Dell PowerStore vs Dell VMAX All Flash comparison

Dell PowerStore and Dell VMAX All Flash are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell PowerStore is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.8, while Dell VMAX All Flash is ranked #24 with an average rating of 8.2. Dell PowerStore holds a 15.6% mindshare in AFS, compared to Dell VMAX All Flash’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell PowerStore users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Dell VMAX All Flash users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Dell PowerStore and Dell VMAX All Flash are two high-performance storage solutions. Dell PowerStore seems to have the upper hand due to its modern architecture and cost-efficiency, while Dell VMAX All Flash is favored for its reliability and extensive feature set.

Features: Dell PowerStore is valued for its data-centric design, automation, and operational simplicity. Dell VMAX All Flash is recognized for its proven robustness, integration capabilities, and comprehensive data services.

Room for Improvement: For Dell PowerStore, users suggest enhancing scalability and advanced analytics features. For Dell VMAX All Flash, users point to the need for simplification and refined management tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerStore is noted for its quick setup and excellent customer support, providing a seamless deployment experience. Dell VMAX All Flash, while stable, has a more complex deployment process and requires significant assistance from support services.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerStore offers competitive upfront costs and visible ROI for mid-range solutions. Dell VMAX All Flash has higher initial costs but delivers long-term value and substantial ROI for enterprise-level applications.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerStore vs. Dell VMAX All Flash Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore vs. Dell VMAX All Flash

September 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 November 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.1%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 15.6%, down from 17.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell VMAX All Flash is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell PowerStore	15.6%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.1%
Dell VMAX All Flash	0.8%
Other	82.5%

All-Flash Storage

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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Eoin O’Brien

Director of Global Platform at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Improves cost efficiency and significantly while boosting workload performance

We have realized several benefits from using Dell PowerStore; we migrated to the current Dell PowerStore models from tiered storage, and now we're using all flash. The dedupe and compression has been a big benefit for us versus the old storage that it was running, and we've seen the performance of all flash for our storage services. My company finds particular features within Dell PowerStore valuable, primarily the cost benefits for the performance that we get out of the platform. We've definitely seen the benefit on that side of it, including the cost per terabyte, and the support from Dell has been excellent as well. We haven't had any issues with it, so it's been very reliable as a platform for us. The performance metrics I use to measure success with Dell PowerStore are all IOPS and throughput. We are not using it with AI workloads on Dell PowerStore, so it's primarily just customers running IaaS, however, it is important that it's reliable and performs well, and we get that from Dell PowerStore. Dell PowerStore has supported growth and operational success for my business; a key driver at the moment is consolidation, and the dedupe and compression ratios allow us to standardize on a single platform. This has helped improve our operational metrics and overall operations, as we now have only one vendor to support and one set of storage arrays to manage. We have a very clear path into support and escalation if there is an issue, and we are not dealing with multiple vendors.

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BrijeshKumar

Technical Lead at L&T Technology Services

With an easy initial setup phase, the tool is useful for multi-site replication and DR

The configuration part of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. If the product is up and running after, if it goes down, my company has observed that there are multiple failures that occur in the tool, so it needs to be reinstalled from scratch. The tool should have an automated feature or an automated option to handle the aforementioned scenario, which one can simply go and reset, after which the tool should be reinstalled with the same configuration.

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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

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

"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."

"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."

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

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

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The beauty is the simplicity - customers can manage multiple workloads from a single dashboard with scale-out architecture."

"Dell PowerStore's compression and deduplication technologies are a big help for our organization."

"The most valuable aspects of Dell PowerStore are integration with VMware and reliability."

"The most valuable features of PowerStore are its density and data reduction."

"The solution's migration feature is very valuable, but the most valuable thing is that more features appear with every iteration of the software."

"PowerStore is easy to use, powerful, reliable, and highly customizable to customer's needs."

"Dell PowerStore is more cost-efficient than other solutions."

"The platform's reliability and built-in replication between disk systems have made our customers happy. It has worked consistently well over the years."

More Dell PowerStore pros

"The ransomware protection feature is housed in a separate unit, specifically addressing the top twenty most critical threats."

"It works very well."

"The product's initial setup phase was good."

"We haven't experienced any outages or core-level issues in the last ten years, making us comfortable with the storage solution."

"The most valuable features of VMAX are its performance and GUI interface."

"The snapshot feature has been precious for our testing processes, application development, and managing testing environments due to its efficiency and ease of use."

Cons

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

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."

"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."

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

"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."

"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."

"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The initial setup was a little bit cumbersome. We had a bit of an adoption process internally. It wasn't immediately straightforward on day one."

"Dell PowerStore is an unfinished product compared to the HPE systems because it is relatively new."

"The management UI is pretty decent and gets the job done, but the upgrade process is challenging."

"Horizontal scaling has room for improvement."

"I would improve Dell PowerStore by enhancing the replication feature because currently, users are limited to one applier, from one cluster, a Dell PowerStore cluster, to another Dell PowerStore cluster, but are not able to configure a three-site scenario."

"Dell PowerStore has minimal areas needing improvement, as it is one of the best products in Dell's portfolio. However, migration services could be included, especially for Oracle migration."

"I would say it needs easier or increased compatibility with other storage solutions for easier application, such as Dell's own PowerVault. They don't communicate or talk to each other, and they don't replicate to each other, which makes it harder to mix and match."

"The upgrades themselves are running fine, but after the upgrade is when we have a problem. With the update to 1.4, we had a head crash. They told us, 'This is a known issue. Please upgrade to 2.' We upgraded to 2 and, one week later they told us, 'Yeah, there are some issues in 2.0.0. You can lose data. Please upgrade to 2.0.1.' Overall, they need to make the system stable."

More Dell PowerStore cons

"Improvements are needed in both partition recovery and scalability."

"The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability."

"There is room for improvement in the centralized administration."

"The configuration part of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."

"We encountered some challenges during large data migrations that could be addressed for smoother transitions."

"The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability. We've had to procure additional engines to address this limitation."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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 licensing is on a yearly basis."

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"Licensing is very simple. Everything is included in the basic license. There are no concerns about having to pay to add a feature. Everything is there."

"I rate the price of Dell PowerStore a seven out of ten."

"The solution is expensive."

"Dell PowerStore has been priced aggressively, especially when compared to other NVMe storage options. It is likely one of the most cost-effective options for organizations seeking a pure NVMe play in terms of pricing."

"The solution's price was comparable to other products for the use case, size, and setup."

"The pricing structure and licensing model of Dell PowerStore are pretty decent. It's pretty competitive."

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

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

More Dell PowerStore pricing and cost advice

"The price falls within the mid-range, neither inexpensive nor high-priced."

"It is not a cheap product."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

21%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Retailer

Government

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	41
Midsize Enterprise	27
Large Enterprise	61

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...

See all answers

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 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...

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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 managem...

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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 VMax?

The product's initial setup phase was good.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC VMax?

The pricing provided by EMC is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell EMC VMax?

The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability. We've had to procure additiona...

See all answers

Comparisons

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 12% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 14% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 11% of the time

Dell PowerVault vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 11% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 8% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 7% of the time

More Dell PowerStore Competitors

Dell PowerMax vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 66% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 8% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 7% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 6% of the time

More Dell VMAX All Flash Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

October 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore

November 2025

Download Dell PowerStore product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

November 2025

Download Dell VMAX All Flash product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

PowerStore

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 PowerStore is a scalable, high-performance platform supporting both modern and traditional workloads, enhancing IT operations with AI-driven automation and advanced data reduction features.

Designed for flexibility, Dell PowerStore integrates seamlessly with VMware, providing robust security and high IOPS. Users benefit from fast NVMe storage, intelligent data management, and scalable performance to handle diverse workload demands. However, improvements are needed in replication, enterprise functionalities, and UI complexity. Stability and support issues highlight the need for enhanced monitoring and pricing strategies.

What are the key features of Dell PowerStore?

Advanced Compression: Optimizes storage capacity effectively.
Data Deduplication: Reduces redundant data, improving efficiency.
Scalability: Easily adjusts to growing business needs.
VMware Integration: Enhances virtualization performance.
AI-Driven Management: Simplifies IT operations.
NVMe Storage: Provides fast, reliable access to data.
Robust Security: Ensures data protection.

What benefits does Dell PowerStore offer?

High Performance: Supports demanding applications with high IOPS.
Flexible Design: Adapts to changing workload requirements.
Cost Efficiency: Promotes ROI through data reduction and scaling.
Enhanced Management: Streamlines operations with AI and integrations.
Improved Data Handling: Efficiently manages databases and storage.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and IT, Dell PowerStore is critical for VMware virtualization, high-performance databases, and backup storage. It supports hosting virtual machines, mirroring storage, and handling SAP and Oracle databases effectively. Its role in hybrid and on-premises setups showcases its adaptability and integration capabilities for mission-critical tasks.

Dell Technologies

Dell VMAX All Flash is utilized in hyper-converged solutions like VxRail deployments, critical for Data Domain in backup tasks. It supports multi-site replication, disaster recovery, banking IT operations, and high-performance applications.

Dell VMAX All Flash plays a key role in data-intensive environments due to its robust capabilities in storage, data protection, and high throughput tasks. It is crucial in hyper-converged solutions and VxRail deployments, facilitating multi-site replication and disaster recovery. Its applications span across banking and other critical IT operations requiring high performance. The system's ability to support efficient data compression and provide ransomware protection addresses significant security concerns. Multi-site replication and redundancy safeguard data even during power outages or hardware failures, while the snapshot feature aids in testing, application development, and environment management.

What are the key features of Dell VMAX All Flash?

Compression: Efficient data compression capabilities.
Ransomware Protection: Tackles ransomware threats effectively.
Multi-site Replication and Redundancy: Ensures data safety during power outages or hardware issues.
Snapshots: Aids in testing, application development, and environment management.

What benefits should users look for in Dell VMAX All Flash reviews?

Data Protection: Enhanced data security with ransomware protection.
Performance: High throughput for demanding applications.
Reliability: Multi-site replication and redundancy for critical operations continuity.
Support: Adheres to IP strategies with excellent customer support.

Dell VMAX All Flash is critical in industries like banking, where it supports IT operations requiring high performance, and in environments demanding stringent data protection measures. Its role in multi-site replication and disaster recovery makes it invaluable for business continuity and critical data security across sectors.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore vs. Dell VMAX All Flash

September 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerStore vs. Dell VMAX All Flash

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