Dell PowerMax vs Huawei OceanStor Dorado comparison

Dell Technologies and Huawei are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.6, while Huawei is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.8. Dell Technologies holds a 3.9% mindshare in AFS, compared to Huawei’s 4.5% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Huawei users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on May 18, 2025

Huawei OceanStor Dorado and Dell PowerMax compete in high-performance storage solutions. PowerMax appears to have an edge in technical reliability and scalability, while OceanStor Dorado offers a more favorable price-to-performance ratio.

Features: OceanStor Dorado is appreciated for its competitive price-to-performance ratio, NVMe speed, HyperMetro functionality, and efficient deduplication and compression. Dell PowerMax offers robust deduplication and compression, excellent I/O performance, and high reliability, appealing to performance-intensive environments with its NVMe technology and scalability.

Room for Improvement: OceanStor Dorado could enhance NAS capabilities, better integrate with third-party solutions, and improve localization support. PowerMax users desire improvements in NVMe support, enhanced CloudIQ functionalities, and better cloud service integration, including Kubernetes. Simplifying the GUI and offering more efficient management tools are also noted areas for PowerMax.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both products primarily operate on-premises, with OceanStor Dorado also supporting hybrid clouds. Huawei's technical support is generally well-regarded, though local support can present language barriers. Dell PowerMax offers robust support, but users sometimes seek a more streamlined service process.

Pricing and ROI: OceanStor Dorado is known for its competitive pricing and ROI, attributed to lower ownership costs and maintenance expenses. While Dell PowerMax is priced higher, its performance and features justify the investment for organizations prioritizing storage performance, even though the cost might limit accessibility for smaller businesses.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerMax vs. Huawei OceanStor Dorado Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. Huawei OceanStor Dorado

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 is 3.9%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Huawei OceanStor Dorado is 4.5%, up from 4.1% 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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Moin-Shah

System and Storage Admin at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Seamless management and exceptional performance facilitate efficient data handling

I have not faced significant problems or challenges with Dell PowerMax NVMe during this time, although one area for improvement is its user-friendliness, as it's a bit engineer-oriented. Specific knowledge and expertise are required to manage it properly, which some users might find a bit challenging, yet it's not a big deal for me. With user experience in mind, an improvement for Dell PowerMax NVMe could be clearer total capacity measurements from snapshots and clones, which should be more visible for better planning. Additionally, a template script from PowerMax could assist customers in easily integrating their API-interconnected systems without needing extensive knowledge. To improve regarding scripts, I recommend that if a customer wants to automate snapshots from other systems, Dell can assist by providing plug-and-play integrated templates that allow customers to drag, drop, modify, and connect with any target system for generating snapshots without logging into the storage directly.

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TOLGA ALNIAK

Expert (System Architect) at Migros Ticaret A.Ş.

Offers ransomware protection for files stored on servers

Data processing is the most important feature. We are using Huawei OceanStor Dorado, which employs SSD storage on the hardware side. No reported performance issues or improvements are required for our systems because all of the systems run on memory on the host side. The Oracle data and Oracle virtual machines also operate from memory. Additionally, we use Oracle for patching systems, with all data residing in memory. There is some latency during backup times, typically at night, but this is acceptable for us. These latencies occur outside of office hours, so they do not impact our operations during normal times when there is no noticeable latency.

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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

"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."

"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."

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

"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."

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

"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."

"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."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"We can consistently replicate mainframe and open system and have a single recovery point."

"It was easy for teams to pick up the technology with very limited exposure and training, then implement and support it."

"Dell PowerMax NVMe's tech support is good."

"The optimization of the cache memory of each engine and the use of persistent memory."

"It's faster and more resilient."

"It is efficient and very simple for our administrators to use."

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

"It has dramatically cut down the footprint in our data center and reduced the amount of raw disk capacity that we needed to purchase."

More Dell PowerMax pros

"It is a scalable solution."

"Huawei includes features for file servers and file services. It offers ransomware protection for files stored on servers. However, it does not support blocking websites."

"The initial setup is straightforward. Deployment takes about a day."

"Huawei has more features than other vendors. It integrates well with security management solutions, though not directly with databases."

"Huawei OceanStor Dorado is equipped with powerful controllers"

"Two things really stand out for me. First, there's group cloning, which is very nice. It simplifies managing multiple clones across the group. Second, Huawei's multi-controller architecture with load balancing is a good part."

"The initial setup is very straightforward."

"We can use Huawei OceanStor Dorado capacity storage for many different purposes."

More Huawei OceanStor Dorado pros

Cons

"The software layer has to improve."

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

"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."

"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."

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

"We need better data deduplication."

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

"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"I would like to see the rack change. They have defaulted to the standard rack, so our fiber cables are crowded when we shut our back door."

"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."

"The solution does not use new versions of OS and patches. Its installation is also difficult. The solution is not as fast as other storage in the market."

"The initial setup could be easier."

"We brought up this question to the implementation engineer. We were comparing use cases where a customer is using RecoverPoint, then goes to PowerMax. In our previous setup with XtremIO, we were using RecpverPoint and keeping snapshots for 30 days, every few seconds. With PowerMax, I requested this for every 15 minutes, keeping it for a week. The engineer's answer was, "There will be too many snapshots. It might slow down the system." This is specifically for the use cases where there is RecoverPoint. While PowerMax works with RecoverPoint, and you can use it, there should be some way where you can have even more snapshots and not to worry about performance and system cache."

"The initial setup process is difficult."

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

More Dell PowerMax cons

"Having distinct modules for data compression and encryption features enhances flexibility and performance optimization for users with varying requirements."

"Some customers have reported not understanding how the immutable part can be unlocked."

"I would like to see them improve their IOPS per second to match their contemporaries in the industry."

"The user interface of Huawei OceanStor Dorado could be more user-friendly. Other solutions, such as EMC, have a better user interface."

"The data compression and deduplication ratio of Huawei OceanStor Dorado is not as good as other solutions, such as EMC and Pure Storage. It is important when looking at capacity effectiveness."

"I would really like to see Heterogeneous Storage Virtualization in a future release."

"The product's current pricing model involves over 12 different licenses, which can be complex. Simplifying the process would enhance the overall user experience."

"Huawei OceanStor Dorado could improve the integration, there have been some compatibility issues with some operating system functions."

More Huawei OceanStor Dorado cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"One area for improvement, one that everybody always comes to, is price... it's still quite expensive to purchase these big arrays... For us, the pricing doesn't make Dell EMC uncompetitive."

"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."

"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..."

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

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

"The price is okay."

"Our costs are on a yearly basis."

More Dell PowerMax pricing and cost advice

"Huawei OceanStor Dorado is more affordable than the competitor solutions"

"The price of Huawei OceanStor Dorado is very inexpensive, it cost approximately $5 per gigabyte."

"There are lots of features included with this solution and some of them require additional licensing, such as creating high availability storage using a cluster."

"It's not easy to receive an upgrade license of Huawei OceanStor Dorado. It's easy to buy OceanStor with several features, but when you want to add on features later it's not easy. I had some problems."

"There are some costs in addition to the standard licensing fees, depending on the requirements."

"We usually recommend our customers choose advanced licensing and enterprise companies are more inclined to choose this solution because it is more cost-effective than competitors."

"Huawei OceanStor Dorado has a competitive price compared to other solutions."

"I rate the pricing a six on a scale from one to ten, where one is expensive, not cost-effective, and ten is cheap."

More Huawei OceanStor Dorado 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

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

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?

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 Huawei OceanStor Dorado?

The product has the best compression and encryption features. The most valuable features I have found in the tool are...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Huawei OceanStor Dorado?

The products they offer are quite cheap. However, I do not have much information about licensing since we don't buy t...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Huawei OceanStor Dorado?

Some customers have reported not understanding how the immutable part can be unlocked. From my perspective, it's not ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 31% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 18% 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

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 8% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 4% of the time

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Dell PowerStore vs Huawei OceanStor Dorado

Compared 19% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Huawei OceanStor Dorado

Compared 13% of the time

Huawei OceanStor vs Huawei OceanStor Dorado

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Huawei OceanStor Dorado

Compared 10% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Huawei OceanStor Dorado

Compared 4% of the time

More Huawei OceanStor Dorado Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

May 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax

May 2025

Download Dell PowerMax product report

Buyer's Guide

Huawei OceanStor Dorado

May 2025

Download Huawei OceanStor Dorado product report

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

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

Huawei's OceanStor Dorado V3 all-flash storage is the ideal choice for enterprises' mission-critical business. It is the industry's first commercial use of NVMe all-flash storage, and it delivers high-performing, reliable, and efficient storage services.

Huawei

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Rackspace, Open Line

Telecom Italia, Hi3G Sweden, KPN

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. Huawei OceanStor Dorado

April 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerMax vs. Huawei OceanStor Dorado

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