Dell SC Series vs Dell XtremIO comparison

Dell SC Series and Dell XtremIO are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell SC Series is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.8, while Dell XtremIO is ranked #19 with an average rating of 8.0. Dell SC Series holds a 1.1% mindshare in AFS, compared to Dell XtremIO’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Dell SC Series users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Dell XtremIO users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Dell XtremIO and Dell SC Series are enterprise storage solutions targeting different needs. Dell SC Series generally offers more robust features, while Dell XtremIO excels in ease of deployment and management.

Features: Dell XtremIO is noted for its performance and scalability, easy deployment, and efficient management. Dell SC Series stands out with advanced data management options, greater flexibility, and tiered storage capabilities that optimize resources and performance.

Room for Improvement: Dell XtremIO could benefit from more competitive pricing and additional features. Dell SC Series users suggest that the interface could be more intuitive, the system's complexity can be a barrier, and the initial setup cost is high.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell XtremIO has a straightforward deployment process and responsive customer support. Dell SC Series might require more time to deploy due to its complexity, but has comprehensive support services.

Pricing and ROI: Dell XtremIO is viewed as a cost-effective option with a quick ROI. Dell SC Series involves higher initial setup costs, but its advanced features justify the investment.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell SC Series vs. Dell XtremIO Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series vs. Dell XtremIO

December 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:

ROI

Sentiment score

1.0

Organizations reduced costs and improved performance with Pure FlashArray X NVMe, achieving quick ROI and efficient resource management.

Sentiment score

9.3

Dell SC Series offers cost-effective virtualization, ease of management, and significant savings through flash disks, boosting ROI and user satisfaction.

Sentiment score

1.0

Dell XtremIO enhances performance, reduces latency, increases efficiency, and improves reliability, leading to faster response times and cost savings.

If you wait more than seven years to buy another one, you get a return on your investment.

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

Users were very happy when I bought it, as it significantly lowered disk response times.

reviewer2618529

It adviser at a security firm with 201-500 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell SC Series report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell XtremIO report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

7.1

Pure FlashArray X NVMe's technical support is praised for responsiveness, despite occasional follow-up issues, earning high customer satisfaction.

Sentiment score

7.2

Dell SC Series support is highly rated for its responsiveness, knowledgeable staff, and effective issue resolution globally.

Sentiment score

7.2

Dell XtremIO support receives mixed reviews, from exemplary technical assistance to variable performance post-Dell merger.

Customers always have their issues resolved promptly.

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

Technical support is good at least through vendors, not directly with the principal.

Shakeel Qureshi

Infrastructure Specialis at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

Advanced support offers instant replacement without delays.

Ramnesh Kumar

System Administrator at Lovely Professional University

Compared to other companies, Dell SC Series offers one of the best support experiences in my career.

RafaelGamaluis

Architect Engineer, IT INFRASTRUCTURES Project Manager at Vilavi

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell SC Series report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell XtremIO report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.1

Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers scalable storage with low latency, easy upgrades, though capacity customization and high costs are noted.

Sentiment score

6.1

Dell SC Series offers flexible, scalable storage for businesses of all sizes, though some note cost and controller limitations.

Sentiment score

6.9

Dell XtremIO is scalable and integrates well with virtualization but may have initial cost and enterprise-level scalability challenges.

It hasn't broken down anytime in the last six to seven years, despite hurricanes, earthquakes, and power outages.

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell SC Series report

Dell XtremIO provides very good scalability, allowing for cluster configurations that are easy to scale.

Stanislaw Jagielski

Trainer, Storage Consultant at Oxon

Dell XtremIO's scalability is quite easy;

Avi Shpaner

System Engineer at Exaware

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell XtremIO report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.1

Pure Storage offers exceptional stability and reliability with outstanding support, consistently achieving high user ratings for performance and service.

Sentiment score

8.9

Dell SC Series is stable, cost-effective, with minimal downtime and maintenance, praised for replication and reliable performance despite setup complexities.

Sentiment score

8.3

Dell XtremIO is generally stable and reliable, despite earlier issues, with well-regarded performance and effective support for problems.

I would rate the stability of the product at seven out of ten.

Gary Cheung

Project Manager at a government with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

In storages, stability is the most important aspect, even before performance.

reviewer2618529

It adviser at a security firm with 201-500 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell SC Series report

My customer has been using Dell XtremIO since 2017 and has not experienced any failures.

Kirihettige Anton Asiri Prasad

Systems Engineer at Thakral One (Pvt) Ltd

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell XtremIO report

Room For Improvement

Pure FlashArray X requires cost-effective improvements in UI, integration, cloud features, multitenancy, analytics, backup, AI, and scalability.

Dell SC Series needs improved user-friendliness, technical support, integration, scalability, and features like compression, automation, and cloud compatibility.

Dell XtremIO faces challenges with volume limits, user interface, replication, upgrades, support response times, and scalability.

One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware.

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert.

Santhosh Sridhara

Cloud Architect at DXC Technology

Storage replication should be essential.

Shakeel Qureshi

Infrastructure Specialis at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

Dell PowerStore, which supports NVMe over TCP, is different and not very affordable.

reviewer2618529

It adviser at a security firm with 201-500 employees

In the future, I want any box that comes on-premises to have the provision to integrate with cloud storage.

Ramnesh Kumar

System Administrator at Lovely Professional University

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell SC Series report

The interface could be simplified for beginners to ease the configuration of special objects in the system.

Stanislaw Jagielski

Trainer, Storage Consultant at Oxon

There is a significant lack of training, support documents, and forums available for Dell XtremIO, making troubleshooting difficult for third-party individuals.

Kirihettige Anton Asiri Prasad

Systems Engineer at Thakral One (Pvt) Ltd

The API to connect with command line or to see performance very clearly could be enhanced, similar to how NetApp works with Grafana and NetApp monitor, which shows you a comprehensive view of the whole picture.

Avi Shpaner

System Engineer at Exaware

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell XtremIO report

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers see Pure FlashArray X NVMe as a justified premium investment due to performance and comprehensive licensing.

Dell SC Series offers competitive and scalable enterprise storage, with varied pricing and discounts for partnering users.

Dell XtremIO's high pricing is justified by performance and features, offering comprehensive licensing but additional products are needed.

While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits.

Enes SUZER

Manager, System Infrastructure & Security at Organik Kimya San. ve Tic. A.S.

The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there.

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

Sometimes Dell offers better performance for less money.

reviewer2618529

It adviser at a security firm with 201-500 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell SC Series report

XtremIO offers features that justify a potentially higher price, however, this varies with configuration.

Stanislaw Jagielski

Trainer, Storage Consultant at Oxon

Dell XtremIO is quite expensive compared to other solutions on the market.

Kirihettige Anton Asiri Prasad

Systems Engineer at Thakral One (Pvt) Ltd

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell XtremIO report

Valuable Features

Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers exceptional performance, reliability, scalability, and seamless VMware integration, enhancing workload efficiency and user experience.

Dell SC Series provides performance, auto-tiering, and replication with ease of management, scalability, high availability, and strong support.

Dell XtremIO offers high performance, scalability, and efficient management with deduplication and compression, ideal for complex workloads.

Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen.

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed.

Enes SUZER

Manager, System Infrastructure & Security at Organik Kimya San. ve Tic. A.S.

We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options.

Gary Cheung

Project Manager at a government with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

The storage also lowered the response time of disks across the entire farm, making it a great product for operational efficiency.

reviewer2618529

It adviser at a security firm with 201-500 employees

I can mix and match the drives, using older mechanical devices and the latest SFP drives in a single solution with different enclosures.

Ramnesh Kumar

System Administrator at Lovely Professional University

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell SC Series report

The inline data deduplication feature and compression were useful for me because the performance was very good when I needed to read or write from storage, latency was reduced, storage was extended, and volume replication was supported.

Avi Shpaner

System Engineer at Exaware

Scalability is a significant feature of Dell XtremIO, as it is easy to expand and manage.

Stanislaw Jagielski

Trainer, Storage Consultant at Oxon

The speed and scalability of Dell XtremIO are significant features that improve data storage management.

Kirihettige Anton Asiri Prasad

Systems Engineer at Thakral One (Pvt) Ltd

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell XtremIO report

Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell SC Series is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell XtremIO is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell SC Series	1.1%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.4%
Dell XtremIO	0.9%
Other	96.6%

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh

Chief Technology Officer at Lambda256

Supports efficient storage management through volume snapshots and offers reliable non-disruptive upgrades

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, but it does not show the performance by 4K byte unit. It displays IOPS and bandwidth, but IOPS is about real use, and I want to know how many IOPS are currently running in 4K byte units. I cannot see that IOPS because most storage systems report their performance by 4K byte unit. I want to see Pure Storage performance by 4K byte unit to compare with other storage or other internal NVMe SSD.

Read full review

Ramnesh Kumar

System Administrator at Lovely Professional University

Storage solutions accommodate diverse drives and offers good resiliency

Technical support is good. I can log complaints online through the portal and have engineers in line. I can also take dedicated engineers if needed, although this involves a different support cost. As far as my requirements are concerned, it is working fine. There are two or three types of support. Standard support involves logging a complaint and receiving a call from the OEM on the same day, but hardware replacement takes two to three days. Advanced support offers instant replacement without delays. Hardware support terms include calling or emailing the company or logging the call in the portal to receive remote support, or getting a dedicated engineer or account manager from Dell.

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Avi Shpaner

System Engineer at Exaware

Has improved data reduction and snapshot efficiency while supporting critical workloads

There are some areas that could be improved with Dell XtremIO. The API to connect with command line or to see performance very clearly could be enhanced, similar to how NetApp works with Grafana and NetApp monitor, which shows you a comprehensive view of the whole picture. The snapshot functionality could work more similarly to Snap Center. If I want to see all the VCenter with the VM, I think it needs the API for this. I do see big differences between Dell and other products. NetApp works very closely with VCenter, and Hitachi also integrates well, but Dell is not very clear and does not proceed well with VCenter integration with Dell. It needs the API, and I need to see all the snapshots. If I want to restore a VM from only a few directories or a few files that I need to restore, it is very difficult. I do see some differences in licensing. For the last few years, the Dell EMC price is acceptable. A few years ago, Dell EMC was expensive, approximately 20 percent more than NetApp. Right now the budget between EMC and NetApp is very closely aligned. Regarding the installation process and deployment of Dell XtremIO, I notice that in Israel, a lot of professional services and engineers who work with Dell EMC have moved to another storage company. I do not know why. Dell EMC does not have enough engineers, system engineers, or professional services engineers to provide service to the old clients, similar to how NetApp or Hitachi do. I think Dell XtremIO is between easy and complicated to deploy; it gives you the whole picture, but I need to go closely to VCenter to connect to VCenter to see the snapshot and to see performance with more dashboards of performance. I also need to connect the switch fiber channel to see all zoning to give me more flexibility to install or configure fiber channel or to see the performance of the fiber channels. I think there should be some fiber channel disconnect adapter or better troubleshooting from hardware for errors.

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Comparison Review

it_user182013

Federal Civ/Intel Engineering Lead at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

May 1, 2015

Measuring Up: EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR

Leading up to EMC World 2015, IT Central Station asked how I would compare EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR. Until recently, the flash storage conversation in my organization and many others has centered on XtremIO and Pure Storage, the leaders of the all-flash array (AFA) space. To that end, I've written a…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

11%

University

10%

Performing Arts

Outsourcing Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	20

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	29

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?

The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell SC Series?

In our case, we received favorable pricing with Dell because of our strong partnership. While I acknowledge that Dell...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell SC Series?

For us, it is a great product. The deduplication and compression could potentially be improved, though they are alrea...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Dell SC Series?

We use Dell SC Series in a VMware environment.

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell EMC XtremIO?

The feature I like most about Dell Xtremio is its hardware quality compared to other vendors. It's clear they're cont...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell XtremIO?

Pricing is hard to determine as it depends on the given configuration. XtremIO offers features that justify a potenti...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell XtremIO?

There are some areas that could be improved with Dell XtremIO. The API to connect with command line or to see perform...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 19% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell SC Series

Compared 21% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs Dell SC Series

Compared 8% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell SC Series

Compared 8% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell SC Series

Compared 7% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Dell SC Series

Compared 6% of the time

More Dell SC Series Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 15% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 12% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 8% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 8% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 7% of the time

More Dell XtremIO Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

January 2026

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series

January 2026

Download Dell SC Series product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell XtremIO

January 2026

Download Dell XtremIO product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

SC Series Storage, Compellent

Dell EMC XtremIO Flash, Dell EMC XtremIO X2, XtremIO, XtremIO X2

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 EMC SC Series arrays provide a unified platform for the ultimate in performance, adaptability and machine-driven efficiency. SC Series software delivers modern features that help you meet aggressive workload demands using the fewest drives necessary. With an open, future-ready design, SC Series storage integrates seamlessly with applications and infrastructure, enabling you to scale on a single platform and add capabilities without forklift upgrades.

Dell Technologies

Bring all-flash, scale-out storage to your enterprise applications with EMC XtremIO. Purpose-built for flash, XtremIO storage arrays are amazingly fast. Delivering high IOPS at less than 1 millisecond latency is just the start. EMC XtremIO helps you harness the power of flash storage by building in innovations like content-based data placement and dual-stage metadata.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric

Raiffeisen Bank Bulgaria, Wentworth-Douglas Hospital

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series vs. Dell XtremIO

December 2025

Free Report: Dell SC Series vs. Dell XtremIO

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