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 8.7, while Dell VMAX All Flash is ranked #24 with an average rating of 8.2. Dell PowerStore holds a 17.3% mindshare in AFS, compared to Dell VMAX All Flash’s 0.6% 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: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore vs. Dell VMAX All Flash

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 PowerStore is 17.3%, up from 16.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell VMAX All Flash is 0.6%, up from 0.3% 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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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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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

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

"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."

"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."

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

"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."

"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."

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

"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"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..."

"PowerStore is robust compared to the previous models like Unity, and it provides excellent compression and deduplication."

"The solution's most valuable features are its form factor and switching to NVMe."

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

"The tool's most valuable features are compression and speed."

"We have implemented Dell PowerStore for small sites needing mirrored storage. To ensure high availability, the storage is set up in two different locations, possibly in the same building but far apart."

"The software upgrades are all included for no additional charge."

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

More Dell PowerStore pros

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

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

"It works very well."

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

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

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

Cons

"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."

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

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

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."

"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."

"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."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"There is no Synchronize replication feature on the storage."

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

"After upgrades, there were a few bugs in the product, and it can be considered as an area of concern where improvements are required."

"Pricing must also be considered, as Dell PowerStore is quite expensive compared to competitors in the market like HPE Alletra, Huawei Dorado, or Hitachi storage, for example."

"Users can be enrolled in lifecycle extension with pro support. The pricing for that is too high for PowerStore."

"The solution's pricing could be better."

"I have not seen anything specific. The only thing I can think of that needs improvement is the price."

"As a partner, I'd like to be added to each customer's CloudIQ to take a look."

More Dell PowerStore cons

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

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

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

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

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

"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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

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

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The software features are included in the pricing without any additional purchase requirements."

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

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

"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."

"Dell PowerStore is not a cheap solution."

"We only have a single machine and we are currently using half of the hard disk slots. We have asked for an upgrade for the rest of the hard disks but, from my point of view, it costs too much. We have 12 to 15 hard disks inside and if we try to upgrade only the hard disks, it costs the same as the complete system. This is something I don't understand."

"We are currently using Dell PowerStore for our smaller storage and there is no competition for pricing."

"The pricing is good. There's no need to pay for a license; it's all-inclusive."

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

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

24%

Financial Services Firm

19%

Government

Construction Company

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.

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 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...

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 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...

See all answers

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 17% 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 Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 7% 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 14% of the time

Dell PowerVault vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 9% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 9% of the time

More Dell PowerStore Competitors

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 61% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 9% of the time

NetApp AFF 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

April 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore

April 2025

Download Dell PowerStore product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

April 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 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

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

April 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerStore vs. Dell VMAX All Flash

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