Dell SC Series vs SolidFire comparison

Dell Technologies and NetApp are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #17 with an average rating of 8.8, while NetApp is ranked #28 with an average rating of 9.0. Dell Technologies holds a 0.8% mindshare in AFS, compared to NetApp’s 0.2% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

SolidFire and Dell SC Series are competing storage solutions, with each excelling in different areas based on user reviews. SolidFire has the upper hand in pricing and support, while Dell SC Series stands out for its features and performance.

Features: SolidFire's features include automated QoS, seamless scalability, and excellent automation. Dell SC Series offers advanced data progression, robust replication capabilities, and superior data management.

Room for Improvement: SolidFire needs better reporting tools, enhanced performance analytics, and more flexible deployment options. Dell SC Series users seek improved deduplication efficiency, faster support responses, and more intuitive management interfaces.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolidFire has a straightforward deployment process with strong customer support. Dell SC Series has a more complex deployment but also offers commendable support.

Pricing and ROI: SolidFire users report lower initial setup costs and quicker ROI. Dell SC Series has higher setup costs but offers long-term ROI due to its superior features.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell SC Series vs. SolidFire Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series vs. SolidFire

September 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 All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell SC Series is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolidFire is 0.2%, down from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.0%
Dell SC Series	0.8%
SolidFire	0.2%
Other	98.0%

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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RafaelGamaluis

Architect Engineer, IT INFRASTRUCTURES Project Manager at Vilavi

User interface offers clarity and detailed information while technical support consistently delivers

The best features of Dell SC Series are stability and replication. The replication solution is excellent, and they have a solution named Live Migration. It is a robust platform. The interface and the GUI (graphical user interface) for administrating the Compellent are exceptional, with abundant information that is very clear. The management capabilities are excellent, and the stability of our storage hardware is remarkable.

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Ramil Cerrada

Solution lead at Globe Mobile

A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance

The most significant benefit lies in its exceptional performance, driven by its Flash-based architecture. This enhances routing speed and, consequently, database performance. The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance which is particularly valuable for tasks like data mining, where quick results are essential.

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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."

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

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."

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

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."

"The solution is scalable."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The performance benefits weren't surprising, we expected that. What we didn't expect were the densification benefits that we got out of going all-flash. We're able to put more applications on the arrays because of how all-flash performs. The way some of the application profiles have responded to all-flash has been really pleasing."

"In terms of stability, it's good enough. It's okay."

"The flexibility of this solution has been valuable for our business."

"What is most valuable about the Dell EMC SC Series system was its reliability."

"The product offers good performance and is quite powerful."

"Most valuable features have been the system customization with it, the performance you receive, and their CoPilot Support (or Dell EMC Storage Support)."

"The interface is easy to use which makes the product user-friendly."

"There's some new stuff coming with 7.3, which just got released, where they're spreading the sparing across the whole array, rather than having a dedicated spare disk, and have it sit there and do nothing until one of them dies, and then it kicks in - and having to rebuild all of that. Now, they'll do the sparing across all the disks and they say that is going to add not only space but performance to the array, with 7.3."

More Dell SC Series pros

"Greater IOPS, speed, it's all-flash. So seeing that everything is going to all-flash, all SSDs, SolidFire fits right in there with the emerging trend in IT."

"Being able to provide quality of service as promised."

"Overall performance of the solution."

"The quality of service for minimum iOS, to maximum iOS in a multi-terminal environment is very powerful. The SQL service feature is the best part of SolidFire."

"The simplicity of it."

"It's a very compact device. For a medium-sized business, it's very helpful because the device is efficient and very fast."

"If you buy the solution for its specific purpose it will work well."

"If we get complaints about any kind of performance metric issues, whether it's storage related or something on the virtual side, we use it to pinpoint what the actual issue is."

More SolidFire pros

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."

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

"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"We need better data deduplication."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"Dell SC Series is no longer available, while Dell PowerStore, which supports NVMe over TCP, is different and not very affordable."

"I would like to improve the processing ability."

"An issue we had was that the controller went down during an upgrade because of their upgrading the code. One side of the switch was down."

"Some menus aren't so intuitive."

"The SC Series doesn't support NVMe storage."

"One option I would like to see is, when you're up on the view-screen, to be able to incorporate getting to what HPE call the iLO, the Integrated Lights-Out. To be able to get that instead of having to go back and trying to find IP addresses and re-institute those would be good. It would be good to be able to that put on the initial splash screen."

"The connection should be better integrated with the network to offer a better view of the system."

"The tool's pricing is high and not suitable for medium companies."

More Dell SC Series cons

"SolidFire should start from two nodes instead of the four nodes. That's the only thing. In a lot of solutions, we have to use four nodes, that's the better thing. But as a starting point, two is better. That's why their starting point is expensive."

"You don't have business continuity with SolidFire. I think it could be a nice feature to have in the future."

"One of the challenges we faced while using SolidFire was that the product line that we were using in our company was discontinued."

"It's a very good Windows-type solution. But we do a lot of legacy systems and the like. So it's getting that incorporated into it that would help us."

"The technical support is really bad and has to be improved."

"SolidFire could improve in terms of hardware robustness."

"I think there is room for improvement needed with its storage capability. A bigger node is needed."

"I would like to see integration with the cloud, number one. Being able to spin SolidFire in the cloud."

More SolidFire cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

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

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

"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"Pricing depends on varying life cycles."

"We have found the solution to be affordable."

"We have reviewed many platforms over the years. It is probably the best solution for its value."

"The pricing is reasonable, but it is expensive."

"It's absolutely affordable. Again, not having to do a forklift upgrade like some of the others have had to do in the past, it's very affordable for our customers and they continue to buy."

"The pricing of this solution is competitive."

"It is one of the most cost effective systems for us. We have been able to run it longer than most, getting the most benefit and money out of it."

"The maintenance is usually pretty good. It's not like some of the others where they increase it in the fourth, fifth, or sixth years."

More Dell SC Series pricing and cost advice

"We would probably use SolidFire more, except we're getting more bang for our buck with our purchases of ONTAP right now, and the deal we made with NetApp, so it's more of just a cost decision"

"On a scale where one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the solution between three and four. It is an expensive solution."

"The price of this solution is more expensive than others."

"It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for what you get."

"Based on what I heard from other people, its price was on the higher side."

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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

21%

University

Performing Arts

Educational Organization

No data available

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	27
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	19

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	16

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.

See all answers

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 do you like most about Dell SC Series?

I find this version to be more budget-friendly compared to products from other vendors. This aspect greatly benefits ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell SC Series?

In our case, we received favorable pricing with Dell because of our strong partnership. While I acknowledge that Dell...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell SC Series?

For us, it is a great product. The deduplication and compression could potentially be improved, though they are alrea...

See all answers

What do you like most about SolidFire?

The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance w...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolidFire?

It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay fo...

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolidFire?

There is room for improvement with a focus on creating a centralized storage system, functioning similar to AWS. This...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 24% of the time

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell SC Series

Compared 48% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell SC Series

Compared 12% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell SC Series

Compared 9% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell SC Series

Compared 9% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Dell SC Series

Compared 8% of the time

More Dell SC Series Competitors

NetApp AFF vs SolidFire

Compared 100% of the time

More SolidFire Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

August 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series

September 2025

Download Dell SC Series product report

Buyer's Guide

SolidFire

August 2025

Download SolidFire product report

Also Known As

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

SC Series Storage, Compellent

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

Dell EMC SC Series arrays provide a unified platform for the ultimate in performance, adaptability and machine-driven efficiency. SC Series software delivers modern features that help you meet aggressive workload demands using the fewest drives necessary. With an open, future-ready design, SC Series storage integrates seamlessly with applications and infrastructure, enabling you to scale on a single platform and add capabilities without forklift upgrades.

Dell Technologies

SolidFire delivers all five core elements needed to deliver newfound storage agility to your next generation data center and beyond. With SolidFire you can deploy new applications and capabilities faster, provide more agile and scalable infrastructure, increase application performance and predictability, enable automation and end-user self-service and raise operational efficiency and reduce cost.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric

California Public Utilities Commission, RFA, 1&1, Ultimate Software , Endicia, ezVerify, MercadoLibre, Sungard Availability Services, ServInt, Elastx, Hosted Network, Colt, Crucial, iWeb, Datapipe, Databarracks

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series vs. SolidFire

September 2025

Free Report: Dell SC Series vs. SolidFire

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell SC Series vs. SolidFire and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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