Dell SC Series vs VAST Data comparison

Dell Technologies and VAST Data are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.8, while VAST Data is ranked #30. Dell Technologies holds a 1.2% mindshare in AFS, compared to VAST Data’s 2.9% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of VAST Data users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Dell SC Series and VAST Data are prominent choices in the storage market. VAST Data seems to have the upper hand due to its high performance and advanced storage capabilities.

Features: Dell SC Series is known for its scalable architecture, comprehensive data management, and positive feedback about user experience. VAST Data is noted for high performance, advanced storage capabilities, and innovative features that many users find advantageous.

Room for Improvement: Dell SC Series users indicate areas for improvement such as better integration with third-party tools, enhancements in system reliability, and improved support. VAST Data users suggest improvements in documentation, support for additional protocols, and better user guidance.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell SC Series is recognized for straightforward deployment processes, though customer service experiences vary. VAST Data is praised for efficient deployment and consistent customer support, providing a slight advantage in service quality.

Pricing and ROI: Dell SC Series offers competitive pricing but is perceived to provide only moderate ROI. VAST Data, while more expensive, delivers superior ROI due to its advanced performance, making it worth the additional cost.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell SC Series vs. VAST Data Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series vs. VAST Data

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 March 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.6%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell SC Series is 1.2%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VAST Data is 2.9%, up from 2.4% 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	1.6%
VAST Data	2.9%
Other	94.3%

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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Alan Powers

HPC CTO at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Stability-wise, a device that has been up and running for years

The failover capability and resiliency are some of the solution's valuable features. The big thing is resilience because it has richer coding in it, so multiple devices can't fail. Also, one can still access a number of CBoxes that can allow one to access their file system. Once a device fails, it fails the transparency of the end-user, and it just starts using another resource. The encryption capability, the snapshots, along with a whole bunch of features make the tool valuable. VAST Data keeps adding more and more features all the time.

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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

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

"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."

"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."

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

"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."

"The solution is scalable."

"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."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

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

"It had many features, like a snapshot, replication, on-the-file RAID levels, mix-and-match files, those kinds of things."

"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."

"There's some new stuff coming with 7.3, which just got released, where they're spreading the sparing across the whole array, rather than having a dedicated spare disk, and have it sit there and do nothing until one of them dies, and then it kicks in - and having to rebuild all of that. Now, they'll do the sparing across all the disks and they say that is going to add not only space but performance to the array, with 7.3."

"I can mix and match the drives, using older mechanical devices and the latest SFP drives in a single solution with different enclosures."

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

"The setup is straightforward."

"The solution is stable."

More Dell SC Series pros

"This has been one of the most reliable storage systems that I have ever used."

"The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations."

Cons

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

"We need better data deduplication."

"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."

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

"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."

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

"It is on the expensive side."

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"Technical support should respond more quickly because the turnaround time is very high."

"What I understand is that this is a 13 year old architecture, so it has lived its life and they're phasing it out. Honestly, we were initially struggling with the integration with VMware (but it was fixed with the VMware 6.5) and, then, it was around a 10GB network. At that time, it had the longevity to go to 100GB as well. It got us thinking about, when we go into the containerized architecture, what do we need to do to fix the infrastructure?"

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

"From a performance point of view, it's getting a bit old."

More Dell SC Series cons

"The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement."

"The write performance could be improved because it is less than half of the read performance."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

"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."

"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 product is expensive."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The pricing of this solution is competitive."

"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 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."

"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."

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

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

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

More Dell SC Series pricing and cost advice

"We acquired VAST Data as a one-time, capital purchase."

"Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

University

Computer Software Company

Performing Arts

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

University

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

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?

The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...

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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...

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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 is your primary use case for Dell SC Series?

We use Dell SC Series in a VMware environment.

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Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 3% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell SC Series

Compared 15% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell SC Series

Compared 7% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Dell SC Series

Compared 7% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs Dell SC Series

Compared 7% of the time

HPE Primera vs Dell SC Series

Compared 4% of the time

More Dell SC Series Competitors

Pure Storage FlashArray vs VAST Data

Compared 10% of the time

NetApp AFF vs VAST Data

Compared 8% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs VAST Data

Compared 7% of the time

MinIO vs VAST Data

Compared 7% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs VAST Data

Compared 7% of the time

More VAST Data Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

February 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

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

February 2026

Download VAST Data 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

Innovation to break decades of data storage trade-offs.

VAST Data

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric

Norwest Venture Partners, General Dynamics Information Technology, Ginkgo Bioworks

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series vs. VAST Data

February 2026

Free Report: Dell SC Series vs. VAST Data

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell SC Series vs. VAST Data and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

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