Dell PowerMax vs NetApp E-Series 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 8.8, while NetApp is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.5. Dell Technologies holds a 9.3% mindshare in N, compared to NetApp’s 2.9% 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 Nov 30, 2025

Dell PowerMax and NetApp E-Series are competing in the enterprise storage market. Dell PowerMax leads with advanced features and scalability, while NetApp E-Series is recognized for cost-effectiveness.

Features: Dell PowerMax offers high-performance architecture, advanced data services, and impressive scalability suitable for large enterprises. Its NVMe technology ensures quicker data access, and the platform supports dynamic multi-cloud environments, enabling seamless data management. Meanwhile, NetApp E-Series provides reliable performance, ease of integration, and simplified management, ideal for mid-sized businesses.

Room for Improvement: Dell PowerMax can enhance its initial deployment complexity and high-cost barrier, making it more accessible for smaller companies. Additionally, more user-friendly management tools could benefit less technical users. NetApp E-Series could improve its robustness in high-demand settings and expand its advanced feature offerings. Increasing data reduction capabilities would also enhance its appeal.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerMax features a complex deployment but delivers comprehensive support, fitting for large operations with intricate infrastructure requirements. NetApp E-Series provides a straightforward deployment process and commendable customer service, catering to businesses aiming for quick and effective implementation.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerMax requires a higher initial investment yet offers superior performance ROI for complex environments. NetApp E-Series, with a lower setup cost, presents an economic solution with acceptable ROI for its target audience.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerMax vs. NetApp E-Series Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. NetApp E-Series

December 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 January 2026, in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 4.0%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerMax is 9.3%, up from 9.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp E-Series is 2.9%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell PowerMax	9.3%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	4.0%
NetApp E-Series	2.9%
Other	83.8%

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh

Chief Technology Officer at Lambda256

Supports efficient storage management through volume snapshots and offers reliable non-disruptive upgrades

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, but it does not show the performance by 4K byte unit. It displays IOPS and bandwidth, but IOPS is about real use, and I want to know how many IOPS are currently running in 4K byte units. I cannot see that IOPS because most storage systems report their performance by 4K byte unit. I want to see Pure Storage performance by 4K byte unit to compare with other storage or other internal NVMe SSD.

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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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Milan Budimir

IT-Techniker at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Have struggled with timely expert support and faced communication challenges during critical maintenance tasks

As an AZ3 technician with experience in that direction, when I call them, I do not call the first-level support as it is something I do not need. I call them because I am not able to resolve that mistake or when the behavior of the machine is not normal. If you need an auto support message from the customer machine, you can get them from the first level, but most of the time, they do not know what an auto support message is, and everything stops there. You have a few of them when you call, and when we are replacing something in NetApp E-Series. StorageGRID is different, but with NetApp E-Series, you need to grab information from the node that is actually down; in most cases, the node is not in loader. It is entirely gone. You can try to reseat it, maybe boot it up, but in most cases, when it is down, it stays down. You call support for that, and that is when you lose two or three hours.

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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 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."

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

"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."

"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."

"I appreciate the performance."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"It offers a high level of availability, so pretty much near zero downtime."

"Performance and management aspects are satisfactory."

"The tool is a fast-performing asset. It can perform millions of transactions within a second. I like the tool's architecture as well."

"We are using the solution's application and snapshot feature."

"It significantly simplifies storage."

"The upgradability and extendibility for the size of the storage unit are noteworthy."

"Dell PowerMax serves compact drive, industry-specific open systems, and mainframes. For small virtualization needs, Dell PowerMax 2500 is suitable, while for database or large channel-based protocols, Dell PowerMax 8500 is appropriate."

"The solution has good operability and easy scalability."

More Dell PowerMax pros

"If we select the best use case for NetApp E-Series based on its intended purpose, I would rate it a ten."

"My customers are satisfied with the performance."

"The product is easy to use."

"The Snapshot feature is actually widely used; it is a feature that only NetApp E-Series has and it is quite good."

"Customers go for the E Series if they need backup storage because it is cheap."

"The overall experience has been positive."

Cons

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

"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."

"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."

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

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."

"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."

"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"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."

"The initial setup was a little bit complicated."

"The solution should integrate better with OpenShift and Kubernetes architecture."

"The one area for improvement in Dell PowerMax NVMe would be to align the features of the on-premises version with those available in the cloud, as this would provide added value and flexibility."

"There are so many configurations in the tool that cannot be done by anyone who is not a Dell personnel."

"I would like to see continued visibility and analytics in the platform."

"Since the merging of EMC and Dell into Dell Technologies, there has been a hurdle that they've had to overcome, and they're not over it yet. It takes two to three times longer for things to get fixed than it did when they were separate companies. That is something that has to be fixed."

"We have issues that we don't know about, which Dell EMC fixes."

More Dell PowerMax cons

"With NetApp E-Series, when we are running active-active NAS4, sometimes due to either an issue or a bug, we experience failures. At least twice yearly, we have seen this issue. When it occurs, we lose critical systems such as MQ."

"Getting through first level to second level takes two hours minimum."

"The solution must provide more training courses."

"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."

"Regarding error handling in NetApp E-Series, because it is a cost-effective but not an intelligent storage solution, the error handling is not sufficient."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

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

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"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."

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."

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

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

"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

"I rate Dell PowerMax NVMe a five out of ten for pricing."

"Dell offers various pricing models, including a pay-as-you-go option where storage is provided without upfront charges, billing only for used capacity. As a 360° partner, significant discounts are available."

"It scales enormously, but it's expensive to do so."

"The price is starting from $500,000."

"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."

"The pricing is comparable to other vendors."

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

More Dell PowerMax pricing and cost advice

"The price is reasonable for NetApp E-Series."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

21%

Comms Service Provider

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	55

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.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...

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What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could ...

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...

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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.

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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 E-Series?

The product is easy to use.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp E-Series?

Regarding scalability, I think there is no problem. While there is always room for improvement in any product, to my ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for NetApp E-Series?

We sell NetApp E-Series as engineered machines like FlexPod, which is used where high throughput and native storage p...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 19% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 7% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 20% of the time

Dell VMAX All Flash vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 8% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 8% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 7% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 3% of the time

More Dell PowerMax Competitors

Seagate Exos X Series vs NetApp E-Series

Compared 24% of the time

NetApp ASA vs NetApp E-Series

Compared 22% of the time

NetApp AFF vs NetApp E-Series

Compared 17% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs NetApp E-Series

Compared 11% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs NetApp E-Series

Compared 11% of the time

More NetApp E-Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

December 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax

January 2026

Download Dell PowerMax product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp E-Series

December 2025

Download NetApp E-Series 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

PowerMax leads in mission-critical enterprise storage with advanced architecture and AI-driven automation, ensuring secure and efficient IT optimization. Its multi-node NVMe scale-out framework delivers unmatched performance and consolidation, backed by Dell’s Future-Proof Program.

PowerMax is renowned for its robust reliability, performance, and efficient data reduction capabilities. Users benefit from its NVMe architecture, aiding significant scalability and cost efficiency through effective deduplication and compression. Unisphere simplifies management, while CloudIQ provides enhanced monitoring. With high availability and strong IOPS capabilities, PowerMax effectively manages demanding workloads and ensures seamless operations. Its compact design and increased storage capacity enhance user experience, particularly with easy maintenance and robust performance.

What are the key features of PowerMax?

Reliability: Ensures consistent service uptime and data integrity.
High Performance: NVMe architecture provides exceptional speed and efficiency.
Data Reduction: Deduplication and compression drive down costs.
Management Tools: Unisphere interface for easy system management.
CloudIQ: Advanced monitoring for predictive insights.
High Availability: Supports mission-critical and demanding workloads.

What benefits should users expect from PowerMax?

Performance Optimization: Handles low latency and high IOPS needs.
Scalability: Expands effortlessly with growing data and workload demands.
Enhanced Monitoring: Predictive analytics for proactive management.
Efficient Maintenance: Streamlined processes reduce downtime and costs.

Dell PowerMax is predominantly employed in mission-critical applications such as SQL, Oracle databases, ERP systems, and high transactional environments. Healthcare, finance, and e-commerce sectors leverage its high performance, scalability, and NVMe technology for low latency and redundancy. It is adept in storage consolidation, data analytics, and disaster recovery.

Dell Technologies

NetApp E-Series offers a flexible, high-performance storage solution ideal for handling intensive data requirements. Designed to optimize capacity and improve data availability, it supports diverse sector needs.

NetApp E-Series is a purpose-built system engineered to deliver fast, consistent performance. It is best utilized in environments requiring high-performance workloads where speed and efficiency are crucial. Users appreciate its reliability and scalability, which contribute to effective data management. The system is known for its efficient storage capabilities, providing robust data protection and seamless integration with existing infrastructure.

What are the key features of NetApp E-Series?

Scalability: Supports expansion to accommodate growing data needs seamlessly.
Performance: Delivers high-speed processing for demanding applications.
Integrations: Easily integrates with existing IT environments, enhancing operational efficiency.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Cost Efficiency: Offers competitive pricing with long-term savings through energy-efficient designs.
Reliability: Provides consistent uptime, minimizing disruptions and improving productivity.
Flexibility: Versatile deployment options cater to specific performance and capacity requirements.

NetApp E-Series is widely implemented across industries ranging from healthcare to finance, where it supports critical data-intensive applications. Its deployment in environments such as scientific research and media production highlights its capacity for handling high-speed data access and reliable performance.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Rackspace, Open Line

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. NetApp E-Series

December 2025

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