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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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
1.0
Organizations reduced costs and improved performance with Pure FlashArray X NVMe, achieving quick ROI and efficient resource management.
Sentiment score
4.2
Dell Unity XT offers cost savings, increased efficiency, and quick ROI with improved performance and simplified management.
Sentiment score
8.5
Pure Storage FlashBlade boosts ROI by reducing costs, enhancing efficiencies, increasing VM density, and saving 20%-85% in time.
By opting for the gold subscription every three years, you get a free upgrade to the latest controller release.
If you wait more than seven years to buy another one, you get a return on your investment.
It does not require much management once you set up correctly, so it saves time, allowing an admin to focus on other work.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Pure FlashArray X NVMe's technical support is praised for responsiveness, despite occasional follow-up issues, earning high customer satisfaction.
Sentiment score
6.0
Dell Unity XT customer service is praised for responsiveness but criticized for slow response times and support inconsistencies.
Sentiment score
7.0
Pure Storage FlashBlade support is praised for responsiveness and knowledge but criticized for slower responses and occasional language barriers.
We also had one outage where a controller of one of the products had failed and had to be replaced on-site.
Customers always have their issues resolved promptly.
Pure has good storage.
The support team is familiar with the product and is available on-site during support times, which improves our experience.
Dell solutions are backed by excellent service and support.
The technical support sometimes takes three to four days to get hardware to facilities.
I would rate them an eight out of ten.
The support is done through email and is not that great, making it a very problematic area I've been dealing with for over four years.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers scalable storage with low latency, easy upgrades, though capacity customization and high costs are noted.
Sentiment score
7.8
Dell Unity XT's scalability, modular upgrades, and robust architecture receive high satisfaction from medium to large businesses.
Sentiment score
8.8
Pure Storage FlashBlade is praised for scalability, ease of expansion, and support, despite some areas needing improvement.
It is highly scalable.
It is suitable for both medium-sized and enterprise businesses.
It hasn't broken down anytime in the last six to seven years, despite hurricanes, earthquakes, and power outages.
Dell Unity XT is quite scalable and can be scaled up to the petabyte level.
For NetApp, we can recommend the FAS 8000 series.
Pure Storage FlashBlade is scalable.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Pure Storage offers exceptional stability and reliability with outstanding support, consistently achieving high user ratings for performance and service.
Sentiment score
8.5
Dell Unity XT is praised for strong stability and reliability, with minor issues infrequently affecting its consistent performance.
Sentiment score
8.8
Pure Storage FlashBlade is praised for its impressive stability and reliability, with minimal disruptions and consistent uptime even during upgrades.
During the eight years, there have been no problems such as hardware failure or stopping.
I would rate the stability of the solution as a ten out of ten.
I would rate the stability of the product at seven out of ten.
I would rate the overall stability of Dell Unity XT an eight out of ten.
In case there is any issue with any blade, the data is moved to another.
 

Room For Improvement

Pure FlashArray X requires cost-effective improvements in UI, integration, cloud features, multitenancy, analytics, backup, AI, and scalability.
Dell Unity XT requires improvements in deduplication, user interface, migration, automation, scalability, and support for better efficiency.
Users seek better cloud integration, enhanced deduplication, improved support, protocol enhancements, simpler configuration, and a more intuitive interface.
We would appreciate a built-in transparent failover in the next release to eliminate the need for a separate metro cluster.
I'm eagerly anticipating the roadmap's promise of introducing multiple controllers, which could significantly boost scalability and resilience.
We mostly rely on long-term releases. We don't need the most up-to-date features, but we need a reliable environment.
In the future, if Dell storages include this option, especially for Unity, it would help us target SME or medium enterprises for quicker closures and support the sales team.
I believe if Dell can integrate AI to predict potential failures, especially in hardware like hard disks, that would be very useful for proper maintenance.
The pricing is a bit higher than expected.
Technical support definitely needs significant improvement.
Its configuration should be easier.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers see Pure FlashArray X NVMe as a justified premium investment due to performance and comprehensive licensing.
Dell Unity XT provides cost-effective pricing and all-inclusive licensing, balancing cost and features effectively against competitors.
Pure Storage FlashBlade offers high performance and features, justifying its cost with no extra software fees and fixed support costs.
While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits.
The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there.
I would give it a nine out of ten in terms of costliness.
It is priced at around or under $50,000.
The cost is not cheap nor expensive.
Commercially, Dell Unity XT is viable and competitively priced.
The pricing of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the past, but one benefit is that they have built-in ransomware protection.
 

Valuable Features

Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers exceptional performance, reliability, scalability, and seamless VMware integration, enhancing workload efficiency and user experience.
Dell Unity XT delivers unified storage with easy management, strong VMware integration, rapid deployment, and cost-effective data solutions.
Pure Storage FlashBlade offers fast, scalable, and user-friendly storage with efficient integration, analytics, and versatility for diverse needs.
Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator.
The platform's robust features include excellent sustainability tracking, and a comprehensive dashboard offering insights into IOPS, bandwidth, performance, and virtual activities.
Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen.
It helps with data cost management and is seen as a mid-range product with good performance.
We installed the Flash, which makes our IO operations fast and efficient.
If their growth is not significant, we might suggest mid-level Unity storage like Unity 300.
We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte.
The best features of Pure Storage FlashBlade include better throughput and better performance.
 

Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
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Ranking in All-Flash Storage
14th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Dell Unity XT
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Pure Storage FlashBlade
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
16th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (8th), File and Object Storage (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 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 6.7%, 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

Jaehoon Oh - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
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 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...
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 ...
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 of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...
 

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: July 2025.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.