We compared Dell Powerstore and HPE Primera based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison of Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Dell EMC Powerstore seems to be the slightly superior solution because it is easier to use.
"The most valuable features are the performance and the storage efficiency, due to the compression and deduplication... The efficiency is very important because we can buy fewer disks for more data."
"The NVMe flash cache is the most useful feature. It lowers transactional speed even more."
"We recently started using the volume encryption feature, which is helpful because there are some federal projects that require data at rest to be encrypted."
"Snapshots, snap clones, backups, flexibility, and agility are valuable features. I like that NetApp AFF is easy to use. We can automate everything for our backups and use cases. It's fast and simple, and provides storage to all of our VMware ESX hosts. It expands easily as well."
"I like how easy it is to discover an issue and either resolve that issue or fine-tune that app to premium support to find that resolution."
"Other manufacturers claim simplicity. In fact, frankly, they do have an advantage in that regard, however, they don't have the functionality. If you were to compare one of those products to NetApp, head to head from a feature perspective, NetApp would wind up in the top 10."
"This solution helps accelerate demanding enterprise applications. VMware workloads, the database, and Oracle Solaris are hosted on AFF, which means that our primary priority workloads are on AFF and that the secondary ones are on FAS. That includes the SAN national cloud."
"Regarding features, SnapMirror is one we depend on right now. It helps us provide snapshots to the customers on request. There are many scenarios in which we might take snapshots in various daily use cases. We trigger the snapshots, which gives us a sense of security because we know we have this technology in place if something happens."
"Gives us flexibility, performance, and ease of use. It also has some very good compression capabilities. We were looking for a solution that was easy to install in our VMware environment, that was flexible. PowerStore X is a type of a VMware cluster that you install inside your environment. If you have a VMware environment, like we have in production, it's easy to install and use."
"You can add compute and capacity independently. We have sized the solution based on our current needs, but in the future we can choose to increase capacity if we grow our activity in the market. And if we have more business in our monetary system, we can increase compute. The ability to choose what we increase is a good feature."
"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..."
"The administration tools take advantage of machine learning and make recommendations to the admins, and that makes the administration easier."
"Currently, the features of replication and deduplication have been very important to us."
"This solution is very useful to us as we use it internally for all of the services that we need. We use it as a lab and we showcase new technology to the customers and how it can help them going forward."
"Dell EMC PowerStore is scalable."
"Overall, we're quite happy with the product because we can move the data that is stored on more than 10 of our current storage devices to a single PowerStore."
"HPE Primera is an all-flash storage product that's very stable and has a higher storage capacity. It can also give better ROI compared to NetApp."
"The performance is very good."
"The most valuable feature of HPE Primera is its performance and simple replication."
"HPE Primera has good integration. All the users are using HP servers and some systems, such as Synergy, which integrate well into the solution."
"There has been a lot of changes in HPE Primera OS, and most of the time any package related to it is simple to upgrade. It does not require any support for the operation. The customer can easily deploy any code directly from the GUI which is very good. Additionally, we have individual storage we can allocate and easily manage."
"The performance of the solution is good."
"HPE Primera is scalable."
"It is a stable and scalable solution with quick and efficient storage capability."
"The size of NetApp could be better. They're always about 40 pounds without the hard drives in them, so it would be great if there's a way to make them smaller yet keep the functionality. That would reduce the physical footprint."
"The initial setup has a lot more steps in it than are probably necessary for a base deployment, unlike other vendors where it's more straightforward. It could be a little bit more streamlined."
"We would like to have a feature that automatically moves volumes between aggregates, based on the performance. We normally need to do this manually."
"After the three-year prepay, the extended warranty is a little expensive."
"During the initial setup, you need to know what you are doing."
"From my perspective, everything works well. They've already announced that they have some features in their next release that make the existing investment more usable, by adding software features to your existing legacy hardware investment."
"For ONTAP, in general, the deduplication ratio and Snapshot limitation are areas that need improvement. There is a global limitation on the number of Snapshots or clones that can be spun off of a particular Snapshot. If those limitations are increased, it might be helpful."
"Its integration could be improved."
"It needs more mature code."
"I do not like having to use VPLEX for synchronous replication, as opposed to having the store software built-in."
"Where the system needs to improve is by adding more enterprise features like replication on other sites. We would also like it to be much more aligned with the VMware version. For example, today we have two different versions of VMware ESXi running to keep the PowerStore online. It would be better if the software cycling was faster."
"We are looking for the Dell PowerStore to become more mature to maximize our use cases."
"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."
"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."
"More demonstration and training options are needed."
"It's also only supported with a limited amount of switches."
"They could work to make scalability easier."
"We used to receive hardware errors a lot of times. The ambient temperatures rise rate was approximately 35 to 55 degrees, but when it was approximately 27 or 28, we used to get errors a lot."
"Increasing the IOPS and throughput values would make the product even better. Improving the scalability of HPE Primera is also recommended."
"The reporting console can be improved with out of the box reports."
"The file server embedded in Pure, the GUI, and the tracking and reporting features are better with Pure Storage."
"The solution could prove the reporting."
"The initial setup is not straightforward."
"The solution could improve by having seamless migration from other storage systems. The process should be made easier."
Dell PowerStore is ranked 1st in All-Flash Storage with 25 reviews while HPE Primera is ranked 9th in All-Flash Storage with 19 reviews. Dell PowerStore is rated 8.6, while HPE Primera is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Dell PowerStore writes "Saves us power and floor space, and we can quickly assign new data stores for our developers' VMs". On the other hand, the top reviewer of HPE Primera writes "A rock-solid, enterprise-class product that provides 100% availability and is backed by an excellent company". Dell PowerStore is most compared with Dell Unity XT, Pure Storage FlashArray, IBM FlashSystem, Dell PowerMax NVMe and Huawei OceanStor Dorado, whereas HPE Primera is most compared with HPE Nimble Storage, HPE 3PAR StoreServ, IBM FlashSystem, Pure Storage FlashArray and Dell Unity XT. See our Dell PowerStore vs. HPE Primera report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
