we were refreshing our infrastructure, the return on investment has been that I am able to concentrate my time on high-level items rather than small-level items that come from the aging infrastructure that we had before."

"I have found that Dell PowerStore scales with my organization."

"The use of NVMe is notable, and the speed and performance it provides are commendable."

"PowerStore's compression ratio is a valuable feature for our VMs because it gives us a lot back."

More Dell PowerStore pros

Cons

"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."

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."

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

"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."

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

"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."

"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."

"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"In the proxy section you can’t choose a user account and password, so it is not allowed at the moment to go out, if customer has such constellation."

"It's somewhat scalable, but maybe not so much as some of the competition."

"Snapshots are not as easy to access as on a NetApp device."

"It only keeps one hour of real-time data without the ability to do deep analysis of each element."

"They need to offer better integration for a virtual platform to enable you to create hyper-converged solution."

"We had just one small stability problem with power flapping and it did not start up again automatically. We had to access service ports and manually restart the storage processors."

"Technical support is bad. It'd grade them at 30% or 40%. The response time is terrible."

"Performance is horrible now. Our original intent was to buy new storage in about two years. But since it became a critical urgency for us, we decided to purchase a new one in two or three months."

More DDN IntelliFlash cons

"Technical support rates at a seven out of ten, primarily due to response time rather than knowledge."

"There is no Synchronize replication feature on the storage."

"While using Dell PowerStore's interface in our organization, we sometimes miss out on some information."

"The initial setup was a little bit cumbersome. We had a bit of an adoption process internally. It wasn't immediately straightforward on day one."

"The initial setup was a little bit cumbersome."

"I have not seen anything specific. The only thing I can think of that needs improvement is the price."

"Horizontal scaling has room for improvement."

"Monitoring is an area of concern in the product where improvements are required."

More Dell PowerStore cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."

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

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

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

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"I think we pay around 100 grand per year for three arrays or four arrays."

"I recommend the full bundle software in order to have all the functionality. It is more expensive to purchase it one by one."

"We purchased it with a five-year warranty."

"In the pricing and licensing department, the product is always too expensive."

"The solution's price was comparable to other products for the use case, size, and setup."

"HCL Tech has a TLA with Dell, so in terms of price point, we are very competitive. Based on my experience, the cost of Dell PowerStore for around 500 GB of capacity is very competitive compared to any other platform in the market."

"It is very expensive though when you get to this point of using the 3000 with a client. They will start to think about using another vendor. There are a lot of solutions similar to PowerStore in regards to networking capacity and their prices are very cheap compared to PowerStore."

"In terms of licensing, my organization has Dell Technologies End User License Agreement (EULA), but I don't know exactly how it works, though it is a big bundle of licenses for Dell Data Domain, Dell EMC Unity XT, Dell PowerStore, Dell ECS, and all such kinds of storage arrays."

"Dell PowerStore is affordable and the license is just a face license which is great."

"If we use the 500 or 1000, the licensing and pricing are reasonable. PowerStore can compete with any vendor and the price isn't that expensive."

More Dell PowerStore pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	3

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	37
Midsize Enterprise	27
Large Enterprise	58

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.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IntelliFlash?

It is a bit cheaper than other products, 10% to 20% cheaper.

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What needs improvement with IntelliFlash?

DDN IntelliFlash should improve in terms of sales. In future releases, I look forward to more features about AI and M...

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What is your primary use case for IntelliFlash?

We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways. They have large scalability and use more th...

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What do you think about Dell EMC PowerStore? Is it actually a new product?

PowerStore is flexible, scalable, simple, and performant with market-leading economics for a wide range of legacy and...

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How does Dell's EMC PowerStore compare with its EMC Unity XT?

Dell EMC PowerStore is a unified storage platform that has the added benefit of being scalable. The automated managem...

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What's the difference between DELL EMC Powerstore and Powermax NVMe?

Dell PowerStore is an all-solid-state midrange storage system. It has many internal elements taken from other Dell of...

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Comparisons

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

VAST Data vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 47% of the time

NetApp AFF vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 25% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 16% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 12% of the time

More DDN IntelliFlash Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 15% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 12% of the time

Dell PowerVault vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 11% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 8% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 8% of the time

More Dell PowerStore Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

August 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash

September 2025

Download DDN IntelliFlash product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore

September 2025

Download Dell PowerStore product report

Also Known As

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

Tegile, IntelliFlash N-Series, IntelliFlash T-Series, IntelliFlash HD-Series

PowerStore

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

Western Digital through its IntelliFlash arrays delivers high-performance storage with a complete range of features and connectivity options, including inline compression and deduplication, application and VM consistent snapshots, replication, RAID, data encryption, VMware vCenter integration, and multi-protocol support for SAN (FC, iSCSI) and NAS (NFS, SMBv3). IntelliFlash arrays deliver high availability through dualredundant and hot-swappable components, active/active or active/passive controllers, non-disruptive software upgrades, eMLC flash, and proactive cloud-based monitoring, analytics, and intelligence. A RESTful API provides scripted or programmatic control.

DataDirect Networks

Dell PowerStore is a scalable, high-performance platform supporting both modern and traditional workloads, enhancing IT operations with AI-driven automation and advanced data reduction features.

Designed for flexibility, Dell PowerStore integrates seamlessly with VMware, providing robust security and high IOPS. Users benefit from fast NVMe storage, intelligent data management, and scalable performance to handle diverse workload demands. However, improvements are needed in replication, enterprise functionalities, and UI complexity. Stability and support issues highlight the need for enhanced monitoring and pricing strategies.

What are the key features of Dell PowerStore?

Advanced Compression: Optimizes storage capacity effectively.
Data Deduplication: Reduces redundant data, improving efficiency.
Scalability: Easily adjusts to growing business needs.
VMware Integration: Enhances virtualization performance.
AI-Driven Management: Simplifies IT operations.
NVMe Storage: Provides fast, reliable access to data.
Robust Security: Ensures data protection.

What benefits does Dell PowerStore offer?

High Performance: Supports demanding applications with high IOPS.
Flexible Design: Adapts to changing workload requirements.
Cost Efficiency: Promotes ROI through data reduction and scaling.
Enhanced Management: Streamlines operations with AI and integrations.
Improved Data Handling: Efficiently manages databases and storage.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and IT, Dell PowerStore is critical for VMware virtualization, high-performance databases, and backup storage. It supports hosting virtual machines, mirroring storage, and handling SAP and Oracle databases effectively. Its role in hybrid and on-premises setups showcases its adaptability and integration capabilities for mission-critical tasks.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Bank of Stockton, Barnsley College, Boyes Turner, Brigham Young University

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell PowerStore

August 2025

Free Report: DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell PowerStore

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