No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Dell PowerStore vs Panasas ActiveStor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 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

Dell PowerStore
Ranking in NAS
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
233
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (4th), Enterprise SAN (1st), All-Flash Storage (1st), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (1st)
Panasas ActiveStor
Ranking in NAS
22nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the NAS category, the mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 7.2%, down from 12.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Panasas ActiveStor is 1.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerStore7.2%
Panasas ActiveStor1.7%
Other91.1%
NAS
 

Featured Reviews

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.
MW
Project Manager at Realnux
A stable solution with good performance and bandwidth
The tool's setup is not difficult. The deployment is completed within two to three days and we would require three engineers to handle the process. First, we need to install the software which can take around two to three hours. Next, comes the configuration and connection to the central network which is complex. It can take about eight to ten hours to complete.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"After implementing Dell PowerStore storage, the performance became exceptional, and customers started to notice improvements in system access."
"I would assess the timeframes to deploy it as efficient."
"The insights offered by Dell AIOps are very robust when it comes to mitigating traffic flow and data resiliency."
"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 solution's migration feature is very valuable, but the most valuable thing is that more features appear with every iteration of the software."
"Since migrating to PowerStore, I believe everything is quite optimized and we haven't observed any issues in the two years since the migration."
"The way you're able to manage all your PowerStores as one solution is very good for us. PowerStore enables you to federate or cluster multiple appliances with automated load balancing. In terms of management, it's helpful that we can do it from a single interface where we're able to manage multiple PowerStores. When you have multiple PowerStores it works intelligently by running the workloads based on the needs of the infrastructure."
"Dell PowerStore has positively impacted my organization as it has allowed us to more clearly define the storage needs of each individual process or VM."
"I am impressed with the tool's performance and bandwidth."
"We've found the product to be quite flexible."
"The stability is excellent and we've found the product's performance to be very good."
 

Cons

"I have realized nothing exemplary from using Dell PowerStore, except hat the user interface is clunky, and we've had issues with that."
"There are some management issues in Dell PowerStore. I have managed several pieces of Dell PowerStore's hardware area, and I could feel that it was almost like a step back in certain areas when it came to the management interface."
"There are some issues in the firmware and operational system for Dell PowerStore, such as certificate issues from legacy firmwares."
"In future updates, I would like to see more AI functionality plus a good integration with OneDrive."
"Dell PowerStore customer service is good, but sometimes they usually take a lot of time to understand the issue."
"Dell PowerStore's IOPS needs to be better; this is the only downside I faced."
"During the installation phase, the licensing part was not straightforward. It was very difficult for the technicians, who are not trained Dell EMC technicians, to do the licensing because the information on their website is not straightforward... Eventually, I had to pass this task to our business partner and they did it for us."
"The responsiveness could be faster, but once you reach the higher tier engineering for major problems, they are very good."
"We have received complaints from customers that the tool is not easy to use. The tool's local technical service is slow. The solution is good for Linux customers and not for customers with other operating systems like Windows. The solution should provide storage without client software integration."
"The solution is quite expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Dealing with the licensing part of the product is very simple, especially considering the fact that we don't have many licenses associated with the tool."
"We are happy with the pricing that we get from Dell."
"Pricing depends on the model and negotiation. Sometimes we manage to get good discounts, sometimes not."
"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."
"It is very expensive though when you get to this point of using the 3000 with a client. They will start to think about using another vendor. There are a lot of solutions similar to PowerStore in regards to networking capacity and their prices are very cheap compared to PowerStore."
"Dell PowerStore is not a cheap solution."
"When we compared it with the other solutions, the pricing of PowerStore was equal. The pricing is good."
"The solution's price was comparable to other products for the use case, size, and setup."
"The solution's price is reasonable."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which NAS solutions are best for your needs.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business77
Midsize Enterprise45
Large Enterprise116
No data available
 

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...
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...
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 ...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

PowerStore
ActiveStor
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Advanced Mask Technology Center Airbus Argonne National Laboratory The University of Texas at Dallas School of Arts Technology and Emerging Communication Башнефть Boeing Bosch California Academy of Sciences Caltech Canon Case Western Reserve University Conoco Phillips Deluxe DirecTV Fairfield Technologies United States Federal Reserve Garvan Institute of Medical Research Goodyear Halliburton Harvard Medical School Honeywell In-Depth Geophysical Intel Kawasaki Lockheed Martin 3M Magseis Fairfield Mammal Studios The Man Group McLaren Mercedes-Benz MINES ParisTech NASA US Navy National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center NBCUniversal National Institutes of Health Nio National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Northrup Grumman Novartis Partners Healthcare Procter & Gamble PGS Pratt & Whitney Rutherford Appleton Lab Siemens Sim International Sinopec Solers Square Cnix TGS Toyota Motorsport GMBH Toppan Turner UMass Medical School United Technologies University of Georgia University of California Los Angeles University of Minnesota University of Notre Dame University of California San Diego Center for Microbiome Innovation Whiskytree
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerStore vs. Panasas ActiveStor and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.