Dell VMAX All Flash vs Dell XtremIO comparison

Dell VMAX All Flash and Dell XtremIO are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell VMAX All Flash is ranked #24 with an average rating of 8.2, while Dell XtremIO is ranked #21 with an average rating of 8.0. Dell VMAX All Flash holds a 0.7% mindshare in AFS, compared to Dell XtremIO’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Dell VMAX All Flash users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Dell XtremIO users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Dell XtremIO and Dell VMAX All-Flash are both high-performance storage solutions in the flash storage category. Users are generally happier with the pricing and support of Dell XtremIO, whereas Dell VMAX All-Flash is preferred for its extensive features, with users feeling the higher price is justified.

Features: Dell XtremIO is praised for its simplicity, performance, and ease of management. Dell VMAX All-Flash is commended for its scalability, robustness, and extensive feature set. The key difference is that while XtremIO offers exceptional performance and simplicity, VMAX All-Flash provides superior scalability and a wider range of features suitable for enterprise environments.

Room for Improvement: Dell XtremIO users often mention the need for better integration capabilities and enhanced data reduction features. Dell VMAX All-Flash users highlight the need for a more intuitive management system and improvements in the upgrade process. The products differ as the feedback for XtremIO emphasizes performance enhancements, whereas VMAX All-Flash users focus on management and upgrade complexities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell XtremIO is noted for its straightforward deployment process and supportive customer service. Dell VMAX All-Flash, while more complex to deploy, is backed by a strong, responsive support team. The comparison indicates that XtremIO offers a more user-friendly deployment experience, but both products have robust customer support.

Pricing and ROI: Dell XtremIO is generally seen as more cost-effective with quicker ROI due to its lower setup cost. Dell VMAX All-Flash, although higher in initial cost, offers a substantial ROI with its enterprise-grade features. The primary difference lies in the higher upfront investment for VMAX All-Flash, which yields returns through its superior capability and feature set.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell VMAX All Flash vs. Dell XtremIO Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell VMAX All Flash vs. Dell XtremIO

July 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 864,248 peers since 2012

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 August 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell VMAX All Flash is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell XtremIO is 0.7%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

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.

Read full review

BrijeshKumar

Technical Lead at L&T Technology Services

With an easy initial setup phase, the tool is useful for multi-site replication and DR

The configuration part of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. If the product is up and running after, if it goes down, my company has observed that there are multiple failures that occur in the tool, so it needs to be reinstalled from scratch. The tool should have an automated feature or an automated option to handle the aforementioned scenario, which one can simply go and reset, after which the tool should be reinstalled with the same configuration.

Read full review

Stanislaw Jagielski

Trainer, Storage Consultant at Oxon

Efficient and straightforward setup boosts data management capabilities

Scalability is a significant feature of Dell XtremIO, as it is easy to expand and manage. It provides a lot of features suited for complex systems, such as scalability and the ability to define multi-domain systems, which are beneficial for data management and storage separation. It is efficient from the customer's point of view, offering deduplication at both the volume and file levels. The configuration and setup are straightforward, provided one has knowledge in setting up network infrastructure like VLANs. It is easy to install, use, and configure, making it a reliable product.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

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

"The latency is good."

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

"I appreciate the performance."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"It works very well."

"The most valuable features of VMAX are its performance and GUI interface."

"We haven't experienced any outages or core-level issues in the last ten years, making us comfortable with the storage solution."

"The snapshot feature has been precious for our testing processes, application development, and managing testing environments due to its efficiency and ease of use."

"The product's initial setup phase was good."

"The ransomware protection feature is housed in a separate unit, specifically addressing the top twenty most critical threats."

"The solution's most valuable features are the inline data reduction and deduplication."

"The most valuable feature of Dell EMC XtremIO is the data protection (DP) group, it is one of the most advanced features in these types of arrays. The dedupe and compression that this array provides both do a superb job."

"The program is very stable."

"I rate Dell XtremIO at eight out of ten. It is a product I would recommend to companies where data performance, scalability, and security are highly important due to its beneficial features."

"Scalability is a significant feature of Dell XtremIO, as it is easy to expand and manage."

"The speed is extremely valuable."

"Dell XtremIO is good for databases and huge workloads."

"It has very good performance for an application which needs lower latency and a better response, for example, in microseconds."

More Dell XtremIO pros

Cons

"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."

"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."

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."

"It is on the expensive side."

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."

"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."

"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"We encountered some challenges during large data migrations that could be addressed for smoother transitions."

"There is room for improvement in the centralized administration."

"The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability. We've had to procure additional engines to address this limitation."

"The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability."

"The configuration part of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."

"Improvements are needed in both partition recovery and scalability."

"We've encountered challenges in integrating other products with Dell Xtremio, as it tends to be more vendor-locked. This means we can't easily explore other solutions that might work alongside Dell."

"The product is highly expensive."

"Management: At the time, there was no snapshot scheduler, so I had to write XSnapCourier to address it. The sad thing is that even after the newest release, which includes a native scheduler, most customers using XSnapCourier chose to stick with it due to a more feature-rich experience."

"In the next release, the solution could have better integration and if we can host assets on the cloud, such as NetApp has the NetApp volumes, which we can host on the cloud directly called NetApp CVO (cloud volume ONTAP). Dell EMC should come up with something purely on the cloud rather than manage services."

"This solution is geared toward enterprise-level companies. Small and medium-sized businesses would find it extremely expensive."

"The management should be improved and the GUI interface could be better and easier."

"It can be more cost-efficient."

"I would like to see the ease of deployment and built-in Metro clustering."

More Dell XtremIO cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

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

"The product is expensive."

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The price falls within the mid-range, neither inexpensive nor high-priced."

"It is not a cheap product."

"XtremIO is an all-flash array, which means it's a costly solution. When compared with general mid-range storage solutions, this is more expensive. As far as I know, there are no additional costs besides the license."

"The initial purchase price was good but when you need to upgrade, it's a different story."

"There are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"Dell XtremIO's price is affordable and I would rate it a five out of ten."

"The license for XtremIO is in the box, so you don't have to buy anything."

"The licensing cost is on a yearly subscription basis, which can be expensive but is necessary for ongoing support and services. The pricing could be improved to make it more accessible."

"It is expensive if you need to increase scalability."

"It is great when a product can deliver high-end performance capabilities while offering a very competitive price point."

More Dell XtremIO pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

864,248 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Comparison Review

it_user182013

Federal Civ/Intel Engineering Lead at Rubrik

May 1, 2015

Measuring Up: EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR

Leading up to EMC World 2015, IT Central Station asked how I would compare EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR. Until recently, the flash storage conversation in my organization and many others has centered on XtremIO and Pure Storage, the leaders of the all-flash array (AFA) space. To that end, I've written a…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

23%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Government

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 do you like most about Dell EMC VMax?

The product's initial setup phase was good.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC VMax?

The pricing provided by EMC is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell EMC VMax?

The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability. We've had to procure additiona...

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell EMC XtremIO?

The feature I like most about Dell Xtremio is its hardware quality compared to other vendors. It's clear they're cont...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell XtremIO?

Pricing is hard to determine as it depends on the given configuration. XtremIO offers features that justify a potenti...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell XtremIO?

The interface could be simplified for beginners to ease the configuration of special objects in the system. While the...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 27% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 18% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerMax vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 67% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 20% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 7% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 6% of the time

More Dell VMAX All Flash Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 22% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 17% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 13% of the time

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 9% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 8% of the time

More Dell XtremIO Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

July 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

July 2025

Download Dell VMAX All Flash product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell XtremIO

August 2025

Download Dell XtremIO product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

No data available

Dell EMC XtremIO Flash, Dell EMC XtremIO X2, XtremIO, XtremIO X2

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 VMAX All Flash is utilized in hyper-converged solutions like VxRail deployments, critical for Data Domain in backup tasks. It supports multi-site replication, disaster recovery, banking IT operations, and high-performance applications.

Dell VMAX All Flash plays a key role in data-intensive environments due to its robust capabilities in storage, data protection, and high throughput tasks. It is crucial in hyper-converged solutions and VxRail deployments, facilitating multi-site replication and disaster recovery. Its applications span across banking and other critical IT operations requiring high performance. The system's ability to support efficient data compression and provide ransomware protection addresses significant security concerns. Multi-site replication and redundancy safeguard data even during power outages or hardware failures, while the snapshot feature aids in testing, application development, and environment management.

What are the key features of Dell VMAX All Flash?

Compression: Efficient data compression capabilities.
Ransomware Protection: Tackles ransomware threats effectively.
Multi-site Replication and Redundancy: Ensures data safety during power outages or hardware issues.
Snapshots: Aids in testing, application development, and environment management.

What benefits should users look for in Dell VMAX All Flash reviews?

Data Protection: Enhanced data security with ransomware protection.
Performance: High throughput for demanding applications.
Reliability: Multi-site replication and redundancy for critical operations continuity.
Support: Adheres to IP strategies with excellent customer support.

Dell VMAX All Flash is critical in industries like banking, where it supports IT operations requiring high performance, and in environments demanding stringent data protection measures. Its role in multi-site replication and disaster recovery makes it invaluable for business continuity and critical data security across sectors.

Dell Technologies

Bring all-flash, scale-out storage to your enterprise applications with EMC XtremIO. Purpose-built for flash, XtremIO storage arrays are amazingly fast. Delivering high IOPS at less than 1 millisecond latency is just the start. EMC XtremIO helps you harness the power of flash storage by building in innovations like content-based data placement and dual-stage metadata.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

Raiffeisen Bank Bulgaria, Wentworth-Douglas Hospital

Buyer's Guide

Dell VMAX All Flash vs. Dell XtremIO

July 2025

Free Report: Dell VMAX All Flash vs. Dell XtremIO

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell VMAX All Flash vs. Dell XtremIO and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

864,248 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Dell VMAX All Flash vs. Dell XtremIO report.

See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.

We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.