Dell PowerStore vs VAST Data comparison

Dell Technologies and VAST Data are both solutions in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category. Dell Technologies is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.8, while VAST Data is ranked #11. Dell Technologies holds a 23.4% mindshare in N, compared to VAST Data’s 5.9% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of VAST Data users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

VAST Data and Dell PowerStore are competing storage solutions. VAST Data appears to have an edge in pricing and customer support, whereas Dell PowerStore is favored for its advanced features and integration capabilities.

Features: VAST Data users highlight efficient storage capacity, unique architecture, and data reduction technologies. Dell PowerStore users cite flexible deployment options, scalability, and advanced performance.

Room for Improvement: Users report VAST Data could improve in software stability, user training, and system robustness. Dell PowerStore users suggest enhancements in system updates, technical support responsiveness, and firmware consistency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VAST Data is recognized for straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. Dell PowerStore is praised for comprehensive deployment documentation but receives mixed reviews on support response times.

Pricing and ROI: Users find VAST Data to have lower initial setup costs and faster ROI. Dell PowerStore is perceived as more expensive upfront but offers long-term value through robust features.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerStore vs. VAST Data Report (Updated: May 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore vs. VAST Data

May 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 June 2025, in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 2.8%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 23.4%, down from 26.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VAST Data is 5.9%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

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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Alan Powers

HPC CTO at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Stability-wise, a device that has been up and running for years

The failover capability and resiliency are some of the solution's valuable features. The big thing is resilience because it has richer coding in it, so multiple devices can't fail. Also, one can still access a number of CBoxes that can allow one to access their file system. Once a device fails, it fails the transparency of the end-user, and it just starts using another resource. The encryption capability, the snapshots, along with a whole bunch of features make the tool valuable. VAST Data keeps adding more and more features all the time.

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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

"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."

"I appreciate the performance."

"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."

"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."

"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."

"FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"Though the initial investment might seem high, achieving five times deduplication compression provides good value for money."

"PowerStore is easy to use. All the drives use soft encryption. To upgrade it, you download the app, and it runs by itself. It's very easy to deploy, share, and create volumes."

"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."

"Reliable, with comprehensive features and a well-established support base."

"Dell PowerStore is very simple to implement, and its user interface is very simple."

"The most valuable features are the three-to-one data reduction and the ability to scale out and up."

"The stability has been excellent."

"It is very easy to use. Access is very friendly. It shows you a lot of important information at the first glance. It has been very easy to use."

More Dell PowerStore pros

"This has been one of the most reliable storage systems that I have ever used."

"The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations."

Cons

"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."

"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."

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

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

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

"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."

"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."

"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The data resiliency and cybersecurity features of Dell PowerStore are just normal and would be considered medium; we need additional components such as cybersecurity vault for increased resilience."

"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."

"We'd like to see some improvements on the security side."

"One thing they need to work on is creating an app sync or the Metro Cluster functionality. Currently, it requires a different hop as we have to add multiple switches to build that functionality for replication from one data center to another."

"I have realized nothing exemplary from using Dell PowerStore, except hat the user interface is clunky, and we've had issues with that."

"The cost of technical support is high."

"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."

"Data reduction needs improvement."

More Dell PowerStore cons

"The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement."

"The write performance could be improved because it is less than half of the read performance."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

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

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

"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 product is expensive."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The price is high compared to the Tunisian market."

"As compared to others, PowerStore is cheaper."

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

"The solution’s pricing is always too high."

"There's still a cap on the upgrade path, where you can consume all the engines within the frame before you have to go to another frame... Normally, we exceed the IOPS on the frames before we can ever exhaust the storage, so anything they can do to help us avoid stranded storage capacity, capacity that we couldn't get to, would be beneficial."

"With compression, we were able to have a solution within our company's budget. We include a clause in the contract with Dell that states if the compression ratio is not met, we will adjust the workload accordingly."

"It is easy to work with Dell from the licensing perspective."

"Dell PowerStore is affordable and the license is just a face license which is great."

More Dell PowerStore pricing and cost advice

"We acquired VAST Data as a one-time, capital purchase."

"Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

University

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 ...

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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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Can you provide any information you may have on VAST Data?

Here are some technical details about VAST Data: VAST Data is a software-defined storage platform designed to scale...

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Comparisons

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 19% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% 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 13% of the time

Dell PowerVault vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 10% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 9% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 8% of the time

More Dell PowerStore Competitors

NetApp AFF vs VAST Data

Compared 11% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs VAST Data

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs VAST Data

Compared 9% of the time

Qumulo vs VAST Data

Compared 9% of the time

More VAST Data Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

May 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore

June 2025

Download Dell PowerStore product report

Buyer's Guide

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

May 2025

Download VAST Data 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

Innovation to break decades of data storage trade-offs.

VAST Data

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

Norwest Venture Partners, General Dynamics Information Technology, Ginkgo Bioworks

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore vs. VAST Data

May 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerStore vs. VAST Data

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerStore vs. VAST Data and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.

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