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Dell PowerMax vs Huawei OceanStor comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 18, 2025

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
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
14th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Dell PowerMax
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (3rd)
Huawei OceanStor
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 Dell PowerMax is 4.1%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Huawei OceanStor is 2.2%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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.
ChukwuemekaOnyemelukwe - PeerSpot reviewer
Uses a proprietary technology with simple interface and has easy deployment
If you are not generating a substantial amount of data, the available storage space might suffice, making scalability less of a concern. However, if your data generation increases and you require more storage, Huawei OceanStor offers solutions to expand your storage capacity. Expanding storage resources can involve additional costs and configuration efforts. Acquiring more storage solutions and ensuring their integration with your existing setup might require a significant investment of time and resources. While this process can be complex, it allows for seamless scalability as your data storage needs grow. I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."
"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."
"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."
"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"The NVMe technology improves input/output performance, making it a valuable asset for our organization's storage solutions."
"The compression and deduplication are always on. We get more than 4:1 capacity savings using them. The efficiency benefits from compression and deduplication are through a specialized hardware module within the storage itself, and that means there is no overhead to the compression and dedupe."
"Dell is the best vendor worldwide, with an end-to-end solution starting from a mouse to Telza Hyperfix or HyperConverged devices."
"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerMax is its reliability."
"The stability is great. It is five nines."
"We find the service level option to provision storage very valuable. The ability to define different service levels for storage groups helps us in prioritizing our workload at the infrastructure level."
"The most valuable feature is its global cache, which allows for uncompromised performance."
"The features I find most valuable about Dell PowerMax are its stability and flexibility."
"Huawei OceanStor is stable and reliable for storage solutions."
"Huawei OceanStor is a good product. Its interface is very simple. The complexities we encounter with recovery points are gone. We just attach to remote storage, click the application, and it starts."
"It is easy to implement or install the tool."
"Huawei OceanStor is designed with built-in high availability features, such as fault tolerance, ensuring consistent data access and minimizing downtime."
"The solution works well for non-critical applications that do not require a heavy workload. The tool's all features are valuable."
"I find the scalability features of OceanStor valuable. Additionally, installation is easy, and it only requires one person to install it. Maintenance is also easy and not a big issue."
"The solution is easy to scale as needed."
"It is a highly available product."
 

Cons

"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"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."
"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."
"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"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."
"There is also room for improvement in the PowerMax architecture and hardware itself. They should design the PowerMax on the basis of PCIe 4.0. I would like to see the possibility of an NVMe drive that operates on PCIe 4.0 and not PCIe 3.0."
"Part validation could be improved."
"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 would like them to continue improving the management tools and continue moving towards a RESTful API versus CLI."
"Setting up PowerMax with VMAX is always complex."
"The tool is costly compared to other similar products. The product's pricing needs to be improved. I would like the product to include the replication feature in its future releases."
"We had challenges again with the initial setup. I don't know if there was a gap during the requirement-collection phase, but the box was partially delivered to us with missing parts and it delayed the implementation by about 60 days. It was not as smooth as I would have hoped."
"Dell PowerMax NVMe needs to increase storage and improve scalability."
"CFS integration is one area where OceanStor has some room for improvement. The CFS on OceanStor is dedicated, so it's not integrated with the existing active directory domain."
"I would like to see more integration features with different platforms."
"The administration should be simplified because there are a large number of options that make it too complicated, and the customers can get confused."
"Huawei currently lacks a solution for high-performance AI, unlike other companies like DDN, WekaIO, or IBM BlueStore."
"A concern with OceanStor is pricing. However, apart from that, there are no significant limitations or technical issues."
"Unfortunately, this product doesn't support Flash Disks, but it's IOPS capacity is a great compromise."
"Huawei is not that cheap."
"The technical support has been a let down for us. It's something the company has to work on. We haven't been satisfied with their level of service."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 licensing is on a yearly basis."
"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."
"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."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"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 pricing is competitive. I would rate the pricing of the solution a six out of ten."
"The cost is expensive. While VMAX now has good pricing, PowerMax is a little expensive."
"The price is starting from $500,000."
"The price is really high."
"Our costs for the product are three million."
"Dell PowerMax NVMe's price is expensive."
"The labor savings and support have been significant. If we're talking 100 hours of labor every three months, that is 100 hours of a database engineer costs. There are performance latency numbers as well as costs associated with recovering data that gets lost, and this system doesn't lose data. You can look at numbers that go around the cost of downtime, if data is not available. This system doesn't go down. Everyone's ROI is going to be unique, but the dependability and performance of the system combined with its ease of operation will definitely save businesses of all sizes money."
"Dell is expensive compared to other products and I would rate its pricing a four out of ten."
"The product is cheap."
"The tool's pricing is competitive and affordable. It has the best possible pricing that we can get from Huawei. The prices are fixed and there are no additional costs."
"Pricing is very fair."
"Huawei OceanStor is a cost-effective storage solution."
"It's roughly affordable."
"Huawei's prices are very good compared to those of its competitors."
"The pricing depends on the features the customer wants, such as storage, RAM, and processors, but in general, Huawei is much cheaper compared to Dell and Cisco."
"Its price is affordable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

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.
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 ...
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...
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.
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.
What do you like most about Huawei OceanStor?
Huawei OceanStor has the capability of SSDs, high-performance disks, and higher disk support.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Huawei OceanStor?
Huawei OceanStor's pricing is very aggressive, making it highly competitive.
What needs improvement with Huawei OceanStor?
Huawei currently lacks a solution for high-performance AI, unlike other companies like DDN, WekaIO, or IBM BlueStore....
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
Dell PowerMax NVMe, Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax
OceanStor Dorado V3 All-Flash Storage System, OceanStor 18000 V3 Series Storage Systems, OceanStor 6800 V3 Storage System
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Rackspace, Open Line
Piraeus, Clinique Univeritaires Saint-Luc
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerMax vs. Huawei OceanStor and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.