Dell VMAX All Flash vs Pure Storage FlashBlade comparison

Dell Technologies and Pure Storage are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #24 with an average rating of 8.2, while Pure Storage is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.8. Dell Technologies holds a 0.7% mindshare in AFS, compared to Pure Storage’s 1.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Pure Storage users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Pure Storage FlashBlade and Dell VMAX All Flash are high-performance storage solutions. Pure Storage FlashBlade impresses with competitive pricing and support, whereas Dell VMAX All Flash stands out with its feature-rich offerings, justifying its higher cost.

Features: Pure Storage FlashBlade is praised for its scalability, simplicity, and high-performance data processing capabilities. Dell VMAX All Flash offers advanced data services, high availability, and integrated data protection. Dell VMAX All Flash users find it to have richer features compared to Pure Storage FlashBlade.

Room for Improvement: Pure Storage FlashBlade feedback highlights the need for enhanced data management tools and better integration with legacy systems. Dell VMAX All Flash users mention complex management and the need for more intuitive configuration options. Dell's complexity is a more frequent concern.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Pure Storage FlashBlade is noted for its relatively easy and fast deployment process, with highly responsive support. Dell VMAX All Flash deployment can be more complicated and time-consuming, but customer service receives positive reviews for its effectiveness. The ease of deployment edge goes to Pure Storage FlashBlade, while customer service is comparably strong for both.

Pricing and ROI: Pure Storage FlashBlade offers an attractive pricing model, delivering quick ROI due to lower initial setup costs and ease of scale. Dell VMAX All Flash, while costlier upfront, provides substantial ROI through its extensive features and robust performance. Users often deem the investment in Dell VMAX All Flash justified by its long-term benefits.

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

Buyer's Guide

Dell VMAX All Flash vs. Pure Storage FlashBlade

July 2025

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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 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 Pure Storage FlashBlade is 1.9%, down from 2.1% 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.

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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.

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Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."

"The solution is scalable."

"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 solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"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."

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

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

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

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

"It works very well."

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

"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."

"Approximately 40% to 50% of my time is saved using Pure Storage FlashBlade compared to different products."

"The tool's most valuable features are data warehousing, speedy recovery, and analytics. Its latest release is cost-effective."

"The performance of FlashBlade is excellent. It does not necessarily leverage the SOS API that some of the newer products leverage, but I found its speed pretty much on par and comparable. It is fast, and it does what it is supposed to do."

"Speed and ease of use are the two most valuable features."

"The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power outages when we need to quickly move data between different data centers. It ensures efficient replication and helps maintain our data centers' uptime."

"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."

"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

Cons

"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."

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

"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."

"We need better data deduplication."

"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."

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

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."

"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

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

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

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

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

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

"Pure Storage FlashBlade should improve on more cloud integration."

"The solution is expensive."

"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."

"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."

"An area for improvement in Pure Storage FlashBlade is its price. It could be reduced. The technical support for Pure Storage FlashBlade also needs improvement. It used to be good, with more experienced engineers. Nowadays, it isn't, and it takes longer for support to solve problems."

"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."

"File storage needs a lot of improvement. Mainframe connectivity also needs improvement because it requires additional components to be integrated with Pure Storage FlashBlade. If you want to keep your backup data, then this becomes an even more expensive solution because Pure Storage FlashBlade will not be able to meet your backup needs."

"I have not seen ROI."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"The product is expensive."

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

"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."

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

"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 licensing is on a yearly basis."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"It is not a cheap product."

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

"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

"The product is very expensive."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"The price could be cheaper."

"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

23%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Government

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

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.

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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 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 Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 25% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% 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 19% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 8% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 7% of the time

More Dell VMAX All Flash Competitors

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 19% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 3% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

August 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

Pure Storage FlashBlade

August 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Also Known As

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

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 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

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

Buyer's Guide

Dell VMAX All Flash vs. Pure Storage FlashBlade

July 2025

Free Report: Dell VMAX All Flash vs. Pure Storage FlashBlade

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

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