Dell PowerMax vs HPE Alletra Storage comparison

Dell Technologies and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.9, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #3 with an average rating of 9.0. Dell Technologies holds a 4.1% mindshare in AFS, compared to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s 9.8% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on May 18, 2025

Dell PowerMax and HPE Alletra Storage are competing solutions in the enterprise storage category. Dell PowerMax holds an advantage in advanced data services and integration, while HPE Alletra Storage stands out for predictive analytics and ease of integration.

Features: Dell PowerMax is noted for its advanced replication capabilities, performance with NVMe technology, and efficient Unisphere management. Users appreciate its compression and deduplication for cost-effectiveness, though seek higher efficiency ratios. HPE Alletra Storage highlights its InfoSight analytics for predictive insights, ease of integration, and strong data availability guarantees, offering an on-premise cloud-like experience.

Room for Improvement:Dell PowerMax could enhance deduplication and compression efficiency, improve API integrations, and refine reporting capabilities for simpler storage management. HPE Alletra Storage needs improved cloud integration and a more intuitive interface to reduce implementation demands and support diverse workloads. Users request better documentation and flexibility in system configurations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerMax is effective in on-premises deployments, but has room to enhance SLA compliance and regional support. HPE Alletra Storage offers adaptability in hybrid environments, with proactive issue resolution via InfoSight, although cloud platform integration could be improved for setup streamlining.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerMax is considered costly, especially in maintenance, but offers ROI through performance and system reliability. HPE Alletra Storage provides competitive pricing with cost-effective models like GreenLake, although both vendors are similarly positioned in high-performance enterprise storage costs, suitable for complex environments.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerMax vs. HPE Alletra Storage Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. HPE Alletra Storage

June 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 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 HPE Alletra Storage is 9.8%, up from 1.6% 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.

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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Anand Algesan

Database Administrator at CyrusOne

Provisioning and encryption ease improve data storage efficiency

To improve HPE Alletra Storage, it needs to have a true active-active controller; it claims to have an active-active controller from the back end, however, the second node is pretty much sitting there doing nothing. The MV 10000 series, which is the next series, is an improvement to HPE Alletra, and HPE is already doing that. In the next release, I would prefer to see better dedupe features; I know other companies do excellent dedupe, and they have protection group policies, meaning you have immutable data in case of a ransomware attack. If you're on the SAN, it should give you a way to protect that data without being erased. Other vendors have that capability built-in, ensuring that you can't erase the data, so features similar to that would be great.

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

"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."

"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."

"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."

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

"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."

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

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

"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The performance is very good. Our predominant workloads are all less than 5 milliseconds and it's most common to have a sub-1-millisecond response time for our applications. In terms of efficiency, we've turned on compression and we're able to get as high as two-to-one compression on our workloads, on average."

"For the migration process from the older VMAX arrays to PowerMax, we VMotioned everything. It was easy."

"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."

"The most important feature or function in Dell PowerMax is the capacity to deliver the required IOPS."

"We were able to move away from a middleware solution for high availability, going right to snapshots and data replication on arrays."

"Technical support for Dell PowerMax NVMe is good, and I am satisfied with the assistance provided."

"It significantly simplifies storage."

"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerMax is its reliability."

More Dell PowerMax pros

"The solution's most valuable features are reliable storage, speed, and performance."

"The most value aspect is the data reduction and compression."

"Alletra's performance has been very good."

"The GreenLake AI Ops enables me to get assistance from the senior support engineers without having to go through support escalations."

"The features of HPE Alletra Storage that I appreciate the most are the ease of management via CLI, as we have written many homegrown scripts that access the CLI to automate our processes to either increase storage, create snapshots, and refresh snapshots."

"The feature I appreciate most about HPE Alletra Storage is its simplicity."

"The ease of setup was huge for me, as I'm the only storage admin for our company."

"It took nothing really to set it up. It was all online, and we were able to set it up and start using it within about three hours."

More HPE Alletra Storage pros

Cons

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

"The software layer has to improve."

"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."

"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."

"We need better data deduplication."

"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."

"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"We've had issues with whole waves of memory DIMMs that had to be replaced in a machine, which is 32 sticks of memory in one director. It was a tedious day; we've had that on multiple arrays due to a bad batch of memory."

"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."

"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."

"I would like to see more security features and improvements in the platform's ease of management."

"I would like NVMe to be end-to-end in the next release. Right now, it is not end-to-end."

"The solution should include more AI features to make it smarter."

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

"Support of the product can be slow and an administrative challenge: planning, scheduling, and overseeing data center access for a Dell EMC rep. One improvement could be to enable a self-maintenance option. The requirements that we go through to get Dell EMC onsite to replace failed drives, power supplies, and other small redundant parts can be unnecessarily complex. If simplified, they could send us the parts, then we could replace them much faster, more easily, and truly within the SLA parameters."

More Dell PowerMax cons

"The best way forward is to continue keeping the product lines within the Alletra brand specialized to what makes them good, ensuring that the features from where 3PAR was good, Nimble was good, and Apollo was good are maintained so that customers who have relied on them can continue to count on their availability."

"I would like to see more compression and more scalability in the next release of HPE Alletra Storage."

"HPE Alletra Storage does not provide a cloud-like operational model on-premises for managing data infrastructure."

"Pricing is on the higher side; this is a disadvantage that has to be reduced."

"The biggest challenge was again down on that unit. The power supply was not the correct power supply, and it took forever for them to send me the one that I needed. It took five months to get it."

"I would like to see the costs of HPE Alletra Storage go down a little bit. Everybody would want that."

"When you configure it, the system has to be connected to the Internet. Otherwise, you cannot configure it. That is the most difficult part. They need to have something that does not require a connection to the Internet."

"HPE Alletra Storage does not provide a cloud-like operational model on-premises for managing data infrastructure."

More HPE Alletra Storage cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"Our costs for the product are three million."

"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 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."

"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."

"The price is okay."

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

"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."

"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..."

More Dell PowerMax pricing and cost advice

"The solution is expensive and can cost around five lakhs."

"It is reasonably priced."

"Overall, it was good. It had a good price per gigabyte."

"So far, so good."

"HPE was a clear winner on price per terabyte. It was very smooth."

"For us, its price is good."

"Its price can be optimized."

"There is a license. HPE Alletra uses a cloud-based model."

More HPE Alletra Storage pricing and cost advice

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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

Computer Software Company

17%

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.

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 HPE Alletra?

It offers rich features and high speed for transferring data.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Alletra?

Its price can be optimized. The cost before deployment is significant to customers, but post-deployment cost analysis...

See all answers

What needs improvement with HPE Alletra?

The user interface, configuration, and customization could be improved, though the configuration is currently very ea...

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

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

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 4% of the time

More Dell PowerMax Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Alletra Storage

Compared 27% of the time

HPE Primera vs HPE Alletra Storage

Compared 14% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs HPE Alletra Storage

Compared 10% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE Alletra Storage

Compared 7% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs HPE Alletra Storage

Compared 5% of the time

More HPE Alletra Storage 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

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Buyer's Guide

HPE Alletra Storage

June 2025

Download HPE Alletra Storage 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

HPE Alletra Storage is designed for high-performance virtualization, data centers, and hyper-converged infrastructures, supporting applications with block storage and databases across sectors like healthcare and finance.

HPE Alletra Storage excels in delivering low-latency, high-I/O operations and data reduction capabilities. It integrates seamlessly with VMware and vCenter, handling large SQL databases and multiple virtual machines efficiently. Its features, such as NVMe drives and predictive analytics with InfoSight, offer a streamlined management experience. However, users seek improvements in NVMe tier integration, a more compact chassis design, and better energy efficiency. The operational efficiency is increased by reducing data provisioning time and enhancing storage performance for complex environments.

What are the key features of HPE Alletra Storage?

Seamless vCenter Integration: Enhances virtualization management.
High IOPS NVMe Drives: Delivers high-speed and low-latency access.
Deduplication & Replication: Increases storage efficiency and protection.
Cloud-like Models: Simplifies operations with intuitive management.
InfoSight Analytics: Provides predictive diagnostics and proactive problem-solving.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Reduced Provisioning Time: Accelerates deployment processes.
100% Data Availability: Ensures uninterrupted access to data.
Simplified Management: Streamlines storage operations and enhances satisfaction.
Reliability and Performance: Supports demanding applications with reliable performance.

In healthcare and financial industries, HPE Alletra Storage supports the storage of sensitive data and operations of critical applications, facilitating quick access to information and maintaining high availability. However, users recommend improvements in training resources, energy efficiency, and integration with backup solutions like Veeam to enhance implementation efficiency and cost management.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Rackspace, Open Line

Accenture, Aetna, AIG, Airbus, Allianz, American Express, ATT, Bank of America, Barclays, BASF, Bayer, Berkshire Hathaway, Boeing, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Coca Cola, Comcast, Credit Suisse, Dell, Deutsche Bank, ExxonMobil, Ford Motor Company, General Electric, Google, HSBC, IBM, Intel, JPMorgan Chase, Kroger, L'Oreal, Merck

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. HPE Alletra Storage

June 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerMax vs. HPE Alletra Storage

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