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Dell SC Series vs Pure Storage FlashArray comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Dell SC Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
17th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Frame-Based Disk Arrays (2nd)
Pure Storage FlashArray
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
199
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell SC Series is 0.8%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pure Storage FlashArray is 6.4%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Steven McClendon - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Nabeel Sayegh - PeerSpot reviewer
Supercharges enterprise storage by way of highly optimized hardware, comprehensive data management and a feature rich interface.
During their early years, I was a member of Pure's Customer Advisory Board. In addition, when we first adopted Pure, they did not have replication GA yet. We got into their beta testing program and help them work out certain issues with that technology. One weakness I can say the array has, still to this day, is limited control on scheduling snapshots. Depending on the type of replication schedule you are building, you may or may not have control on specifying the start time of a given replication schedule. This is not a very big problem in the grand scheme of things, but something nonetheless that has bothered me about the scheduler in general. Another area for improvement would be automatic host alias creation. Other platforms such as EMC Unity/PowerStore will automatically detect the host name, create a alias for it and associate the logged in HBA's to it. Pure does not do this for you and as a result, requires manual configuration. This can be very time consuming especially when you are deploying a large number of new servers.

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 feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."
"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."
"The solution is scalable."
"I think that Dell EMC is one of the best technical support services in Ukraine."
"It is easy to use, expand the hard drives, add storage, and set up replication."
"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."
"With federation, you can have multiple systems across sites. You can treat them as one, and with a live migration, volumes don't go down. You can move them from site to site, doing maintenance, and keep your environment up."
"The process of reallocating data from fast disks (SSD or SAS) to slow disks (SATA) gives you better performance and better use of resources."
"I can mix and match the drives, using older mechanical devices and the latest SFP drives in a single solution with different enclosures."
"The flexibility of this solution has been valuable for our business."
"Most valuable features have been the system customization with it, the performance you receive, and their CoPilot Support (or Dell EMC Storage Support)."
"As soon as we introduced our first Pure Storage FlashArray, the first benefit was at least twice the performance increase. Our production databases simply ran twice as fast with no other change."
"It helps us maintain uptime much better than other solutions we've used in the past, and the support is extremely quick and responsive."
"The benefits were realized right away. Between the flash array and the compression, you can really see how good it is. Our databases run a lot better now."
"It helps simplify storage. When you're running Pure all-flash, you don't have to do a lot of the old Oracle best practices. You don't have to worry about putting log files on a different disk channel than the data files, and those types of issues... That has made it vastly easier to do large volumes, rapid provisioning in databases, without taking a performance hit."
"The amount of data that I have moved to it from legacy storage has enabled us to retire units that are three or four times the physical size."
"It is all-flash. This makes it a lot faster than the rest of what we have, as it is able to drive high I/O loads, which is big for us."
"We have tons of capacity on it."
"Data reduction and compression. Sub millisecond latency."
 

Cons

"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."
"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."
"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."
"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."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."
"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."
"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."
"Compellent comes in the form of a component that's not true of a unified storage platform."
"This product should be a lot more user-friendly."
"Dell could improve the upgrading process."
"It's not very efficient anymore. There are better products out there."
"It would be helpful if the solution offered higher performance, at least on the back end."
"The initial setup is somewhat complex and should be made simpler to do."
"The connection should be better integrated with the network to offer a better view of the system."
"Enhanced documentation and beginner-friendly guidelines would benefit users with less configuration experience."
"Based on my experience with various technologies like EMC, NetApp, and Pure Storage, one area for improvement is compliance certifications. NetApp excels in this area, particularly in the American Army or defense sector, where NetApp has approval, whereas others are striving to achieve the same. NetApp also delivers security, ransomware protection, and scale-up capabilities more effectively."
"It was not proactive communication."
"I would like the ability to swap out the network adapters into it. So, without taking out the whole controller, I would like to be able to swap adapters. This would make things easier."
"It is a bit expensive."
"I would like some form of QoS implemented. As a service provider, it would be beneficial to have it."
"I would like some performance analytics which go deeper than today. It should be specific to some hosts and applications. This would be good."
"The file functionality could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"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."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"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."
"We have reviewed many platforms over the years. It is probably the best solution for its value."
"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."
"We have found the solution to be affordable."
"There are costs involving the solution, vendor fees and product safety which are additional."
"Support typically depends on the array. It can range anywhere from $7,000 to a couple of hundred thousand dollars."
"It has a good price point and offers some value-added enterprise features."
"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."
"Compared to other solutions out there, it's affordable."
"We lost a lot of customers because we couldn't compete on price with other vendors."
"The price was more favorable than Dell EMC."
"They have a standardized fee; it's been the same price for 10 years straight. I am happy with the price — I think it's good."
"We have seen a reduction in the TCO, because Pure Storage is partnering with Belfrics. This partnership reduces our latency and space."
"The price of the solution is not expensive."
"We have an Evergreen Storage subscription, which I think is a great feature."
"Dell and Pure Storage offer competitive pricing, but Pure Storage might have a slight advantage."
"We purchased a license to use this solution and we pay for the storage ourselves."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
22%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

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.
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 ...
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 ...
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...
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...
Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashArray?
We consume less physical storage because of the solution’s deduplication and compression.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I don't have the billing details right now, but the pricing is high.
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
SC Series Storage, Compellent
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric
Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell SC Series vs. Pure Storage FlashArray and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.