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Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe comparison

Dell Technologies and Pure Storage are both solutions in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category. Dell Technologies is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.9, while Pure Storage is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.6. Dell Technologies holds a 8.6% mindshare in N, compared to Pure Storage’s 2.7% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Pure Storage users who would recommend it.
Dell PowerMax
Read 84 Dell PowerMax reviews
  • 5,104 Views
  • 2,144 Comparison Views
97% willing to recommend
Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Read 36 Pure FlashArray X NVMe reviews
  • 1,757 Views
  • 914 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on May 18, 2025

In the enterprise storage category, Dell PowerMax and Pure FlashArray X NVMe both compete with their high-end features and performance. Dell PowerMax appears to have the upper hand due to its extensive integration options and reliability in complex environments, while Pure FlashArray X NVMe excels in ease of use and data handling efficiency.

Features: Dell PowerMax impresses with SRDF replication, comprehensive analytics, and high performance with low latency. Its integration capabilities with existing systems make it suitable for complex enterprise environments. Pure FlashArray X NVMe is known for its low latency, efficient data reduction, and simplified management, which make it a favorite for ease of use.

Room for Improvement: Dell PowerMax users seek better NVMe over Fibre Channel support and find room to enhance management tools and interface intuitiveness. Improvements in deduplication and compression are also desired. In contrast, Pure FlashArray X NVMe's pricing structure is a concern, and users seek improved cloud integration and redundancy, along with better replication features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerMax is praised for robust customer support, although some SLA adherence issues are noted. Its extensive support network aids in complex deployments. Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers a straightforward setup and easy deployment, despite some support language barriers. It's deployed in hybrid and cloud settings widely.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerMax is costly but justified by features and savings achieved through consolidation and efficiency, delivering a strong ROI. Users of Pure FlashArray X NVMe find it expensive, yet competitive, due to powerful features. While Dell users benefit from cost efficiencies, Pure Storage's customers appreciate its performance and regular updates for simplifying operations.

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To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerMax vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe Report (Updated: July 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Dell PowerMax vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe
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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
8.2
Dell PowerMax delivers cost savings, enhanced efficiency, increased uptime, and improved performance, leading to high user satisfaction and ROI.
Sentiment score
1.0
Organizations reduced costs and improved performance with Pure FlashArray X NVMe, achieving quick ROI and efficient resource management.
During a DCDR setup and migration from VMAX to Dell PowerMax, what was planned as a two-day downtime was completed in just three to four hours.
The performance metrics or benchmarks I use to measure success with Dell PowerMax include uptime as well as our response times on our platforms, both of which are exactly where we want them to be, which is five nines and as fast as possible.
My client has seen significant ROI since the install, and when you don't go down, that's an ROI in and of itself.
For more quotes and insights, download the Dell PowerMax report
By opting for the gold subscription every three years, you get a free upgrade to the latest controller release.
If you wait more than seven years to buy another one, you get a return on your investment.
For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report
Jasdevjuneja - PeerSpot reviewerreviewer2706717 - PeerSpot reviewer
RG
SajithEruvangai - PeerSpot reviewerEugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.4
Dell PowerMax's customer service is highly rated for promptness and knowledge, despite some issues with SLA and language barriers.
Sentiment score
7.1
Pure FlashArray X NVMe's technical support is praised for responsiveness, despite occasional follow-up issues, earning high customer satisfaction.
I would rate Dell PowerMax support as a ten, as I have never had an issue with Dell support as it relates to this product.
Dell support for Dell PowerMax is exceptional, rating a perfect 10 out of 10.
I evaluate Dell's support for PowerMax as very good, especially regarding their response time as well as their willingness to get ahead of issues.
For more quotes and insights, download the Dell PowerMax report
With Pure FlashArray X NVMe, we need to escalate the issue and get an account manager for its resolution.
We also had one outage where a controller of one of the products had failed and had to be replaced on-site.
Customers always have their issues resolved promptly.
For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report
RG
Jasdevjuneja - PeerSpot reviewerreviewer2706717 - PeerSpot reviewer
VS
reviewer943512 - PeerSpot reviewerEugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Dell PowerMax provides scalable, efficient performance with NVMe, valued for enterprise use despite some cost and scaling speed concerns.
Sentiment score
7.1
Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers scalable storage with low latency, easy upgrades, though capacity customization and high costs are noted.
Scalability is not an issue.
Dell PowerMax is good for enterprises, and it also depends on how much workload you're going to bring in on Dell PowerMax in terms of performance and how many users are going to use the database you're hosting.
Volumes can be defined to grow to any level without impacting overall performance.
For more quotes and insights, download the Dell PowerMax report
You cannot increase capacity if latency is present.
It is highly scalable.
It is suitable for both medium-sized and enterprise businesses.
For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report
reviewer2706753 - PeerSpot reviewerMayankChauhan - PeerSpot reviewerJasdevjuneja - PeerSpot reviewer
VS
Joerg Utesch - PeerSpot reviewerJaka Demšar - PeerSpot reviewer
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.7
Dell PowerMax is highly rated for reliability, performance, and stability, with quick support for occasional issues.
Sentiment score
8.1
Pure Storage offers exceptional stability and reliability with outstanding support, consistently achieving high user ratings for performance and service.
These patches can be applied on the fly without requiring software upgrades or system downtime.
I would rate it nine out of ten since there are no required downtimes, even during firmware upgrades.
There has been no downtime with Dell PowerMax; it's been extremely reliable, easy to manage, easy to upgrade, and trustworthy as we've upgraded over the years from one version to another.
For more quotes and insights, download the Dell PowerMax report
During the eight years, there have been no problems such as hardware failure or stopping.
I would rate the stability of the solution as a ten out of ten.
I would rate the stability of the product at seven out of ten.
For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report
Jasdevjuneja - PeerSpot reviewerMoin-Shah - PeerSpot reviewer
RG
Gokhan Dikmen - PeerSpot reviewerSajithEruvangai - PeerSpot reviewer
GC
 

Room For Improvement

Dell PowerMax needs improvements in deduplication, UI, cloud integration, cost efficiency, AI, security, and system setup.
Pure FlashArray X requires cost-effective improvements in UI, integration, cloud features, multitenancy, analytics, backup, AI, and scalability.
Compared to competitors such as NetApp, which integrates with public cloud hyperscalers (GCP, Azure, AWS), Dell PowerMax lacks in this aspect.
Dell can assist by providing plug-and-play integrated templates that allow customers to drag, drop, modify, and connect with any target system for generating snapshots without logging into the storage directly.
Dell PowerMax NVMe is very reliable storage and cannot experience downtime.
For more quotes and insights, download the Dell PowerMax report
Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe.
We would appreciate a built-in transparent failover in the next release to eliminate the need for a separate metro cluster.
I'm eagerly anticipating the roadmap's promise of introducing multiple controllers, which could significantly boost scalability and resilience.
For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report
Jasdevjuneja - PeerSpot reviewerMoin-Shah - PeerSpot reviewerKazi Amranul Houqe - PeerSpot reviewer
VS
Joerg Utesch - PeerSpot reviewerSajithEruvangai - PeerSpot reviewer
 

Setup Cost

Dell PowerMax is costly yet competitive, appreciated for total ownership value, offering various pricing models and potential savings.
Enterprise buyers see Pure FlashArray X NVMe as a justified premium investment due to performance and comprehensive licensing.
The higher cost compared to other vendors is justified by additional features, vendor-managed upgrades, and superior support services.
It is the best choice for large projects in terms of price and features compared to midrange solutions.
The price is starting from $500,000.
For more quotes and insights, download the Dell PowerMax report
While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits.
The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there.
Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products.
For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report
Jasdevjuneja - PeerSpot reviewerGianpaolo-Mazzola - PeerSpot reviewer
MA
Enes SUZER - PeerSpot reviewerEugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
VS
 

Valuable Features

Dell PowerMax offers advanced performance, security, and efficiency through NVMe, data reduction, and seamless integration, supporting diverse workloads.
Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers exceptional performance, reliability, scalability, and seamless VMware integration, enhancing workload efficiency and user experience.
NVMe provides additional fast cache, similar to random access memory (RAM), which improves overall system performance and read/write experience for users.
Dell PowerMax NVMe is very supportive of our operational growth since we require daily performance from our core banking systems and need to facilitate data movement efficiently.
The key benefits of using Dell PowerMax, quantified in terms of saved hours and saved costs, is having one single platform that provides functionality to all of our internal customers.
For more quotes and insights, download the Dell PowerMax report
Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator.
The platform's robust features include excellent sustainability tracking, and a comprehensive dashboard offering insights into IOPS, bandwidth, performance, and virtual activities.
Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen.
For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report
Jasdevjuneja - PeerSpot reviewerMoin-Shah - PeerSpot reviewerreviewer2706717 - PeerSpot reviewerGokhan Dikmen - PeerSpot reviewerSajithEruvangai - PeerSpot reviewerEugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerMax
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
7th
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
14th
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
6th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of Dell PowerMax is 8.6%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 2.7%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
 

Featured Reviews

MayankChauhan - PeerSpot reviewer
Delivers essential support and performance for intensive operations in real-time environments
Our infrastructure is spread across the private as well as a public cloud. Our requirement was that the IOPS latency should not be more than one millisecond. If anything goes beyond one millisecond, it's a problem for us. We wanted a system that could handle the transactions and meet our latency requirements. There are performance benefits for sure. The amount of deduplication and compression offered by Dell PowerMax is quite good, especially with databases. Dell PowerMax delivers optimum performance and reliable support, integral for handling failures and ensuring operational continuity. The performance capacity optimization and support we receive from Dell are also valuable.
Read full review
Jaehoon Oh - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Read full review
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 offerings and integrated into the PowerStoreOS. The installation and setup have a ...
See all answers
What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe?
First, it's an enterprise storage solution. This is very important for us. Another important feature is replication.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe?
When comparing Dell PowerMax NVMe with other vendors, such as IBM enterprise solutions, the price is relatively higher.
See all answers
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.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges. This is one of the main things organizations need.
See all answers
 

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Dell PowerMax Logo
Dell PowerStore vs Dell PowerMax
Compared 27% of the time
HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerMax Logo
HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerMax
Compared 13% of the time
Dell VMAX All Flash vs Dell PowerMax Logo
Dell VMAX All Flash vs Dell PowerMax
Compared 10% of the time
IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerMax Logo
IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerMax
Compared 10% of the time
Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerMax Logo
Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerMax
Compared 5% of the time
More Dell PowerMax Competitors
Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe Logo
Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Compared 28% of the time
TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe Logo
TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Compared 19% of the time
Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe Logo
Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Compared 14% of the time
IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe Logo
IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Compared 11% of the time
HPE Nimble Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe Logo
HPE Nimble Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Compared 5% of the time
More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Dell PowerMax
July 2025
Dell PowerMax reportDownload Dell PowerMax product report
Buyer's Guide
Pure FlashArray X NVMe
June 2025
Pure FlashArray X NVMe reportDownload Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report
 

Also Known As

Dell PowerMax NVMe, Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax
Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
 

Overview

Dell PowerMax offers robust performance, reliability, and efficient data handling. It is recognized for its compression, deduplication, and NVMe technology, significantly benefiting data centers with its advanced replication and uptime.

PowerMax is equipped to handle mission-critical applications, providing impressive performance metrics with low latency and high IOPS capacity. Its CloudIQ and Unisphere interfaces enhance manageability, while REST API support simplifies storage management. Users in sectors like healthcare, finance, and telecommunications leverage its capabilities for database management, high-transaction block storage, and disaster recovery. However, opportunities for improving deduplication efficiency, interface complexity, and automation remain.

What are the key features of Dell PowerMax?
  • Data Reduction: Combines compression and deduplication for efficient storage use.
  • NVMe Technology: Enables swift data handling with high throughput.
  • CloudIQ and Unisphere: Streamlines manageability and control.
  • REST API Support: Simplifies integration with management tools.
  • High Availability: Ensures consistent uptime across platforms.
What benefits should users look for in reviews?
  • Performance Metrics: Look for low latency and high IOPS as indicators.
  • Reliability: Consistent operations with minimal interruptions.
  • Manageability: Efficient control over storage environments.
  • Cost Efficiency: Note any potential savings in data processing and storage.

Industries utilize Dell PowerMax to support diverse environments like VMware, Oracle, and PostgreSQL. It serves multiple sectors such as healthcare, finance, and government, aiding in data storage consolidation, disaster recovery, and high-availability hosting for critical systems and applications.

Dell Technologies

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
 

Sample Customers

Rackspace, Open Line
Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Buyer's Guide
Dell PowerMax vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe
July 2025
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