DDN IntelliFlash vs Dell VMAX All Flash comparison

DataDirect Networks and Dell Technologies are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. DataDirect Networks is ranked #29 with an average rating of 9.0, while Dell Technologies is ranked #24 with an average rating of 8.2. DataDirect Networks holds a 0.5% mindshare in AFS, compared to Dell Technologies’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of DataDirect Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Dell Technologies users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

DDN IntelliFlash and Dell VMAX All Flash are competitors in enterprise data storage. Users prefer the pricing and support of DDN IntelliFlash, but Dell VMAX All Flash stands out for its superior features and overall perceived value.

Features: DDN IntelliFlash is praised for its high-performance hybrid storage capabilities, scalability, and efficient data reduction. Dell VMAX All Flash excels with advanced features like powerful data services, robust performance, and extensive storage options.

Room for Improvement: Users suggest that DDN IntelliFlash could improve its software functionalities and integration processes. Dell VMAX All Flash users mention the need for better cost management and more user-friendly configurations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: DDN IntelliFlash is known for its straightforward deployment process and responsive customer service. Dell VMAX All Flash provides a manageable deployment process but is noted for higher complexity. Its customer service is reliable but deemed less personal.

Pricing and ROI: DDN IntelliFlash is noted for its competitive pricing and favorable return on investment. Conversely, Dell VMAX All Flash, despite higher upfront costs, is viewed as providing value through its advanced capabilities and long-term reliability.

To learn more, read our detailed DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell VMAX All Flash Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell VMAX All Flash

July 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 August 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DDN IntelliFlash is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell VMAX All Flash is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

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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BrijeshKumar

Technical Lead at L&T Technology Services

With an easy initial setup phase, the tool is useful for multi-site replication and DR

The configuration part of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. If the product is up and running after, if it goes down, my company has observed that there are multiple failures that occur in the tool, so it needs to be reinstalled from scratch. The tool should have an automated feature or an automated option to handle the aforementioned scenario, which one can simply go and reset, after which the tool should be reinstalled with the same configuration.

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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

"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."

"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

"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."

"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."

"The tool's valuable features are speed, security, data compression, and reliability. Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen. It helps us to save money and resources."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

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

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

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

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

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

"The initial setup is straightforward."

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

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

More DDN IntelliFlash pros

"The snapshot feature has been precious for our testing processes, application development, and managing testing environments due to its efficiency and ease of use."

"The most valuable features of VMAX are its performance and GUI interface."

"The ransomware protection feature is housed in a separate unit, specifically addressing the top twenty most critical threats."

"The product's initial setup phase was good."

"We haven't experienced any outages or core-level issues in the last ten years, making us comfortable with the storage solution."

"It works very well."

Cons

"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."

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

"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."

"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."

"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."

"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

"In future releases, I look forward to more AI features."

"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."

More DDN IntelliFlash cons

"The configuration part of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."

"There is room for improvement in the centralized administration."

"The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability."

"We encountered some challenges during large data migrations that could be addressed for smoother transitions."

"The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability. We've had to procure additional engines to address this limitation."

"Improvements are needed in both partition recovery and scalability."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

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

"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."

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

"The product is expensive."

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

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

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

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

"The price falls within the mid-range, neither inexpensive nor high-priced."

"It is not a cheap product."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

23%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Government

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell EMC VMax?

The product's initial setup phase was good.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC VMax?

The pricing provided by EMC is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell EMC VMax?

The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability. We've had to procure additiona...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 25% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

VAST Data vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 36% of the time

NetApp AFF vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 18% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 17% of the time

Tintri VMstore T7000 vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 10% of the time

More DDN IntelliFlash Competitors

Dell PowerMax vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 67% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 19% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 8% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 7% of the time

More Dell VMAX All Flash Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

August 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash

August 2025

Download DDN IntelliFlash product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

July 2025

Download Dell VMAX All Flash product report

Also Known As

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

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

No data available

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 VMAX All Flash is utilized in hyper-converged solutions like VxRail deployments, critical for Data Domain in backup tasks. It supports multi-site replication, disaster recovery, banking IT operations, and high-performance applications.

Dell VMAX All Flash plays a key role in data-intensive environments due to its robust capabilities in storage, data protection, and high throughput tasks. It is crucial in hyper-converged solutions and VxRail deployments, facilitating multi-site replication and disaster recovery. Its applications span across banking and other critical IT operations requiring high performance. The system's ability to support efficient data compression and provide ransomware protection addresses significant security concerns. Multi-site replication and redundancy safeguard data even during power outages or hardware failures, while the snapshot feature aids in testing, application development, and environment management.

What are the key features of Dell VMAX All Flash?

Compression: Efficient data compression capabilities.
Ransomware Protection: Tackles ransomware threats effectively.
Multi-site Replication and Redundancy: Ensures data safety during power outages or hardware issues.
Snapshots: Aids in testing, application development, and environment management.

What benefits should users look for in Dell VMAX All Flash reviews?

Data Protection: Enhanced data security with ransomware protection.
Performance: High throughput for demanding applications.
Reliability: Multi-site replication and redundancy for critical operations continuity.
Support: Adheres to IP strategies with excellent customer support.

Dell VMAX All Flash is critical in industries like banking, where it supports IT operations requiring high performance, and in environments demanding stringent data protection measures. Its role in multi-site replication and disaster recovery makes it invaluable for business continuity and critical data security across sectors.

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 VMAX All Flash

July 2025

Free Report: DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell VMAX All Flash

Find out what your peers are saying about DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell VMAX All Flash and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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