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Dell Unity XT vs Pure Storage FlashBlade 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 Unity XT
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
196
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Pure Storage FlashBlade
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
16th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (7th), File and Object Storage (6th)
 

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 Unity XT is 7.0%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 1.8%, down from 2.2% 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.
Syed Habib - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient data replication and fast IOPS have improved operational performance
Dell and a partner jointly implemented this solution in Auvink. We installed the Flash, which makes our IO operations fast and efficient. Replication is available, allowing us to replicate data simultaneously from one site to another. All-flash technology and vTXT enhance speed, and the IOPS are faster. The cache's IOPS are much better. Snapshots provide a unique feature for testing and make management more comfortable and easy. The platform is multi-supported and certification is more convenient and easy to manage.
Eric Black - PeerSpot reviewer
The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us
The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."
"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"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 solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"The most valuable feature of Dell Unity XT is data duplication. Additionally, the management interface is simple, and is not a hassle using it. You don't need too much to learn or to be familiarized with it."
"We put the Unity on one of the file servers and the backup performance improved quite a lot."
"It is ease to use. It performs. It's easy to provision, and It's stable."
"The technical support is very professional and provides quick responses."
"I like the ease of configuration, the quick setup and the fact that it seems to be hardened. We haven't had any issues with them. In terms of simplicity of ownership, once they're running you don't have to touch them. They're also simple to manage. We came from the VNXe 3200s so it's very similar."
"It's very reliable. I have not had an issue with Dell EMC Unity."
"Veeam Backup integration: Veeam is the defacto standard for backing up of virtual environments."
"User friendly interface"
"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."
"It's very easy-to-use."
"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."
"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."
"We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."
"Speed and ease of use are the two most valuable features."
"The ease of deployment and management has helped us simplify our storage. We also do not have to worry about capacity management as much. A lot of these things are native to Pure Storage."
"It uses the same platform for connectivity so integration is seamless."
 

Cons

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."
"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."
"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."
"The NAS capabilities of Unity - I have to say there are a lot of things I miss. For example, deduplication for hybrid. I have tons of customers with VNX and dedupe. These customers achieve around 50% dedupe efficiency and they mostly use them for archive. If you're talking about 50TB of NAS, which is stored in a 25TB repository, which is very economical, and you can not provide that in a Unity hybrid box, you have problems."
"I would like to have secure mobile connectivity going forward. This would help me be more proactive."
"Dell Unity XT’s price needs improvement."
"Because we can do synchronous replication between the two sites, this made the setup challenging for this piece. They did not know how to set this up initially. We ended up having to do bidirectional synchronous replication."
"It would be nice to have been able to easily move off our old VNX system to this system. The process is very manual."
"In future releases, I would like to see automatic upgrades from one to the next, when this system is coming out and the next one is coming in; more akin to what Pure Storage is doing. That would be really helpful."
"What I'd like to see is a little more detail on the networking side. I can go into where it's showing me the replication, but when I go into the network it just gives me broad-based information. I don't know which replication job is actually feeding it. I have to go in and rely on other apps."
"The biggest one for us, and the reason we don't use it more, is that we can't throttle the replication speed. If it's on, it's on. So we have to be a little more WAN-sensitive, in some applications, which means we can't put it everywhere. That's the biggest issue for us, by far."
"We initially encountered challenges with the assembly process due to issues with the documentation required during setup, an area where Pure Storage needs improvement."
"Compared to, for example, Hitachi NAS, the solution is not mature at all. It's just in its infancy as far as technology goes."
"In terms of scalability, it doesn't expand out quite as robustly as some of the others, but it covers 90% of the market in what it does."
"Its configuration should be easier."
"The feature that we're waiting on is better integration with the cell services."
"Commvault has mainly driven the Analytics, providing data and reports. However, the product has room for improvement, especially regarding storage analytics. Upgrading firmware has caused issues, requiring feature disabling to revert to traditional backups. The firmware upgrades sometimes affect Commvault backups."
"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."
"Its configuration should be easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"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 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."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"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."
"Our big return of investment is the ability to scale and not add FTE counts nor extra administration."
"The price of the solution should be less expensive. However, at some point, you need to pay for facility and performance."
"As far as licensing goes, I love how VMware works with Dell EMC Unity. It's great. They work hand in hand. They have made it so simple."
"Go with the virtual appliance versus the hardware."
"The pricing of Dell Unity XT is good."
"Currently, we buy directly from Dell EMC. We've tried going through resellers before, but we've found that if we go directly through Dell EMC, we get a good a price from being with the government."
"While it has a good price to start, they could always make it cheaper."
"The price of Dell EMC Unity XT is higher compared to other solutions. The price should be less expensive."
"Support is a separate line item. Support is a different cost, but whatever your support is now, that's what you're going to pay forever. If your support's $100 today, six years from now it's $100. It doesn't fluctuate unless you upgrade it, or change it, etc."
"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."
"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."
"Our licensing is renewed annually."
"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."
"I feel that the price could always be lowered."
"The product is very expensive."
"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
55%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Government
3%
Educational Organization
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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 is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
I saw that you have doubts about what you chose. I have a lot of experience with the constructor, honestly I can reco...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
They’re both great solutions and I’ve used both. EMC is being VERY aggressive on pricing which may be the undoing of...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
First of all the decision should be taken looking at similar products in terms of capacity and performance. I will sh...
What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?
The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?
The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
EMC Unity, Dell EMC Unity
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Draper, Rio Grande Pacific, Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre
ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Unity XT vs. Pure Storage FlashBlade and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.