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 #17 with an average rating of 8.8, while NetApp is ranked #26 with an average rating of 9.0. Dell Technologies holds a 0.8% mindshare in AFS, compared to NetApp’s 0.7% 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: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

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

July 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 August 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell SC Series is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

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

"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

"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."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."

"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."

"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."

"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."

"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"It was very easy to install, maintain, and provides excellent manageability."

"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."

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

"Its feature set is superior to some of the other platforms."

"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 solution has a wide variety of valuable features. The data progression works well. We use the snapshot functionality quite a bit and really like it."

"It is easy to use, expand the hard drives, add storage, and set up replication."

"Easy management of volumes: You can create volumes and easily assign them to VMware clusters, increasing their size."

More Dell SC Series pros

"Having the option of such high-speed storage in the data center is what makes it valuable."

"Rapid deployment, easy integration management and cloning of areas."

"The product's initial setup phase can be managed easily and completed in 20 to 30 minutes. It is one of the fastest storage tools that you can implement."

"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."

"The speed is the most valuable feature."

"We use it for our VDI environment, and have not had any complaints with it."

"The management software is very good."

"The management of it is very simple. that is the most valuable feature."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pros

Cons

"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."

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

"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've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

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

"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."

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

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"While there's always room for improvement in everything, I can't really think of a specific feature of the solution that requires immediate attention."

"The configuration could be easier in Dell EMC SC Series."

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

"The price could be improved."

"We had times that we needed a file service solution. We've used FluidFS, but it's a solution that is being transitioned out."

"I don't think the solution is very scalable."

"It would be helpful if the solution offered higher performance, at least on the back end."

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

More Dell SC Series cons

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

"The pricing could be cheaper and it should have documentation in more languages, specifically, Russian."

"The initial setup phase of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is not straightforward and needs improvement."

"As far as the manageability, being able to port between the two and have to do less training in-house from a customer point of view, that would be the part to improve."

"It was difficult to implement and lacks some additional features that would be useful, but as a solution fits a particular need for our organization."

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

"The solution's technical support is not as good as it is supposed to be since you have to push them to get support."

"I would like to shrink it more, if we can. The smaller, the better."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

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

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

"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."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"It's a very affordable solution."

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

"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."

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

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

"This solution could be better priced in comparison with other vendors."

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

"We have the basic license for the use of this solution and it is a permanent license. The overall cost could be less, it is expensive."

More Dell SC Series pricing and cost advice

"It's a way to get relatively low-cost, very high-performance, low-latency block storage as a point solution."

"The pricing is comparable with other competitors and similar in mid-range solutions, and for high range solutions, it would depend on our requirements or needs."

"The cost of our license is approximately $200,000 over three years for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. There can be additional costs for storage. For example, if you want to have eight terabytes."

"The pricing of the solution is expensive, considering the initial investment required...At the end of the product's life cycle, it could get cheaper, but the initial investment in NetApp makes it one of the most expensive solutions."

"Cheaper pricing is always good. NetApp has been doing everything the right way. They've been figuring out things really well, going in the right direction."

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

"This solution is not available to many users because the cost is very expensive."

"Adding more capacity will increase the cost."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

20%

University

Performing Arts

Government

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Performing Arts

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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?

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 ...

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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 ...

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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...

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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...

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What do you like most about NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

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

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

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 24% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% 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

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Dell PowerStore vs Dell SC Series

Compared 44% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell SC Series

Compared 10% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell SC Series

Compared 10% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell SC Series

Compared 9% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs Dell SC Series

Compared 7% of the time

More Dell SC Series Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 26% of the time

NetApp AFF vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 15% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 13% of the time

Dell XtremIO vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 12% of the time

NetApp ASA vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 9% of the time

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

August 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series

August 2025

Download Dell SC Series product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

August 2025

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

July 2025

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: July 2025.

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