Dell PowerMax NVMe vs Dell SC Series comparison

Dell PowerMax NVMe and Dell SC Series are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell PowerMax NVMe is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.5, while Dell SC Series is ranked #18 with an average rating of 9.0. Dell PowerMax NVMe holds a 3.9% mindshare in AFS, compared to Dell SC Series’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell PowerMax NVMe users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Dell SC Series users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Dell SC Series and Dell PowerMax NVMe are often compared for enterprise storage solutions. Dell PowerMax NVMe demonstrates superior performance and scalability, while Dell SC Series is preferred by users for its affordability and support.

Features: Dell SC Series offers efficient storage management, data deduplication, and effective disaster recovery options. Dell PowerMax NVMe excels with high-speed data access, advanced encryption, and a robust multi-tenant architecture for performance-intensive environments.

Room for Improvement: Users of Dell SC Series suggest improving integration capabilities, enhancing user interface, and increasing support for newer technologies. Dell PowerMax NVMe users highlight the need for better cost efficiency, simpler management tools, and improved compatibility with third-party software.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell SC Series users appreciate its straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. Dell PowerMax NVMe, though requiring more complex initial setup, is backed by highly specialized support teams for ongoing maintenance.

Pricing and ROI: Dell SC Series is praised for its lower setup costs and satisfactory ROI. Conversely, Dell PowerMax NVMe offers substantial long-term ROI despite higher initial investment, justified by its advanced features and performance.

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

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Dell SC Series

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 All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerMax NVMe is 3.9%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell SC Series is 0.8%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

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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Steven McClendon

Data Center Server & Storage Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Superior platform with excellent snapshots and cost-saving auto-tiering

I'm a big fan of the SC Series platform. Its feature set is superior to some of the other platforms. The snapshots on SC are excellent, allowing for multiple snapshot schedules for any one system. The auto-tiering functionality intelligently moves new data to the highest performance tier and then progresses it down to less expensive tiers over time, providing cost savings for customers.

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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."

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

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

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"The solution is scalable."

"The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."

"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

"We removed the need to observe whether we ran into issues with the performance of disks or number of IOPS. Previously, our Oracle Database would throw us performance errors. Now, with PowerMax, everything runs smoothly."

"We are able to provide storage at the right service levels without overmanaging it."

"We are using the solution's application and snapshot feature."

"The stability is amazing. Zero downtime reported over the last years."

"The uptime is the most valuable feature."

"It is easy to manage and upgrade."

"PowerMax is a compact high-performance appliance. It is one of the best devices in terms of performance specs. It includes an NVMe All-Flash Array."

"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."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe pros

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

"Connecting it up, you can run it within a few hours."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to replicate. We are running a financial company and it needs to be available 24/7. We can't afford any downtime."

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

"A valuable feature is the performance of the auto-tiering. It will move hot data up to your fastest Tier 1 or move your slow data down. Data progression is what it's called. With the auto-tiering you can have multiple tiers, you can have your Tier 1 be either spinning or flash, all the way down to 7.2K. It will change the RAID on the fly so your writes come in at RAID 10. After they sit for a while, they get converted to RAID 5, then they'll cool off and move down the tiers. Your performance is kept going, while the cold data is moved to your slow, non-performance tiers."

"One time, we had a drive fail and we were notified before we even saw it on the device."

"The solution has a wide variety of valuable features. The data progression works well. We use the snapshot functionality quite a bit and really like it."

"Everything is sub-5 MS for us. What I've found is that, with all-flash, when an app from my business is slow, I pretty much know it's them and not me. It leads to a performance conversation that has really hit an interesting threshold point where we are better than what they need. So now we get to have that "refactoring your application" conversation a lot quicker because now the performance on the infrastructure side isn't in question anymore."

More Dell SC Series pros

Cons

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

"The software layer has to improve."

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

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

"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."

"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."

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"There is room for improvement in the replication. It's an important requirement for us."

"When it comes to Oracle and database workloads, data reduction could be a little bit better. Some of the competition, like Pure, have post-processes which do additional deduplication and compression on the backside; everything is in-line and then they do a secondary process. It would be a good option if you could start getting 5:1 or 6:1 data reduction on database workloads."

"I hear from people on my team that they would like improved reporting. While there are some decent tools for doing reporting, they would like to see a lot more built-in functionality. This way when they are logged into the interface everyday doing basic management tasks, they could also see some statistics on what is their storage pool usage and will be their projected usage with their current data growth. They want to be able to see more detailed stats on how they are using the system and have forecasting."

"The installation of equipment needed support's help."

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

"The main challenge with the product was to have control over the simultaneous failures of controllers. For recovery, manual intervention is required."

"Although they call it unified storage where you have SAN and NAS, with a NAS implementation on top of a SAN, the NAS implementation is a little complicated and clumsy. As SAN, as block storage, it is very powerful... If they could provide a very good NAS implementation, it would be better, so that customers don't have to look for other simple solutions for NAS."

"I think management is where PowerMax is weakest. We're still managing it like we managed EMC arrays in the early 2000s. There's a slicker, fancier GUI that does more things, but at the end of the day, you still have to dig into the command line and issue a lot of the same commands that we still were using almost 20 years ago."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe cons

"Dell could improve the upgrading process."

"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."

"If Dell SC Series could have supported the protocol NVMe over TCP, that would have been great. It does not."

"Compellent comes in the form of a component that's not true of a unified storage platform."

"We had times that we needed a file service solution. We've used FluidFS, but it's a solution that is being transitioned out."

"The initial setup is somewhat complex and should be made simpler to do."

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

More Dell SC Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"The product is expensive."

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

"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 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."

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

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The tool is very expensive."

"The cost is expensive. While VMAX now has good pricing, PowerMax is a little expensive."

"Dell PowerMax NVMe's price is expensive."

"It scales enormously, but it's expensive to do so."

"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."

"From a general capital investment, it's one of the higher price points in the market. It depends on the size and software features that you would include in a system. So, the cost varies dramatically."

"The price is really high."

"The price is starting from $500,000."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe pricing and cost advice

"We were able to afford two tiers of flash storage at a price where the competition was giving us one tier or just a handful of discs."

"We have found it to be affordable. Comparing the cost with other hardware, it seems to be right in line with the compute and the storage that we get with it."

"The pricing of Dell EMC Compellent is competitive."

"Support typically depends on the array. It can range anywhere from $7,000 to a couple of hundred thousand dollars."

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

"There are costs involving the solution, vendor fees and product safety which are additional."

"We have the basic license for the use of this solution and it is a permanent license. The overall cost could be less, it is expensive."

"We have found the solution to be affordable."

More Dell SC Series 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

Government

Computer Software Company

21%

University

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.

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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 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 ...

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

Cost considerations are crucial when choosing between solutions like Dell and NetApp. Sometimes Dell offers better pe...

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What needs improvement with Dell SC Series?

In the future, I want any box that comes on-premises to have the provision to integrate with cloud storage. If I want...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 30% 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 15% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 5% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 27% of the time

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

More Dell PowerMax NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell SC Series

Compared 61% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell SC Series

Compared 10% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell SC Series

Compared 9% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell SC Series

Compared 9% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell SC Series

Compared 6% of the time

More Dell SC Series 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 SC Series

April 2025

Download Dell SC Series product report

Also Known As

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

Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax

SC Series Storage, Compellent

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 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

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Rackspace, Open Line

TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Dell SC Series

April 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Dell SC Series

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Dell SC Series and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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