Dell SC Series vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800 comparison

Dell Technologies and NetApp are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #18 with an average rating of 9.0, while NetApp is ranked #19 with an average rating of 8.5. Dell Technologies holds a 0.8% mindshare in AFS, compared to NetApp’s 0.8% mindshare. 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 SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Dell SC Series and NetApp NVMe AFF A800 are high-end storage solutions, each catering to different user needs. Based on user reviews, NetApp NVMe AFF A800 appears to have an edge due to its superior performance and advanced features.

Features: Users highlight Dell SC Series for cost-effective scalability, solid reliability, and flexible support. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 stands out with exceptional speed, advanced data management capabilities, and seamless cloud integration.

Room for Improvement: Dell SC Series could improve its integration capabilities and modernize its hardware components. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 users suggest simplifying the configuration processes and reducing the steep learning curve.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell SC Series is noted for straightforward deployment and responsive support. NetApp NVMe AFF A800, while more complex to set up, also receives positive feedback for its comprehensive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Dell SC Series is favored for lower initial setup costs and good ROI for medium-sized enterprises. Despite a higher investment, NetApp NVMe AFF A800 delivers substantial ROI due to its cutting-edge performance and features, with users feeling the additional cost is justified by the benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell SC Series vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800

April 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 May 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell SC Series is 0.8%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

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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Tanveer Rahman

Chief Technical Office at Novotel Ltd.

A scalable solution that serves as a storage for the cloud services opted by organizations

My company uses NetApp NVMe AFF A800 as storage for our cloud The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O. The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better. I don't expect to see additional…

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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

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"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."

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

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

"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 interface is easy to use which makes the product user-friendly."

"One time, we had a drive fail and we were notified before we even saw it on the device."

"With auto-tiering, it's easier to understand than most arrays, knowing that all of your writes go to the tier that you specify, with easy-to-create storage profiles."

More Dell SC Series pros

"NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is easier to use than some other solutions and the UI is very good to use for day-to-day activities. Overall, the solution has good technology."

"You can easily scale up, and scale-out."

"Low latency is the most valuable feature."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O."

"The storage features are valuable."

"We find the product to be very flexible."

"During the use cases of the solution, its reliability and suitability are the best."

"Over the eight years, we've been using NetApp with ONTAP, we've never lost a bit of data, and we've only experienced a few minutes of downtime in that entire time."

More NetApp NVMe AFF A800 pros

Cons

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

"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."

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

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

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

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

"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."

"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"An issue we had was that the controller went down during an upgrade because of their upgrading the code. One side of the switch was down."

"The price could be improved."

"The lower model, the 3000, should have duplication. It doesn't right now. It's only from 5000 that this is offered, but it depends on the performance. It could be they don't offer it on lower models because the duplication is too much of a burden to the performance."

"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."

"I would like to improve the processing ability."

"The interface could be improved. It should have an application point of view."

"The initial setup is somewhat complex and should be made simpler to do."

"The cost of the solution could be better."

More Dell SC Series cons

"The support can take a few days to have a response. However, the response that we do receive is very informative."

"The initial setup is complex."

"The technical support has room for improvement."

"The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better."

"Stability is an area with a certain shortcoming where the solution needs to improve"

"Sometimes, it takes a while to get somebody competent on the other end of the line. They do have engineers in multiple time zones around the world. However, their level-one support is not always the best."

"The product’s UI could be better."

"Increasing the RAM, and including physical cords would be beneficial."

More NetApp NVMe AFF A800 cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

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

"The product is expensive."

"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."

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

"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."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"We have found it to be affordable. Comparing the cost with other hardware, it seems to be right in line with the compute and the storage that we get with it."

"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."

"The scalability seems a bit more expensive than even buying a brand new one so far. That has been kind of a drawback."

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

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

"Pricing depends on varying life cycles."

"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."

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

More Dell SC Series pricing and cost advice

"There are licenses for the use of this solution, such as commercial licenses."

"Considering the requirements and the situation, I don't feel that this is an expensive product."

"I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten."

"The solution is expensive."

"Though NetApp NVMe AFF A800 may seem like a highly-priced product, it is not extremely expensive."

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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

Financial Services Firm

Government

Manufacturing Company

23%

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Educational Organization

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.

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 ...

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...

See all answers

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 do you like most about NetApp NVMe AFF A800?

The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp NVMe AFF A800?

Though NetApp NVMe AFF A800 may seem like a highly-priced product, it is not extremely expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp NVMe AFF A800?

The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better. I don't expect to s...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 30% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% 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 8% of the time

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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 9% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell SC Series

Compared 9% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell SC Series

Compared 6% of the time

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NetApp ASA vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 25% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 18% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 16% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 10% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 9% of the time

More NetApp NVMe AFF A800 Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

April 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series

April 2025

Download Dell SC Series product report

Buyer's Guide

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

April 2025

Download NetApp NVMe AFF A800 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

Your data is a gold mine. Get the most out of it - faster - with AFF A800. Designed for NVMe media, further accelerated with NVMe/FC connectivity to the host, AFF A800 all-flash systems deliver an incredible sub-200 microsecond latency. Providing more than 11.4M IOPS and 300GB/s throughput in a single cluster, AFF A800 redefines the limit of what’s possible with artificial intelligence and deep learning.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800

April 2025

Free Report: Dell SC Series vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell SC Series vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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