Dell PowerMax NVMe vs Dell PowerStore comparison

Dell PowerMax NVMe and Dell PowerStore are both solutions in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category. Dell PowerMax NVMe is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.5, while Dell PowerStore is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7. Dell PowerMax NVMe holds a 8.5% mindshare in N, compared to Dell PowerStore’s 23.7% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell PowerMax NVMe users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Dell PowerStore users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Dell PowerMax NVMe and Dell PowerStore are two leading storage solutions in the market. Dell PowerStore seems to have the upper hand due to its advanced features and adaptable architecture.

Features: Dell PowerMax NVMe is known for its speed, reliability, and efficient use of NVMe technology, handling high I/O workloads efficiently. Dell PowerStore offers a versatile and scalable platform, advanced data services, and seamless integration across various environments.

Room for Improvement: Dell PowerMax NVMe requires more modern management capabilities, improved cloud integration, and better user interface updates. Dell PowerStore could improve its learning curve, offer more detailed documentation, and enhance the setup process for beginners.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerMax NVMe is straightforward to deploy and supported by robust customer service. Dell PowerStore also enjoys positive deployment experiences but comes with higher complexity due to its advanced features. Both receive commendations for customer service, though PowerMax is seen as slightly more accessible during the initial setup.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerMax NVMe offers competitive pricing and strong ROI due to lower long-term costs and straightforward setup. Dell PowerStore, with higher initial investments, provides superior ROI over time due to its forward-looking features and flexibility.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Dell PowerStore Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Dell PowerStore

April 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 May 2025, in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 2.8%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerMax NVMe is 8.5%, down from 12.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 23.7%, down from 26.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature

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. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.

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Haseeb Khalid Sheikh

Senior Manager Enterprise Solutions at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

End-to-end NVMe capabilities helps improve availability, performance, and capacity

The solution's most valuable feature is the data reduction ratio. You can store a 5:1 ratio of your data in Dell PowerMax NVMe. For example, if you have 200 terabytes of usable capacity, you can save up to five times of data on that capacity. That means you can save one petabyte of data on just 200 terabytes of usable capacity. The solution's end-to-end NVMe capabilities have improved our operations. Everything is fast, and you don't have to map your storage to old hybrid storage technologies. Our organization has experienced positive change, and the solution has improved our uptime, availability, performance, and capacity.

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Brian Ricci

President at Pinnacle Computer Services, Inc.

It's constantly enhanced and has impressive reliability and data compression

The maintenance is a bit expensive. The service and support are there for three years, but after the third year, it is pretty pricey for renewal. I hope Dell addresses that. Everything is pricey these days anyway. It is not like the old days of Compellent. We used to be able to see the metrics for our customers. On Compellent, we could look up that customer and see all the metrics. That is not allowed for us now. We cannot do that anymore. I have to be explicitly allowed by the customer to do that, and some companies' security does not allow that.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

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

"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."

"FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle."

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The upgradability and extendibility for the size of the storage unit are noteworthy."

"I am impressed with the tool's reliability since we see a few hardware failures with it. Also, the solution's replication configuration is good."

"The compression and deduplication are the most valuable features because of the cost savings."

"A huge benefit of the PowerMax has been the decreasing of our physical footprint. We recently did a consolidation where we went from 58 tiles down to 5. If we had used just the PowerMax, we could have gone from 58 tiles down to 2 tiles, which is huge space savings. If you have 56 newly available floor tiles on a raised floor data center, which you previously had to cool and provide power to, then now, not only are my costs going down, I now have more revenue opportunities because I have more space to put new customers."

"The solution's snapshot capabilities and replication are very good features. Snapshots are allowing us to quickly build analytical models directly from production data. This gives us amazing insights into market trends and allows us to build more effective trading algorithms. Replication offers us unparalleled levels of resilience."

"Dell support for Dell PowerMax is exceptional, rating a perfect 10 out of 10."

"The high availability that other systems don't have. In other systems, there is an owner in the storage processes. But for PowerMAX, there is no owner. All the process storage is passed to all nodes without ownership. So, there is no response feature in the storage in PowerMax. In the other systems, there is a response, which is a very nice feature. No systems have such a feature."

"It is easy to manage and upgrade."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe pros

"Dell PowerStore's compression and deduplication technologies are a big help for our organization. It's saving us a lot of storage compared to what we were previously using."

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

"The solution is very easy to implement."

"The solution is stable."

"The biggest improvement we found when moving into Dell PowerStore was the deduplication and compression."

"The most valuable feature is the functionality of the integration between the storage and the domain."

"The most valuable feature of the solution for me is the deduplication part, especially since most of the servers in our organization are Windows-based servers."

"Dell PowerStore is an easy and fast tool to work through our company's data."

More Dell PowerStore pros

Cons

"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."

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

"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."

"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."

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

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

"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."

"The software layer has to improve."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The REST API needs improvement. We are a very big automation company, and this would be big for us."

"They should work with the storage engineers to better tweak the management tools to give them improved visibility into their data."

"I'd like to see the dedup and compression improve. Two to one is not very good. We should be getting something like three, four, or five to one."

"Since the merging of EMC and Dell into Dell Technologies, there has been a hurdle that they've had to overcome, and they're not over it yet. It takes two to three times longer for things to get fixed than it did when they were separate companies. That is something that has to be fixed."

"The solution is quite expensive."

"There is room for improvement in adjusting into the existing infrastructure easily without much of the technical contribution."

"We have issues that we don't know about, which Dell EMC fixes."

"One area for improvement would be integration with public cloud services. Compared to competitors such as NetApp, which integrates with public cloud hyperscalers (GCP, Azure, AWS), Dell PowerMax lacks in this aspect."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe cons

"The data resiliency and cybersecurity features of Dell PowerStore are just normal and would be considered medium; we need additional components such as cybersecurity vault for increased resilience."

"Dell PowerStore is an unfinished product compared to the HPE systems because it is relatively new."

"The solution didn't have all of the features we needed."

"More demonstration and training options are needed."

"The pricing could be lower. It is very expensive."

"Sometimes, you have to go back and forth with the technical support team, where they want you to do something you've already done."

"I do not like having to use VPLEX for synchronous replication, as opposed to having the store software built-in."

"The data resiliency and cybersecurity features of Dell PowerStore are just normal and would be considered medium; we need additional components such as cybersecurity vault for increased resilience."

More Dell PowerStore cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"Its price is competitive, but they need to have a different price for West Africa. They can do better with the price point to allow us to scale even more. We wanted to migrate our entire storage infrastructure to PowerMax, which would require us to buy more capacity, and from the price point, it didn't attract us."

"I think it is an expensive tool, but it is the best product. I think it is expensive and the cost one must pay for the best solution."

"Our costs are on a yearly basis."

"The PowerMax appliance pricing was reasonable. Dell EMC quoted us a substantial discount."

"We hope that with the combination of both NVMe and SCM the next PowerMax will be much cheaper that the one which we acquired."

"The pricing for this solution is good compared to other products in the market."

"The cost of the solution is quite noticeable, but it provides a good fit regarding the price of the hardware and all of the required licenses."

"Our costs for the product are three million."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe pricing and cost advice

"When we compared it with the other solutions, the pricing of PowerStore was equal. The pricing is good."

"PowerStore's pricing is reasonable."

"Dell PowerStore charges for the hardware warranty every three years. The price will depend on the storage model or how much hardware it has."

"Pricing depends on the model and negotiation. Sometimes we manage to get good discounts, sometimes not."

"The rate is always too high. Nobody likes paying for it. I have not seen a client yet who says that the price should be higher. Initially, people look at it, but when they see what the benefits are, it is a no-brainer. We can give them good pricing at the outset."

"I rate the price of Dell PowerStore a seven out of ten."

"We are currently using Dell PowerStore for our smaller storage and there is no competition for pricing."

"The solution is expensive."

More Dell PowerStore pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

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.

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.

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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 ...

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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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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.

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

Dell offers various pricing models, including a pay-as-you-go option where storage is provided without upfront charge...

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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 do you like most about Dell EMC PowerStore?

It's a great product. Integrating PowerStore with the IT workflow is easy.

See all answers

Comparisons

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

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 5% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

Dell VMAX All Flash vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 5% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 5% of the time

More Dell PowerMax NVMe Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 14% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 14% of the time

Dell PowerVault vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 9% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 9% of the time

More Dell PowerStore Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

April 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe

April 2025

Download Dell PowerMax NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore

April 2025

Download Dell PowerStore product report

Also Known As

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

Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax

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

Dell PowerMax is the industry’s most secure mission-critical storage platform. With NVMe Dynamic Fabric technology, PowerMax breaks from traditional storage limitations, enabling seamless integration with cloud-native and legacy applications. Designed with a powerful scale-up and scale-out architecture, PowerMax supports mission-critical applications at scale with zero downtime and ultra-low latency. The latest PowerMaxOS 10 release harnesses AI-driven efficiencies for trusted performance, capacity, and security. By choosing PowerMax, you can trust in a secure, intelligent, and always modern storage solution that unlocks the full potential of your data to drive business success.

Dell Technologies

Dell PowerStore stands out for its high performance, flexibility, and easy integration with VMware. It offers notable data compression and deduplication capabilities while providing powerful NVMe support and machine learning to optimize IT operations.

Dell PowerStore is designed to offer a comprehensive approach to IT infrastructure by enhancing performance and simplifying management. It is particularly suitable for companies that require scalable solutions to increase compute or capacity independently. Featuring built-in intelligence, PowerStore allows efficient storage consolidation and reduced footprint, while integration with CloudIQ enhances monitoring and analytics. However, there are areas for improvement, such as stability, enterprise features, and the user interface. Pricing is high, and support responsiveness needs attention. Organizations primarily use PowerStore for VMware environments, storage, and data protection, supporting high-performance databases and VMware workloads. It is utilized in data centers for disaster recovery and hybrid setups.

What are the key features of Dell PowerStore?

Flexibility: Independently scales compute or capacity
High Performance: Offers powerful NVMe support and machine learning
Integration: Easily integrates with VMware
Data Efficiency: Provides data compression and deduplication
Simplified Management: Built-in intelligence for efficient storage management

What benefits should users consider?

Performance Optimization: Enhance IT operations with machine learning
Scalability: Increase compute or storage capacity as needed
Integration Potential: Improve efficiency with VMware and CloudIQ
Data Protection: Reliable for disaster recovery and hybrid environments

In industries like IT, finance, and healthcare, Dell PowerStore supports efficient data management and enhances infrastructure performance. Organizations leverage it to manage extensive data, streamline virtualization processes, and facilitate migration from legacy systems, while integrating cloud and on-premises infrastructures for improved operations.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Rackspace, Open Line

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Dell PowerStore

April 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Dell PowerStore

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