Dell PowerStore vs Dell PowerVault comparison

Dell PowerStore and Dell PowerVault are both solutions in the Enterprise SAN category. Dell PowerStore is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.8, while Dell PowerVault is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.2. Dell PowerStore holds a 33.0% mindshare in ES, compared to Dell PowerVault’s 31.6% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell PowerStore users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Dell PowerVault users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerStore

Read 112 Dell PowerStore reviews

1,264 Views
812 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Dell PowerVault

Read 23 Dell PowerVault reviews

1,082 Views
139 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Dell PowerStore

Dell PowerVault

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell PowerStore and Dell PowerVault based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Enterprise SAN solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerStore vs. Dell PowerVault Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore vs. Dell PowerVault

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

Dell PowerStore

Ranking in Enterprise SAN

1st

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

112

Ranking in other categories

Data Warehouse (4th), NAS (1st), All-Flash Storage (1st), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (1st)

Dell PowerVault

Ranking in Enterprise SAN

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Fibre Channel (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Enterprise SAN category, the mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 33.0%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerVault is 31.6%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise SAN

Featured Reviews

Brian Ricci

President at Pinnacle Computer Services, Inc.

It's constantly enhanced and has impressive reliability and data compression

The maintenance is a bit expensive. The service and support are there for three years, but after the third year, it is pretty pricey for renewal. I hope Dell addresses that. Everything is pricey these days anyway. It is not like the old days of Compellent. We used to be able to see the metrics for our customers. On Compellent, we could look up that customer and see all the metrics. That is not allowed for us now. We cannot do that anymore. I have to be explicitly allowed by the customer to do that, and some companies' security does not allow that.

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SigfridCecillon

Director at Arsium

Offers good stability and simplicity

The room for improvement lies in the responsiveness and real-time feedback of the web server setup. We could set up the installation through a web server, but it's not very reactive on the web server. For example, when you launch a task, and you don't know exactly if the task has begun or if the task is in progress, or if it's finished. You have to wait for three to five to ten minutes to be sure that the task is running or in progress or finished. So at that point, it's not very good. For the rest, we have a good organization for the platform. And it's working everywhere. Another area of improvement is duplication.

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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 use of NVMe is notable, and the speed and performance it provides are commendable."

"Currently, the features of replication and deduplication have been very important to us."

"Its flexibility is valuable because we have had some moments where we had to adapt, and it has been quite flexible."

"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerStore is Metro Volumes."

"Updates come with enhancements. Each time we do an update, there is an enhancement, like new features, which is extraordinary. Other companies would try to charge for all that, but the enhancements just come with it."

"I have seen some return on investment. Since we were refreshing our infrastructure, the return on investment has been that I am able to concentrate my time on high-level items rather than small-level items that come from the aging infrastructure that we had before."

"The most valuable feature is that it is easy to use this frame. I am a SAN administrator, but I was able to train my colleague, who had only been a VMware administrator, on the PowerStore in about half a day. Now he's autonomous in assigning volumes and creating data stores..."

"Typically, high-performance and high-availability features, such as application snapshots and remote and local replication, are highly valued."

More Dell PowerStore pros

"The storage has been good."

"The initial setup was easy and simple."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it is easy to manage and easy to use."

"The stability is quite good. Once you deploy all the equipment, it's very stable."

"Dell PowerVault offers valuable full flash storage."

"The most valuable features are that it's easy to set up PowerVault. I also like the provisioning of storage."

"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerVault is its performance."

"It is an inexpensive storage solution."

More Dell PowerVault pros

Cons

"Other products have better management and analytics features."

"We experienced some concerns during a previous firmware upgrade when the controllers became unresponsive, which affected operations."

"We'd like to see some improvements on the security side."

"It doesn't support SSD or Flash."

"It was very new when we first deployed it a year ago. Even the upgrade processes and knowing what to expect, as well as documentation, could be more robust."

"The setup process could be improved. We had some issues regarding configuration and the time it took to do things. It wasn't specifically the people we worked with, but more the process and how it's done. They can work on that."

"The cost always has room for improvement."

"Could be improved by including a synchronizing feature for the file systems."

More Dell PowerStore cons

"The price of the solution could be lower."

"PowerVault doesn't integrate with Active Directory. Other storage solutions offer SAN and NAS unified storage in a single appliance, but PowerVault is only SAN."

"I would like to see improvements made to the user interface."

"The high prices of the solution are an area of concern where improvements are required."

"There have been situations when our customers requested professional support and the price of that feature is quite high."

"Dell PowerVault is block-oriented storage only."

"In most instances, clients are using Dell PowerVault with tape drives, but we want to transition them away from tape drives due to the risk of data loss."

"PowerVault could be improved by increasing its memory cache capacity and adding the ability to export data to the cloud."

More Dell PowerVault cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"There are no separate licenses required as all the basic licenses are included in the bundle."

"The rate is always too high. Nobody likes paying for it. I have not seen a client yet who says that the price should be higher. Initially, people look at it, but when they see what the benefits are, it is a no-brainer. We can give them good pricing at the outset."

"The price of Dell PowerStore could improve. The price should be managed more compared to Huawei Dorado or IBM All-Flash series."

"The price of Dell EMC PowerStore could be better, it is a bit expensive."

"The pricing structure and licensing model of Dell PowerStore are very good and I like it. We chose it because it was reasonably priced and met our requirements"

"We are happy with the pricing that we get from Dell."

"HCL Tech has a TLA with Dell, so in terms of price point, we are very competitive. Based on my experience, the cost of Dell PowerStore for around 500 GB of capacity is very competitive compared to any other platform in the market."

More Dell PowerStore pricing and cost advice

"The price of Dell PowerVault could be reduced. It is more expensive than some IBM solutions."

"The price is reasonable and we are satisfied with it."

"I rate Dell PowerVault a six or seven out of ten for pricing."

"The solution is more cost-effective than the competitors. It’s an affordable option for small businesses."

"Dell PowerVault's price is the tool's main attraction."

"They are offering a wide range of support models for the customers such as basic support that is budget-friendly, but they also provide a professional support solution that is a bit costly"

"I rate the product price a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high."

"I rate the solution's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."

More Dell PowerVault pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you think about Dell EMC PowerStore? Is it actually a new product?

PowerStore is flexible, scalable, simple, and performant with market-leading economics for a wide range of legacy and next-gen apps. It is only Flash and can support many workloads from today's app...

See all answers

How does Dell's EMC PowerStore compare with its EMC Unity XT?

Dell EMC PowerStore is a unified storage platform that has the added benefit of being scalable. The automated management of resources feature provides a more simple administration. I found the flex...

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 offerings and integrated into the PowerStoreOS. The installation and setup have a ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell PowerVault?

Dell PowerVault offers valuable full flash storage.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerVault?

I rate the solution's pricing a seven to eight out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell PowerVault?

The product is generally stable, but there have been instances, to my knowledge, where we faced issues in the controller during software upgrades. The availability is not at the desired level durin...

See all answers

Comparisons

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 14% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 13% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 9% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 8% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 7% of the time

More Dell PowerStore Competitors

HPE StoreOnce vs Dell PowerVault

Compared 17% of the time

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs Dell PowerVault

Compared 11% of the time

Lenovo Storage V Series vs Dell PowerVault

Compared 4% of the time

Huawei OceanStor SNS vs Dell PowerVault

Compared 2% of the time

ExaGrid EX vs Dell PowerVault

Compared 1% of the time

More Dell PowerVault Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore

June 2025

Download Dell PowerStore product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerVault

June 2025

Download Dell PowerVault product report

Also Known As

PowerStore

PowerVault

Overview

Dell PowerStore stands out for its high performance, flexibility, and easy integration with VMware. It offers notable data compression and deduplication capabilities while providing powerful NVMe support and machine learning to optimize IT operations.

Dell PowerStore is designed to offer a comprehensive approach to IT infrastructure by enhancing performance and simplifying management. It is particularly suitable for companies that require scalable solutions to increase compute or capacity independently. Featuring built-in intelligence, PowerStore allows efficient storage consolidation and reduced footprint, while integration with CloudIQ enhances monitoring and analytics. However, there are areas for improvement, such as stability, enterprise features, and the user interface. Pricing is high, and support responsiveness needs attention. Organizations primarily use PowerStore for VMware environments, storage, and data protection, supporting high-performance databases and VMware workloads. It is utilized in data centers for disaster recovery and hybrid setups.

What are the key features of Dell PowerStore?

Flexibility: Independently scales compute or capacity
High Performance: Offers powerful NVMe support and machine learning
Integration: Easily integrates with VMware
Data Efficiency: Provides data compression and deduplication
Simplified Management: Built-in intelligence for efficient storage management

What benefits should users consider?

Performance Optimization: Enhance IT operations with machine learning
Scalability: Increase compute or storage capacity as needed
Integration Potential: Improve efficiency with VMware and CloudIQ
Data Protection: Reliable for disaster recovery and hybrid environments

In industries like IT, finance, and healthcare, Dell PowerStore supports efficient data management and enhances infrastructure performance. Organizations leverage it to manage extensive data, streamline virtualization processes, and facilitate migration from legacy systems, while integrating cloud and on-premises infrastructures for improved operations.

Dell Technologies

PowerVault MD3 storage arrays help you cost-effectively address the challenges of data growth with versatile solutions that are optimized for smaller-scale storage consolidation, flexible virtualization projects and high business continuity.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Dayco, FAW Foundry, University of Cambridge, Finder, Stadtwerke Pforzheim GmbH & Co.

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore vs. Dell PowerVault

June 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerStore vs. Dell PowerVault

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerStore vs. Dell PowerVault and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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