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Dell PowerMax vs NetApp E-Series 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 NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
6th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (15th)
Dell PowerMax
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (7th)
NetApp E-Series
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
10th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 2.8%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerMax is 8.6%, down from 12.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp E-Series is 2.0%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
 

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.
Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
A very cost-effective and reliable product for Big Data Analytics, Technical Computing, Video Surveillance, and Backup and Recovery
The E-2800 and E5700 have built-in storage to storage replication for full capacity! By that it meant; customers do not need to worry about DRS. All of the E-Series models offer all RIAD types, 1, 10, 5, 6, etc; so you will get more flexibility to create RAID groups based on your application requirements. The other thing is that it is almost plug-and-play; it is a good friend for storage support engineers. Secondly, at the same time, it is very simple to create RGs, Volumes, and host mappings; so for customers, it is also simple and easy to perform storage admin-related tasks.

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."
"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."
"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."
"We like the compression, dedupe, and I/O on the PowerMax. They are better than on the XtremIO."
"The SRDF replication piece is probably the best feature. It's useful for maintaining recoverability in the event of a disaster."
"The response time, compared to XtremIO, is far better."
"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 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 stability is amazing. Zero downtime reported over the last years."
"It is a fantastic Dell EMC product ever competing with all the vendors. It stands out in terms of performance. You can ask for mission-critical application workloads."
"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."
"My customers are satisfied with the performance."
"The product is easy to use."
"Customers go for the E Series if they need backup storage because it is cheap."
 

Cons

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"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."
"The software layer has to improve."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."
"While Dell PowerMax NVMe is very reliable storage and cannot experience downtime, we sometimes face challenges in our territories regarding the availability of critical parts."
"While Dell PowerMax NVMe is very reliable storage and cannot experience downtime, we sometimes face challenges in our territories regarding the availability of critical parts."
"I'd like to see the dedup and compression improve. Two to one is not very good. We should be getting something like three, four, or five to one."
"Dell needs to offer more midrange storage options with enterprise-class features similar to the PowerMAX."
"Some of the management features could be simplified and that's probably the main thing they need to address."
"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."
"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."
"I would like it to support NVMe over Fabrics, because that is the next item for consideration on the NVMe roadmap. PowerMax supports NVMe on the back-end, but when it starts supporting NVMe over Fibre Channel, suddenly various hosts can directly communicate with PowerMax, and with NVMe-oF, as well. Suddenly, Gen 6 and Gen 7 switchers will be able to help facilitate that particular communication channel."
"Though the performance is there, if NetApp wants to be competitive with the others, it must improve their business continuity."
"NetApp should add more production lines to the E series so we can make flexible solutions more easily."
"The solution must provide more training courses."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"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."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"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."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"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 price is really high."
"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."
"Negotiate hard and consider the commercial advantages/benefits to Dell EMC for onboarding your product."
"The cost has room for improvement."
"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."
"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 cost of the solution is quite noticeable, but it provides a good fit regarding the price of the hardware and all of the required licenses."
"It scales enormously, but it's expensive to do so."
"The price is reasonable for NetApp E-Series."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
39%
Computer Software Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
Recreational Facilities/Services Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 needs improvement with NetApp E-Series?
The solution must provide more training courses. I have a team of nine people. Three or four of them are administrato...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
Dell PowerMax NVMe, Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Rackspace, Open Line
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerMax vs. NetApp E-Series and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
857,585 professionals have used our research since 2012.