Dell PowerMax vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800 comparison

Dell Technologies and NetApp are both solutions in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category. Dell Technologies is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.9, while NetApp is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.6. Dell Technologies holds a 8.6% mindshare in N, compared to NetApp’s 2.2% mindshare. Additionally, 97% 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 May 18, 2025

Dell PowerMax and NetApp NVMe AFF A800 compete in the high-performance storage market, each bringing unique features. Dell PowerMax seems to have the upper hand in workload consolidation and reduced data center footprints, whereas NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is favored for its ease of management and reliability.

Features: Dell PowerMax offers SRDF replication, REST API integration for automation, and exceptional data compaction through deduplication and compression. Its reliability and scalable architecture are also noteworthy. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 impresses with its fast I/O and low latency, ease of use, and solid performance consistency, which are essential for critical enterprise applications.

Room for Improvement: Dell PowerMax could enhance user-friendliness and simplify its complex management tools, especially in reporting. Stronger NVMe integration and improved automation are desirable, along with cost adjustments. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 should aim to boost IOPS capabilities and become more cost-competitive to widen its market appeal. Pricing considerations remain a notable challenge for both.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerMax is predominantly deployed on-premises, with strong support for private cloud environments. While its deployment process is generally straightforward, some complexities require support, which is effective but can improve in SLA adherence. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 offers flexibility with both public cloud and on-premises installations, and users find its deployment to be straightforward. Both companies provide commendable customer support; however, Dell's escalation paths could be faster.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerMax demands a high upfront investment but yields significant ROI through workload consolidation and reduced maintenance costs. Its pricing is competitive but requires careful negotiation for enterprise agreements. In contrast, NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is perceived as expensive but aligns its costs with comprehensive support and performance. Both products deliver clear investment value through performance reliability and operational efficiency, with Dell offering a more direct approach to ROI through resource consolidation.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerMax vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 Report (Updated: May 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800

May 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 July 2025, in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 2.7%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerMax is 8.6%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is 2.2%, down from 3.4% 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.

Read full review

MayankChauhan

Lead Consultant - Cloud & Infrastructure Services at Infosys

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.

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Tanveer Rahman

Chief Technical Office at Novotel Ltd.

A scalable solution that serves as a storage for the cloud services opted by organizations

My company uses NetApp NVMe AFF A800 as storage for our cloud The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O. The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better. I don't expect to see additional…

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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 has good, reliable, fast storage."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."

"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."

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

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."

"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."

"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."

"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The SRDF site-to-site replication for the volumes is the most important feature for us. That enables us to do site recovery and replication for our VMware infrastructure."

"We have worked with customer success support, and the service is very good."

"The performance is very good on our servers. It's superior. And the QoS capabilities for providing work congestion protection are also important because about 99 percent of our servers are production servers."

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

"It significantly simplifies storage."

"Dell is the best vendor worldwide, with an end-to-end solution starting from a mouse to Telza Hyperfix or HyperConverged devices."

"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."

"We like the compression, dedupe, and I/O on the PowerMax. They are better than on the XtremIO."

More Dell PowerMax pros

"The storage features are valuable."

"Over the eight years, we've been using NetApp with ONTAP, we've never lost a bit of data, and we've only experienced a few minutes of downtime in that entire time."

"The most valuable features are stability and performance."

"We find the product to be very flexible."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O."

"The product can be scaled vertically as well as horizontally."

"You can easily scale up, and scale-out."

"NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is easier to use than some other solutions and the UI is very good to use for day-to-day activities. Overall, the solution has good technology."

More NetApp NVMe AFF A800 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."

"I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert."

"It is on the expensive side."

"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."

"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."

"We need better data deduplication."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"There are quite a few design areas where I have been trying to understand why it has been designed in certain ways. This includes redundancy at the engine level, the virtual engines, or the directors that are installed."

"Dell PowerMax or Symmetrix is a block-level storage and unified storage, supporting both NAS and SAN. One area for improvement would be integration with public cloud services."

"The teams and SMEs on my teams may have user interface and other configuration requests. For example, there might be things that engineers do at the command line that GUIs don't do."

"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."

"The tool needs to improve its performance. Today's applications are demanding a response rate of one millisecond or below. The product should also look into AI integration."

"There is some room to grow, especially with some of the installation quirks."

"Setting up PowerMax with VMAX is always complex."

"The price could be lower, and we are unhappy with the price."

More Dell PowerMax cons

"The technical support has room for improvement."

"The initial setup is complex."

"Increasing the RAM, and including physical cords would be beneficial."

"The initial setup should be easier, and more like a plug-and-play approach."

"The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better."

"Stability is an area with a certain shortcoming where the solution needs to improve"

"The cost of the solution is quite high. It would be ideal if they could adjust it so that it's a but less."

"The product’s UI could be better."

More NetApp NVMe AFF A800 cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"The product is expensive."

"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."

"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

"The pricing is competitive. I would rate the pricing of the solution a six out of ten."

"The pricing might be a bit high for small organizations, so it's more suitable for larger enterprises."

"Since Dell PowerMax NVMe is an enterprise storage, its price is premium."

"The pricing is comparable to other vendors."

"It is high-end storage and it is a bit expensive, but it is doing what it is meant for: running business-critical applications or latency-sensitive applications..."

"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."

"From reclaiming data center space which is so tightly constrained these days, it will pay for itself in a short amount of time, which is fantastic. Anything we can do to get more out of our current physical data center space helps us a ton, and PowerMax has helped enable that."

"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."

More Dell PowerMax pricing and cost advice

"The solution is expensive."

"Considering the requirements and the situation, I don't feel that this is an expensive product."

"Though NetApp NVMe AFF A800 may seem like a highly-priced product, it is not extremely expensive."

"There are licenses for the use of this solution, such as commercial licenses."

"I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Manufacturing Company

22%

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Educational Organization

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.

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 ...

See all answers

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...

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 NetApp NVMe AFF A800?

The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp NVMe AFF A800?

Though NetApp NVMe AFF A800 may seem like a highly-priced product, it is not extremely expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp NVMe AFF A800?

The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better. I don't expect to s...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 29% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 19% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% 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

Compared 27% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 13% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 10% of the time

Dell VMAX All Flash vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 9% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 5% of the time

More Dell PowerMax Competitors

NetApp ASA vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 26% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 21% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 16% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 11% of the time

More NetApp NVMe AFF A800 Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

June 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax

June 2025

Download Dell PowerMax product report

Buyer's Guide

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

June 2025

Download NetApp NVMe AFF A800 product report

Also Known As

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

Dell PowerMax NVMe, Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax

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 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

Your data is a gold mine. Get the most out of it - faster - with AFF A800. Designed for NVMe media, further accelerated with NVMe/FC connectivity to the host, AFF A800 all-flash systems deliver an incredible sub-200 microsecond latency. Providing more than 11.4M IOPS and 300GB/s throughput in a single cluster, AFF A800 redefines the limit of what’s possible with artificial intelligence and deep learning.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Rackspace, Open Line

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800

May 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerMax vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800

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