Dell VMAX All Flash vs SolidFire comparison

Dell Technologies and NetApp are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #28 with an average rating of 8.0, while NetApp is ranked #33. Dell Technologies holds a 0.8% mindshare in AFS, compared to NetApp’s 0.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

SolidFire and Dell VMAX All Flash are prominent all-flash storage solutions. SolidFire is often preferred for its scalability and ease of management, while Dell VMAX All Flash is praised for its robust data services and high performance.

Features: SolidFire users admire its efficient scaling, automated management, and quick deployment. Dell VMAX All Flash stands out for its extensive data protection features, superior performance, and highly knowledgeable support.

Room for Improvement: SolidFire needs more comprehensive analytics tools, better integrations, and enhanced reporting capabilities. Dell VMAX All Flash requires simpler management, lower latency, and a more intuitive user interface.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolidFire offers a quick setup and responsive customer service. Dell VMAX All Flash has a more complex deployment process but benefits from highly knowledgeable support personnel.

Pricing and ROI: SolidFire offers competitive pricing and quick ROI. Dell VMAX All Flash has higher setup costs, but users acknowledge its long-term value and solid return on investment.

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

Buyer's Guide

Dell VMAX All Flash vs. SolidFire

December 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 January 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell VMAX All Flash is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolidFire is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.4%
Dell VMAX All Flash	0.8%
SolidFire	0.3%
Other	97.5%

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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Arjun Sadsivam

Solution Architect at a agriculture with 10,001+ employees

Performance and interface improve data processing speeds but require complex configuration

The most valuable features of VMAX are its performance and GUI interface. We have seen significant improvements in technology over the last four to five years. The snap feature, along with deduplication, has notably enhanced our data processing speeds. We haven't experienced any outages or core-level issues in the last ten years, making us comfortable with the storage solution.

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Ramil Cerrada

Solution lead at Globe Mobile

A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance

The most significant benefit lies in its exceptional performance, driven by its Flash-based architecture. This enhances routing speed and, consequently, database performance. The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance which is particularly valuable for tasks like data mining, where quick results are essential.

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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

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."

"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."

"The best features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe include the volume snapshot capabilities, which allow us to save most of the storage space by volume snapshots periodically."

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

"The tool's valuable features are speed, security, data compression, and reliability. Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen. It helps us to save money and resources."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

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

"It works very well."

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

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

"The scalability and being able to implement it quickly."

"Greater IOPS, speed, it's all-flash. So seeing that everything is going to all-flash, all SSDs, SolidFire fits right in there with the emerging trend in IT."

"SolidFire has seamless performance for the nodes and extensions. I also like the tool’s scalability. The product’s performance does not get affected when we scale either up or down. This is not the case with other products."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its scalability."

"It's a very compact device. For a medium-sized business, it's very helpful because the device is efficient and very fast."

"Templates are already predefined for it. If you're coding it up, it will take two days. You can pick up a template right there from the API, and it just works for you. Implementation done in 10 minutes."

"Individual settings you can put on each individual volume, if you want to do that."

"I would say in terms of architecture and in terms of functionality, the product is quite good."

More SolidFire pros

Cons

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."

"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"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."

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

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

"SolidFire should start from two nodes instead of the four nodes. That's the only thing. In a lot of solutions, we have to use four nodes, that's the better thing. But as a starting point, two is better. That's why their starting point is expensive."

"This solution would be improved if it were made to be more compatible with other products."

"You don't have business continuity with SolidFire. I think it could be a nice feature to have in the future."

"They could make the mNode more user-friendly. Now you need to configure and add nodes by CLI and it’s not really easy to manage. If they created a web interface to do the management of the mNode, that would be great!."

"I would like to see integration with the cloud, number one. Being able to spin SolidFire in the cloud."

"The inclusion of more protocols and interfaces would make it easier to integrate with other products."

"The technical support is really bad and has to be improved."

"We have a large fiber channel infrastructure, and that's one area that we haven't seen implemented in SolidFire, its more iSCSI."

More SolidFire cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."

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

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"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."

"The product is expensive."

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

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."

"Based on what I heard from other people, its price was on the higher side."

"On a scale where one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the solution between three and four. It is an expensive solution."

"We would probably use SolidFire more, except we're getting more bang for our buck with our purchases of ONTAP right now, and the deal we made with NetApp, so it's more of just a cost decision"

"It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for what you get."

"The price of this solution is more expensive than others."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

16%

Healthcare Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

34%

Outsourcing Company

Computer Software Company

Performing Arts

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	12

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	16

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...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 18% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 12% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerMax vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 63% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 9% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 8% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 7% of the time

Huawei OceanStor vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 7% of the time

More Dell VMAX All Flash Competitors

NetApp AFF vs SolidFire

Compared 100% of the time

More SolidFire Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

January 2026

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

January 2026

Download Dell VMAX All Flash product report

Buyer's Guide

SolidFire

January 2026

Download SolidFire 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

SolidFire delivers all five core elements needed to deliver newfound storage agility to your next generation data center and beyond. With SolidFire you can deploy new applications and capabilities faster, provide more agile and scalable infrastructure, increase application performance and predictability, enable automation and end-user self-service and raise operational efficiency and reduce cost.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

California Public Utilities Commission, RFA, 1&1, Ultimate Software , Endicia, ezVerify, MercadoLibre, Sungard Availability Services, ServInt, Elastx, Hosted Network, Colt, Crucial, iWeb, Datapipe, Databarracks

Buyer's Guide

Dell VMAX All Flash vs. SolidFire

December 2025

Free Report: Dell VMAX All Flash vs. SolidFire

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

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