DDN IntelliFlash vs Dell XtremIO 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 #22 with an average rating of 8.0. DataDirect Networks holds a 0.5% mindshare in AFS, compared to Dell Technologies’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of DataDirect Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Dell Technologies users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Dell XtremIO and DDN IntelliFlash are high-performance storage solutions competing in the enterprise storage market. Dell XtremIO seems to have the upper hand in support and overall performance, whereas DDN IntelliFlash is strong in features and versatility.

Features: Dell XtremIO offers scalable performance, ease of management, and specialized functionality. DDN IntelliFlash supports various workloads, integrates seamlessly with cloud storage, and is highly versatile.

Room for Improvement: Dell XtremIO could improve data reduction capabilities, analytics tools, and enhance its feature sets. DDN IntelliFlash needs to improve technical support, streamline updates, and address support-related issues.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell XtremIO is noted for its straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. DDN IntelliFlash, although slightly more complex to deploy, offers satisfactory customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Dell XtremIO has higher setup costs but delivers strong ROI through performance and reliability. DDN IntelliFlash offers cost-effective initial pricing with adequate ROI, especially in cloud-integrated deployments.

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

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell XtremIO

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 July 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DDN IntelliFlash is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell XtremIO is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Q&A Highlights

Avigail Sugarman

Community Manager at PeerSpot (formerly IT Central Station)

Nov 20, 2014

Tegile vs. XtremIO?

Tegile is (or can be) a hybrid storage system that can support both traditional HDDs as well as flash SSD drives like other traditional storage systems/appliances. EMC XtremIO otoh is an all flash array (AFA) designed from the group up with flash SSD in mind that like some other AFAs can scale performance and capacity linearly as you scale-out the solution (add additional nodes/cluster members/systems/enclosures). Here is some more info: http://storageioblog.com/emc-announces-xtremio-general-availability-part/ http://storageioblog.com/part-ii-emc-announces-xtremio-general-availability/

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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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Stanislaw Jagielski

Trainer, Storage Consultant at Oxon

Efficient and straightforward setup boosts data management capabilities

Scalability is a significant feature of Dell XtremIO, as it is easy to expand and manage. It provides a lot of features suited for complex systems, such as scalability and the ability to define multi-domain systems, which are beneficial for data management and storage separation. It is efficient from the customer's point of view, offering deduplication at both the volume and file levels. The configuration and setup are straightforward, provided one has knowledge in setting up network infrastructure like VLANs. It is easy to install, use, and configure, making it a reliable product.

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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

"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."

"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."

"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."

"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."

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

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

"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."

"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

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

"It provides a combination of all the protocols that you need, without losing deduplication and compression."

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

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

"The initial setup is straightforward."

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

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

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

More DDN IntelliFlash pros

"Speed and reliability:"

"XtremIO is very stable."

"A valuable feature of XtremIO is that, in terms of administration, it's simple and manageable."

"The most valuable feature of Dell EMC XtremIO is the data protection (DP) group, it is one of the most advanced features in these types of arrays. The dedupe and compression that this array provides both do a superb job."

"The feature I like most about Dell Xtremio is its hardware quality compared to other vendors. It's clear they're continuously improving their research and development."

"I rate Dell XtremIO at eight out of ten. It is a product I would recommend to companies where data performance, scalability, and security are highly important due to its beneficial features."

"The most valuable features are that it is fast and reliable."

"The Metro clustering and solid-state performance, are the most valuable features of this solution."

More Dell XtremIO pros

Cons

"We need better data deduplication."

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."

"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."

"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."

"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."

"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."

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

"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

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

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

More DDN IntelliFlash cons

"Ease of use is key in the converged and hyper-converged world that requires administrators to have both hypervisor and storage skills."

"The solution's stability has certain shortcomings where improvements are needed."

"It can be more cost-efficient."

"Native data replication: To replicate data between XtremIO devices, you need to use EMC’s RecoverPoint appliances to move the data."

"I would like to see the ease of deployment and built-in Metro clustering."

"This solution is geared toward enterprise-level companies. Small and medium-sized businesses would find it extremely expensive."

"I am not too impressed with XtremeIO because we had a major failure."

"They can improve the product by providing an HTML5-based interface instead of the Java GUI based application."

More Dell XtremIO cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"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."

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

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."

"Dell XtremIO's price is affordable and I would rate it a five out of ten."

"It's not cheap, but it absolutely gets the job done. I don't have any real comment regarding licensing specifically."

"It is costly but worth it."

"Licensing is approximately $200,000 per year."

"It is great when a product can deliver high-end performance capabilities while offering a very competitive price point."

"With some workloads that benefit from compression and deduplication, costs are actually better than some tier 2 subsystems (while latency remains <1ms)."

"The licensing cost is on a yearly subscription basis, which can be expensive but is necessary for ongoing support and services. The pricing could be improved to make it more accessible."

"Pricing and licensing are in line with other products from other manufacturers. You get what you pay for."

More Dell XtremIO pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user182013

Federal Civ/Intel Engineering Lead at Rubrik

May 1, 2015

Measuring Up: EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR

Leading up to EMC World 2015, IT Central Station asked how I would compare EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR. Until recently, the flash storage conversation in my organization and many others has centered on XtremIO and Pure Storage, the leaders of the all-flash array (AFA) space. To that end, I've written a…

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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

11%

Government

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

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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 ...

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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 like most about Dell EMC XtremIO?

The feature I like most about Dell Xtremio is its hardware quality compared to other vendors. It's clear they're cont...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell XtremIO?

Pricing is hard to determine as it depends on the given configuration. XtremIO offers features that justify a potenti...

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What needs improvement with Dell XtremIO?

The interface could be simplified for beginners to ease the configuration of special objects in the system. While the...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 27% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 18% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

VAST Data vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 34% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 18% of the time

NetApp AFF vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 16% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 12% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 11% of the time

More DDN IntelliFlash Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 24% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 16% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 11% of the time

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 8% of the time

VAST Data vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 8% of the time

More Dell XtremIO Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

July 2025

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Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash

July 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Dell XtremIO

July 2025

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Also Known As

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

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

Dell EMC XtremIO Flash, Dell EMC XtremIO X2, XtremIO, XtremIO X2

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

Bring all-flash, scale-out storage to your enterprise applications with EMC XtremIO. Purpose-built for flash, XtremIO storage arrays are amazingly fast. Delivering high IOPS at less than 1 millisecond latency is just the start. EMC XtremIO helps you harness the power of flash storage by building in innovations like content-based data placement and dual-stage metadata.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

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

Raiffeisen Bank Bulgaria, Wentworth-Douglas Hospital

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell XtremIO

July 2025

Free Report: DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell XtremIO

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

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