Dell SC Series vs NetApp AFF C-Series comparison

Dell Technologies and NetApp are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #17 with an average rating of 9.0, while NetApp is ranked #32 with an average rating of 8.0. Additionally, 94% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell SC Series and NetApp AFF C-Series based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Pure Storage and others in All-Flash Storage.

To learn more, read our detailed All-Flash Storage Report (Updated: May 2025).

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

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

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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Steven McClendon

Data Center Server & Storage Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Superior platform with excellent snapshots and cost-saving auto-tiering

I'm a big fan of the SC Series platform. Its feature set is superior to some of the other platforms. The snapshots on SC are excellent, allowing for multiple snapshot schedules for any one system. The auto-tiering functionality intelligently moves new data to the highest performance tier and then progresses it down to less expensive tiers over time, providing cost savings for customers.

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Mishal Bhatt

Senior Storage Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Transition from costly infrastructure lowers expenses and improves hardware performance

NetApp offers a cost-effective solution with very robust hardware. Frequent improvements are shared through bulletins so we can enhance hardware performance by upgrading the ONTAP version. Firmware upgrades are also widely distributed. Weekly calls with NetApp ensure we're staying on top of any potential issues. The transition from SAN-based to NetApp storage eliminated SAN switch costs and reduced CommVault dependency, lowering license costs significantly.

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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

"The latency is good."

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"The tool's valuable features are speed, security, data compression, and reliability. Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen. It helps us to save money and resources."

"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."

"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."

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

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"Dell SC Series offers a lot of performance, being one of the best performing storages Dell ever made."

"We replicate between SAN to SAN for a lot of features and supportability. It also helps us when we want to upgrade to a newer SC Series or move the data from one data center to another."

"The most valuable feature is the speed for the end-user."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to replicate. We are running a financial company and it needs to be available 24/7. We can't afford any downtime."

"This solution is easy to use."

"It is suitable for small or medium businesses."

"The most valuable feature is the no-forklift upgrade. While the thing is running, I can change out the controllers one at a time and keep the customer up and running. I can add shelves and storage and SSD drives or spinning drives to the system, while it's running. I can bring all that in and rebalance the load across the new disks or, if we take disks away, rebalance the load across what's remaining, and it just works."

"It has been one of the most stable products in our data center."

More Dell SC Series pros

"NetApp offers a cost-effective solution with very robust hardware."

Cons

"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."

"It is on the expensive side."

"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."

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

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

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"While the scalability is good, there are certain limitations."

"While the price is competitive, in the next release it would be better if they could reduce the fees."

"In some customer cases, customers experienced more performance or latency."

"Snapshots in VMware. You can’t do snapshots since the storage itself does that. Therefore, some apps (Veeam, for example) don’t work well with this kind of tiering storage."

"We have seen some degraded throughput with mixed workloads. We have been working with Dell EMC to correct some of these latency issues."

"Dell SC Series is no longer available, while Dell PowerStore, which supports NVMe over TCP, is different and not very affordable."

"The connection should be better integrated with the network to offer a better view of the system."

"The administration and support (on the way that they delivered) was a little bit slow."

More Dell SC Series cons

"We faced one bug that impacted our NetApp last month, and it took some time to identify the underlying issue."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The product is expensive."

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."

"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."

"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."

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

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"Support typically depends on the array. It can range anywhere from $7,000 to a couple of hundred thousand dollars."

"Pricing depends on varying life cycles."

"There are costs involving the solution, vendor fees and product safety which are additional."

"The pricing of this solution is competitive."

"Compared to other solutions out there, it's affordable."

"Always keep in mind, this is not just a enclosure with disks is a complete SAN as a service. There is software, license, and storage in one single solution."

"The SC Series was priced fairly. I wouldn't call it either expensive or cheap because we had a very tight budget, so if they were able to fit in that type of budget, they met our expectations."

"This product is too expensive compared to others, and I don't see any value in using it."

More Dell SC Series pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

21%

University

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

No data available

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.

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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 ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell SC Series?

I find this version to be more budget-friendly compared to products from other vendors. This aspect greatly benefits ...

See all answers

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

Cost considerations are crucial when choosing between solutions like Dell and NetApp. Sometimes Dell offers better pe...

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What needs improvement with Dell SC Series?

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

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp AFF C-Series?

We faced one bug that impacted our NetApp last month, and it took some time to identify the underlying issue. Better ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for NetApp AFF C-Series?

We are using NetApp C series for our VMware environments mainly.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering NetApp AFF C-Series?

Overall, from one to ten, I would rate NetApp as an eight. As for additional advice, I suggest that NetApp provide mo...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 30% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 18% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% 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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell SC Series

Compared 61% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell SC Series

Compared 10% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell SC Series

Compared 10% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell SC Series

Compared 8% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell SC Series

Compared 6% of the time

More Dell SC Series Competitors

NetApp AFF A-Series vs NetApp AFF C-Series

Compared 39% of the time

NetApp AFF vs NetApp AFF C-Series

Compared 31% of the time

NetApp FAS Series vs NetApp AFF C-Series

Compared 30% of the time

More NetApp AFF C-Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

May 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series

May 2025

Download Dell SC Series product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

May 2025

Download NetApp AFF C-Series product report

Also Known As

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

SC Series Storage, Compellent

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 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

NetApp AFF C-Series enhances data storage efficiency and performance, seamlessly handling high workloads and data management tasks. It is leveraged for high-speed data accessibility, optimization, supporting critical applications, and delivering reliable performance in dynamic environments.

NetApp AFF C-Series is appreciated for its high performance, flexibility, and efficient data management. It offers seamless integration with cloud services, snapshot technology, and scalability. Users value its ease of setup, strong support, robust automation capabilities, reliable data protection, and fast response times. However, areas for improvement include better initial setup documentation, system stability during high I/O operations, more seamless integration with third-party cloud services, improved customer support response times, enhanced data analytics capabilities, and a more intuitive management dashboard.

What are the most important features of NetApp AFF C-Series?

High performance: Ideal for handling high workloads and ensuring swift data accessibility.
Flexibility: Seamless integration with cloud services.
Efficient data management: Advanced snapshot technology and scalability.
Ease of setup: Straightforward installation process.
Strong support: Robust customer support when needed.
Automation: Efficient automation capabilities for streamlined processes.
Data protection: Reliable safeguards for critical data.
Fast response times: Quick reaction to data requests and operations.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in reviews?

Data storage efficiency: Reduction in storage costs due to high efficiency.
Performance: Improved productivity with high-speed data access.
Reliability: Consistent performance in dynamic environments.
Support for critical applications: Ensures critical business applications run smoothly.
Cloud integration: Enhanced flexibility with seamless cloud service integration.
Scalability: Future-proofing storage needs with scalable solutions.

NetApp AFF C-Series is implemented across industries where data storage efficiency and performance are critical. In finance, it supports high-speed transactions, while in healthcare, it ensures reliable management of sensitive medical records. In the technology sector, it offers robust support for dynamic, data-intensive applications, enhancing overall business performance.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric

Information Not Available

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Pure Storage and others in All-Flash Storage. Updated: May 2025.

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