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Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
233
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell PowerStore
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
253
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (7th), NAS (2nd), Enterprise SAN (1st), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (1st)
IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
26th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (13th)
 

Featured Reviews

Cristian Ion - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Information Technology Engineer at Eta2u
All-flash storage has unified my clients’ workloads and has reduced TCO through efficient data services
The pricing and licensing of Everpure FlashArray is a problem because Everpure is considered more expensive than competitors. IBM, Lenovo, and Dell are more aggressive on prices. It is a very complicated market, especially now, and I understand the prices are higher at Everpure because of the software and all the enhancements it has. However, in this competitive market, we have a big problem selling to customers that are on a tight budget. A product with better pricing would be a win in the end. The RC or C20, for example, was a very good product that I could sell more easily than other options. Everpure FlashArray//C is sufficient for most workloads and virtualization workloads if you do not have very large databases. A product like that helps, and perhaps a new product in the future that is a little cheaper than the current options would be a possibility to gain more market share. I see the return on investment clearly from using Everpure FlashArray, but the challenge is selling it to customers for the first time. There are many customers who fall in the sweet spot where they are too small for an X or even a C model. They need something a little cheaper, they have the money for a cheaper version, and they need the performance of a Pure system. These customers could be more easily approached if Everpure offers a version of a local device in the future that is even cheaper than the C-class. I am trying now to help customers understand the concept behind AG1. I know that AG1 is not profitable if capacity is less than 50 terabytes. However, some customers would be very willing to pay for 25 terabytes in a cloud operated by Pure and to have it accessible with very good speed. We will see what the future brings.
reviewer2304864 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vmware Windows Senior Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Resilience has supported proactive management and secured audit readiness across multiple sites
The resilience in Dell PowerStore benefits my company from an auditing perspective because we know we have that resilience in place. I see Dell PowerStore playing a bigger role in the future because we are starting to use it more, and that is pushing it. The biggest return on investment for me when using Dell PowerStore is scalability. Scalability is key. I can amplify that scalability is the biggest return on investment because we have redundancy between two sites; if something goes down, we have to manage it, but we want to do it proactively.
Yacine Bouakttaya - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer North Africa at Huawei
High-speed data processing has improved billing cycles but performance headroom still needs growth
In terms of improvement regarding IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe, I can compare with other competitors, especially regarding solution architecture. Data resiliency can be a concern because IBM can reach up to only four controllers, while others like Dell EMC can support up to eight controllers with better resiliency without service staff. Additionally, the SBC one benchmark is a storage performance console that stresses different storage solutions like Dell EMC and NetApp. It generates metrics of IOPS and latency, showing that the competition can have two million IOPS, significantly outperforming IBM's capabilities. As for the capability of scaling, we can see the limitations in reaching such high-performance levels.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"They can provide a lot of performance, so there is not a lot of difference, but efficiency is something customers value because the compression can be up to twice of the second competitor."
"One could tell, the minute we switched to this program, everything ran a lot faster."
"What I like most about this solution, is the speed, resiliency and scalability."
"Compared to other storage boxes, Everpure FlashArray is very useful because it is cost-effective and requires less work."
"With Pure Storage FlashArray we have been able to deploy several thousand VDI servers, virtual machines, very quickly and efficiently."
"The management features are well organized and they have a very good dashboard."
"Technical support is good."
"It simplifies the overall management. We don't have to worry about storage anymore."
"When comparing the stability and reliability of Dell PowerStore to the old storage, the old storage never worked properly. This solution is more stable from that standpoint."
"The support is very good."
"The features of Dell PowerStore that I like the most include the simplified web GUI, and setting up replication to protection groups on the other site was pretty straightforward."
"Dell PowerStore has been used for around three or four years, and the experience with Dell PowerStore has been positive."
"I see no room for improvement in Dell PowerStore; I think it is quite good, and I have nothing more to tell about the features and the hardware of Dell equipment."
"Dell PowerStore is highly versatile and offers numerous features that can be tailored to specific customer needs."
"The biggest trust element is people are very happy to depend on a Dell infrastructure."
"Though the initial investment might seem high, achieving five times deduplication compression provides good value for money."
"You get value for money, because the product is good in terms of control failure."
"The most valuable feature of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is the snapshot. We use it daily for all of the storage units."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its upgrades, as we don't have to do much homework because of its different controllers."
"The solution is more available for IOPS warehousing, resolving issues, and reporting than other products."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is one of the leading storage systems in the world...I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten."
"IBM FlashSystem is an excellent product."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is easy to use and comes with good performance."
"The FlashCore modules support more value to the architecture due to their unique characteristics."
 

Cons

"Self-backup is the only feature lacking in this solution."
"In the next release of the solution I would like to see Vormetric native block encryption."
"It would be beneficial to have a separate pricing point for environments with lower performance requirements or less workload."
"In terms of the future, I have been excited by some of the copy data management stuff that they're talking about building into the environment. There are feature sets where I've done a lot of automation work. So, I am always looking forward to extensions of their API. They're also talking about a phone home centralized analytics database being used as a centralized management console with a list of new cloud features, but this doesn't seem finalized."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve some aspects. There are certain features that are good and there are some features that I see some issues with at the technical level. Those issues are related to replication. They need to resolve those issues, which I have already highlighted to the Pure team. Additionally, there are some issues in the active cluster that could improve."
"It would be nice if Pure had something in its portfolio that provided higher deduplication and compression for backups."
"There are many features which need to be added, particularly on the replication side."
"I would like to see some improvements on the FlashBlade side around the CIFS space support. I am not super familiar with all the different NAS protocols that they run on their box, but there could be some improvements made on SMB CIFS side."
"It needs more mature code."
"Dell PowerStore is a very expensive storage solution. That said, the speed for recovering information is amazing. I would make the product cheaper. The discounts from Dell to South America are not sufficient because we need better pricing. The discounts for small PowerStores are not enough to close deals since I'm a distributor. As both a user and seller, it's challenging to sell Dell PowerStore to the channel or final customers because we don't have enough discount from Dell."
"I recommend Dell PowerStore to medium-sized companies and not for larger ones as well because I think for the bigger ones, it is missing some features and there is a bit of a lack in terms of performance for big volumetry."
"From an improvement perspective, I do not have significant negative points about Dell PowerStore."
"Regarding the pricing of Dell PowerStore, it is still quite pricey but we did get a good deal when bundled with workstations."
"Dell PowerStore could improve in the updating process and lifecycle management, as the upgrades seem to take a long time, along with some of the management features."
"My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is expensive; everything is expensive, so the price is a big concern."
"What would make it perfect is addressing the occasional lack of continuity with consultants who are on projects for five to six weeks regarding Dell PowerStore."
"Other vendors have included a block and file system. IBM doesn't include a file system. And yet, it's very necessary for all organizations' networks to have file systems. We have other systems for the file system, however, ideally, we would like to have one system with these features."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is an expensive solution, and its pricing could be improved."
"Deduplication and compression should be improved."
"The support could be better."
"The solution's compression feature could be better."
"The tool's architecture is complex. It also needs to add data utilization reports."
"I would like to see IBM products become more affordable because they can be quite expensive, which limits their accessibility to a broader customer base."
"IBM's support is not good. I experienced a big problem where I opened the console IBM Storage and would see that something was broken. I called the call centers, and I said, "I have a problem. My drive is not working." They want me to give them the serial number, I gave it to them and they told me "I cannot find your product. Your product is not here.""
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost has room for improvement."
"The price, in general, is around $100,000, however, I know it costs more."
"The license for Pure Storage FlashArray includes the support and there are no additional payments that are needed. This is not an inexpensive solution, you need to understand the value of your data before you use a backup solution."
"Once you purchase Pure Storage FlashArray it is all-inclusive, you receive all the licenses needed."
"It is a cheaper solution."
"We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership."
"The pricing is very attractive and it delivers performance for the money."
"The pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray is reasonable."
"There are no separate licenses required as all the basic licenses are included in the bundle."
"The price of Dell EMC PowerStore could be better, it is a bit expensive."
"Dell PowerStore is not a cheap solution."
"As compared to others, PowerStore is cheaper."
"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"
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The solution's price was comparable to other products for the use case, size, and setup."
"The solution’s pricing is always too high."
"Compared to its competitors, IBM's offering is the most cost-effective."
"It's a lot less costly than cloud storage. People get surprised by the cost of cloud storage, which is extremely expensive and four or five times the cost of storage on-premises. People don't realize what they're spending on storage until they start getting bills from Amazon, Microsoft, and others. This is a good way to reduce your cloud storage expenses."
"The solution is priced well."
"The price of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is less than Dell. For upgrades, the Dell solutions are more expensive."
"The price of the FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable."
"There are pricing options from the mid-rand to the high-range, of which the suitability depends upon the requirements."
"The solution's price is competitive."
"Price-wise, the solution offers excellent pricing to its users. In short, the prices offered by the solution are competitive compared to similar solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business74
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise161
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business83
Midsize Enterprise49
Large Enterprise125
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
When comparing cost, I find that the cost is either the same or slightly higher, but that is returned by the ease of ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
The only thing I think could be improved is price. The price is the main concern for our customers.
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...
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...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?
The licensing cost for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe can be seen as a bit expensive compared to competitors. You can eith...
What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?
In terms of improvement regarding IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe, I can compare with other competitors, especially regardi...
What is your primary use case for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?
There are many advantages that we have with IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe against, for example, IBM full flash systems an...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
PowerStore
IBM FlashSystem 9100, FlashSystem 9100
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
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Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerStore vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.