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Dell PowerMax vs Hitachi VSP 5000 Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
Dell PowerMax
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (5th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (3rd)
Hitachi VSP 5000 Series
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (14th)
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
Gouranga Maiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Project Manager IT at ITC Ltd
High‑performance all‑flash storage has transformed data warehousing and reporting speed
The features of Dell PowerMax that I find most valuable so far include its all-flash capability, along with its performance, reliability, and efficiency. Additionally, it has snapshot-level features that allow me to take snapshots or backups within only a few seconds. There is no need to wait long, and unnecessary high bandwidth used for backup does not occur because I can take the whole snapshot backup within a fraction of a second. I have used the deduplication feature of Dell PowerMax. Deduplication and compression are very effective, so despite my large amount of data, the effective size is reduced due to this deduplication and compression, allowing me to store more data on the same storage. Regarding the impact of Dell PowerMax's real-time data encryption on my data protection strategies, I have not used that feature personally. However, in another department, my colleagues are using it, and they have not faced any performance bottlenecks due to data encryption. The encryption is very powerful, but I have not implemented that encryption in our database data warehouse systems since they are for internal use only, not exposed worldwide. At first, I faced several issues, and our report rendering complaints were quite annoying. However, now with Dell PowerMax storage's high IOPS handling capabilities, the output comes within a fraction of a second, making our users happy. Whatever our requirement or demand is, it has already been implemented in Dell PowerMax with its all-flash NVMe storage. New bricks can also be added if a size increase is required, allowing for additional bricks to be added as needed. Everything is in place; therefore, I do not think any other improvements are required. However, it is worth noting that Dell is continuously inventing and releasing more powerful types of storage. This results in increased reliability, enhanced data handling capabilities, improved deduplication ratios, and the fulfillment of more IOPS demand.
Patrick Ammann - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Administrator at Post CH AG
Provides reliable performance but could benefit from better deduplication management and intuitive admin tools
Regarding the NVMe over Fabrics feature of Hitachi VSP 5000 Series, we tested it, but there was no admin tool available for configuration until about a year ago. This was problematic for us, so we decided not to use it until we have the proper management tools. The main difficulty with this feature is that it's not supported for GAD devices, so Global-Active Devices are not supported with NVMe. That's basically what all our ESX platform is based on. We believe we would get the most benefit if we could use it in the ESX platform, but it's not supported yet. The deduplication impacts the quality of block storage that system administrators were accustomed to, resulting in increased service time due to the high CPU usage. The whole deduplication should be handled better in the next Plattform, should not have such a high impact on contoller CPU usage. The admin tools, called Ops Center Suite, have been inadequate for years, which Hitachi acknowledges. We had to find other vendors to provide a simple, fast GUI to provision storage. There are limitations, such as a storage pool only having 1024 pool volumes, which means the storage pool is maximum three petabyte in space. This requires building multiple storage pools, resulting in multiple pools where you have to keep some space as reserve. Having more than one storage pool forces you to have multiple times some percentage of storage capacity as a reserve, that you paid for but can't use it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is easy to deploy and it's all-flash, so it's very fast."
"We also like the compactness, the small footprint. It takes up very little space in a data center and uses little power."
"Data deduplication features make it easier to manage storage and forecast growth."
"If you're interested in using this solution, I recommend that you do the same — see if you like it."
"Pure gives us better compression, it's easier to manage, a lot less hands-on."
"Pure Storage FlashArray provides immediate benefits to our customers with its easy setup process, allowing for instant use and rapid realization of advantages."
"Very efficient storage"
"It reduces space and the polar consumption. It also accelerates the application."
"The most important feature or function in Dell PowerMax is the capacity to deliver the required IOPS."
"It is very stable. We expect superior performance and reliability from this particular storage system."
"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."
"It is a good solution for any environment; you won't face any issues in terms of performance and stability."
"We used to have a VMAX 20K but we have just upgraded, and moved two or three generations ahead to PowerMax, and the response time is great."
"We have impeccable uptime in our data center with very strict SLAs and have had zero downtime."
"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."
"Technical support has been excellent."
"One of the best features of the Hitachi VSP 5000 Series is the stability of the product."
 

Cons

"Its price needs improvement. Its price is almost double than any other flash storage solution."
"The support for NFS protocols right out-of-the-box need improvement. I'm used to other storage vendors who have NFS support right out-of-the-box, and Pure Storage doesn't seem to have anything."
"We would like to integrate it more with our backup solutions."
"The scalability of the solution is extremely costly."
"Pure Storage takes a hit in the minds and opinions of some of the customers because they cannot customize things as much as compared to a legacy storage provider's appliance such as NetApp, Dell EMC, or even HPE."
"It was not proactive communication."
"In the configuration, which we brought in or tested it in, it has a very limited config as far as the array goes. That said, it still did more than our anticipation."
"The number of Filesystems is limited, which it is not on the EMC VNX."
"I'm not a fan of the UI that they've deployed over the recent years; I feel that you can do more with the command line platform than you can with the actual UI."
"I would like to see continued visibility and analytics in the platform."
"I would like to see more development in the cloud environment. It would be good if it comes in the cloud kind of setup."
"The price could be lower, and we are unhappy with the price."
"There is room for improvement in the replication. It's an important requirement for us."
"Firmware updates are a bit painful because you have to involve their support, as opposed to having the ability to do it yourself."
"The NVMe integration could be improved."
"Dell can improve the Service Level Agreement (SLA) compliance. Sometimes, when we need to replace a component, the SLA says four hours, but for some reason, the technician doesn't arrive until the next business day or even six to eight hours later before the case is placed. So, focusing on respecting the SLA is where Dell could improve."
"The whole deduplication should be handled better in the next platform and should not have such a high impact on controller CPU usage."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pure Storage is all-flash, so this sometimes tends to make it a bit more expensive in the beginning."
"We lost a lot of customers because we couldn't compete on price with other vendors."
"We have an Evergreen Storage subscription, which I think is a great feature."
"The price of Pure Storage FlashArray could always improve. They are still more expensive than some alternative offerings. Cost is always a concern and when there is a battle they tend to be more expensive."
"I have had a couple of customers who have complained about the cost. It can be a little more expensive than some of the other platforms. After it has been installed, I have never had a customer say, "I wish we wouldn't have spent all that extra money." They have always been happy with the product after it has been installed. They might be on the fence about it because of the price, but everybody who I have ever seen install it, they are always happy with it."
"Pure Storage FlashArray's pricing is very competitive."
"While more expensive than NetApp, Pure Storage FlashArray offers superior performance that often justifies the higher cost and adds value overall."
"Pure Storage has not helped to reduce our HANA licensing costs."
"The pricing for this solution is good compared to other products in the market."
"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 pricing might be a bit high for small organizations, so it's more suitable for larger enterprises."
"I rate Dell PowerMax NVMe a five out of ten for pricing."
"Support pricing is very high. Our support contract is about to expire and Dell EMC provided us with an extremely high renewal quote. It was four times more than the support contract for our previous EMC VNX solution."
"The cost has room for improvement."
"The price is starting from $500,000."
"Dell is expensive compared to other products and I would rate its pricing a four out of ten."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
7%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise62
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I find the pricing of Everpure FlashArray to be quite high compared to other storage solutions; however, the reliabil...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I believe we have covered the most important features; the architecture of Pure Storage is essential, and features su...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was great.
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe?
Dell PowerMax can be improved because there are very strict guidelines when it comes to installation and the amount o...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hitachi VSP 5000 Series?
The cost of the solution is always too expensive, though it's difficult to make a direct comparison as all competitor...
What needs improvement with Hitachi VSP 5000 Series?
Regarding the NVMe over Fabrics feature of Hitachi VSP 5000 Series, we tested it, but there was no admin tool availab...
What is your primary use case for Hitachi VSP 5000 Series?
My main use cases for Hitachi VSP 5000 Series are basically all the block storage, mainly DBs and ESX.
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
Dell PowerMax NVMe, Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Rackspace, Open Line
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Nutanix and others in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays. Updated: July 2026.
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