Dell SC Series vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays comparison

Dell Technologies and NetApp are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.8, while NetApp is ranked #24 with an average rating of 9.0. Dell Technologies holds a 1.2% mindshare in AFS, compared to NetApp’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

The NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and Dell SC Series are two prominent products in the realm of storage solutions. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are preferred for pricing and support, whereas Dell SC Series stands out in features, making it worth the higher price.

Features: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are praised for their high performance, scalability, and quick deployment, suitable for enterprises with demanding data needs. Dell SC Series stands out for efficient data reduction capabilities, comprehensive data services, and advanced management and automation.

Room for Improvement: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays can benefit from enhanced integration with cloud environments, improved reporting tools, and better scalability options. Dell SC Series could improve on initial setup complexity, better documentation, and an easier upgrade process.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are noted for quick deployment and responsive customer service. Dell SC Series deployment can be more complex and time-consuming, though it offers robust customer support.

Pricing and ROI: The NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are seen as having competitive setup costs and deliver a strong ROI due to their performance and reliability. Dell SC Series, while having higher initial costs, justifies its pricing with extensive features and data reduction efficiencies, leading to a favorable ROI in users' views.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell SC Series vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

February 2026

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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 February 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.5%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell SC Series is 1.2%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 1.0%, up from 0.6% 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	1.2%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.5%
NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays	1.0%
Other	96.3%

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.

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RafaelGamaluis

Architect Engineer, IT INFRASTRUCTURES Project Manager at Vilavi

User interface offers clarity and detailed information while technical support consistently delivers

The best features of Dell SC Series are stability and replication. The replication solution is excellent, and they have a solution named Live Migration. It is a robust platform. The interface and the GUI (graphical user interface) for administrating the Compellent are exceptional, with abundant information that is very clear. The management capabilities are excellent, and the stability of our storage hardware is remarkable.

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Tayo Olubanke

Managing Director at GCET

Offers flexibility and top-notch technology

You can go to bed peacefully if you have a NetApp. If you have NetApp within your data center, you get to know about power failure if you are using it. Your NetApp will still come alive. Even if it does not come alive, I can say that it is not like other tools when it comes to dealing with power failure. The tool is affordable, and the technology is top-notch. It is the only technology that has software for what we call inline compression and deduplication. All the products under NetApp are aiming to use AI. I know that you can achieve whatever you want to do with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

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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

"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

"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."

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"The solution is very straightforward to set up."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The Dell support is helpful and the response is quick. The agents' knowledge is very good."

"It has good dedupe and compression. Also, the built-in data migration capabilities are pretty good, as is the federation. When we started migrating the workloads from different storage platforms, like NetApp and XtremeIO, it helped us in moving to that direction."

"Dell SC Series' most valuable features are performance and network facilities. We have no issues with its integration. The tool helps to visualize servers."

"The product offers good performance and is quite powerful."

"One of the most valuable features is the capability to switch between all-flash to hybrid, which have have actually done for one of our arrays. We started with the hybrid, with the limited if I'm not mistaken, and then over a period of time, we swapped all the hybrids with the SSDs. This was one of the big features because it gave us the capability to not stick with just one kind of media. Secondly, since it has sorted clustering, we were able to bring in the newer boxes and have it all clustered together. These were the two main features that we really looked into, which benefited our use case from an expansion/growth perspective. Another valuable feature is the ease of management."

"The most valuable features are the with back-end dedupe, and the thin nodes. For a 20TB or 60TB, we're using almost a one-to-two ratio."

"Technical support is very good. I do use it from time to time and it's always excellent."

"We see very low latency with very high IOPS for mixed workloads."

More Dell SC Series pros

"One of the most valuable features is the overall performance it provides. You're able to throw a pile of IOPS at it and it will handle that without much issue."

"We do a lot of in-house, application-dependent type things, where we find the different niches to the different things. Certain things they do better. We've found that it actually does very well on some of our higher-end applications."

"I would have to say performance at this point, because the application it is based on is so diverse."

"It provides multi-protocol, which is what gives the edge when it comes to big lineage PC workloads."

"Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market."

"The solution allows us to segregate one storage unit from another."

"Some of the valuable features include MetroCluster switchover, in terms of disaster recovery, it is easy to use, and flexible."

"The NetApp EF-Series gave our organization easy access to our data bases."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pros

Cons

"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."

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

"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."

"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."

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

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

"We have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."

"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The price could be improved."

"The ease of use could be improved. It took me a while to learn it."

"I would like to see higher compression, dedupe, faster I/O, and bigger drives."

"In terms of additional features, I would like to see some kind of I/O meter, to indicate what we are using in terms of performance. I would like to see automation with that, where it would give me the trends. I want to know those things easily, to help me know where issues are going to occur."

"We can definitely see a need for it being a multi-controller system for customers who want to scale beyond the current capability. That's always a downside. A lot of the new systems are scaling vertically, they scale out, and the Compellent, of course, is controllers with shelves under it, so you don't scale out with it, unless you add another one. But if you do, they don't talk to each other, like some of the other solutions that we sell."

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

"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."

More Dell SC Series cons

"The management interface, while very reliable, it seems a little old now and could maybe use a little modernization."

"We need a center related to NetApp in Egypt so that we can deal with them directly."

"We have used IBM previously. We found that the storage from IBM was poor and we chose NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays because it can scale very easily."

"The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."

"There could be an improvement when it comes to SLA support, it could be faster."

"I've observed an issue when creating a new storage solution with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays."

"Better integration with other brands is important so we would like to see it easier to integrate."

"Better support technicians for CAPP."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

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

"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."

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

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

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The maintenance is usually pretty good. It's not like some of the others where they increase it in the fourth, fifth, or sixth years."

"We have reviewed many platforms over the years. It is probably the best solution for its value."

"The pricing is reasonable, but it is expensive."

"We were able to afford two tiers of flash storage at a price where the competition was giving us one tier or just a handful of discs."

"The pricing of this solution is competitive."

"It has a good price point and offers some value-added enterprise features."

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

"It's absolutely affordable. Again, not having to do a forklift upgrade like some of the others have had to do in the past, it's very affordable for our customers and they continue to buy."

More Dell SC Series pricing and cost advice

"Price-wise, NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is costlier than Dell. You have to buy a lot of licenses separately."

"NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is an expensive product."

"Its cost-effectiveness is a major selling point. Compared to other storage vendors, the EF-Series offers excellent value for its price. It's truly a leading product in the industry."

"The price point for EF is considerably lower than the alternatives."

"he price point that we're getting is very competitive in the market. Since we are buying in such a large quantity, they gave us a huge discount."

"They need to improve its pricing. The storage market is dying. So, they need to improve the price because it should reach all people. NetApp is one of the top ones, and they are charging a little bit of royalty as compared to other storage solutions."

"One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to renew the license."

"Most of my customers pay for the license on a yearly basis. It can be expensive depending on the capacity number."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pricing and cost advice

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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

10%

University

Performing Arts

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

12%

Performing Arts

10%

Marketing Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

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	12
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	18

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to rene...

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. I want NetApp's supp...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

There are so many things to talk about around the use cases associated with the tool. There are so many reasons why I...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 12% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell SC Series

Compared 17% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell SC Series

Compared 8% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs Dell SC Series

Compared 7% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Dell SC Series

Compared 7% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell SC Series

Compared 6% of the time

More Dell SC Series Competitors

NetApp AFF vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 14% of the time

Dell XtremIO vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 10% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 10% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 9% of the time

NetApp ASA vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 8% of the time

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays 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

February 2026

Download Dell SC Series product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

January 2026

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays report

Download NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays product report

Also Known As

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

SC Series Storage, Compellent

NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series

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

The NetApp EF560 all-flash array is an all-SSD storage system for applications that demand extremely high levels of performance and reliability. Requiring just 2U of rack space, the EF560 all-flash array combines extreme IOPS, microsecond response times, and up to 12GBps of bandwidth with leading, enterprise-proven availability features.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric

RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

February 2026

Free Report: Dell SC Series vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell SC Series vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

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