Dell VMAX All Flash vs VAST Data comparison

Dell Technologies and VAST Data are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #25 with an average rating of 8.2, while VAST Data is ranked #32. Dell Technologies holds a 0.7% mindshare in AFS, compared to VAST Data’s 2.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of VAST Data users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

VAST Data and Dell VMAX All Flash are leading storage solutions with distinct advantages and areas for improvement. VAST Data has the upper hand in pricing and support, while Dell VMAX All Flash wins with robust features and performance, offsetting the higher price.

Features: VAST Data is known for its data reduction capabilities, high performance, and scalability. Dell VMAX All Flash stands out with its reliability, advanced data services, and comprehensive feature set, appealing to users needing extensive functionality.

Room for Improvement: Users of VAST Data request enhanced integration with other systems, improved management tools, and better analytics. Dell VMAX All Flash users seek better analytical features, reduced complexity in management, and more user-friendly interfaces.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VAST Data deployment is straightforward, but users occasionally face support response issues. Dell VMAX All Flash has a more challenging deployment process but offers consistent and reliable customer service.

Pricing and ROI: VAST Data offers competitive upfront costs and favorable ROI due to efficient data reduction. Dell VMAX All Flash has higher initial costs, but its performance and feature richness justify the expense for some users.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell VMAX All Flash vs. VAST Data Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell VMAX All Flash vs. VAST Data

June 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 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 VMAX All Flash is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VAST Data is 2.3%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

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.

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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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Alan Powers

HPC CTO at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Stability-wise, a device that has been up and running for years

The failover capability and resiliency are some of the solution's valuable features. The big thing is resilience because it has richer coding in it, so multiple devices can't fail. Also, one can still access a number of CBoxes that can allow one to access their file system. Once a device fails, it fails the transparency of the end-user, and it just starts using another resource. The encryption capability, the snapshots, along with a whole bunch of features make the tool valuable. VAST Data keeps adding more and more features all the time.

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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

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

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

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

"I appreciate the performance."

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."

"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"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."

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

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

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

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

"This has been one of the most reliable storage systems that I have ever used."

"The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations."

Cons

"It is on the expensive side."

"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 UI for this solution needs to be improved."

"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."

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

"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've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

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

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

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

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

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

"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 write performance could be improved because it is less than half of the read performance."

"The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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."

"Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one."

"We acquired VAST Data as a one-time, capital purchase."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

23%

Financial Services Firm

17%

Government

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

University

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?

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

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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 ...

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What do you like most about Dell EMC VMax?

The product's initial setup phase was good.

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

The pricing provided by EMC is reasonable.

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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

Can you provide any information you may have on VAST Data?

Here are some technical details about VAST Data: VAST Data is a software-defined storage platform designed to scale...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 29% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 19% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerMax vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 65% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 21% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 7% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 7% of the time

More Dell VMAX All Flash Competitors

NetApp AFF vs VAST Data

Compared 11% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs VAST Data

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs VAST Data

Compared 9% of the time

Qumulo vs VAST Data

Compared 8% of the time

Databricks vs VAST Data

Compared 8% of the time

More VAST Data Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

June 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

June 2025

Download Dell VMAX All Flash product report

Buyer's Guide

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

June 2025

Download VAST Data 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

Innovation to break decades of data storage trade-offs.

VAST Data

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

Norwest Venture Partners, General Dynamics Information Technology, Ginkgo Bioworks

Buyer's Guide

Dell VMAX All Flash vs. VAST Data

June 2025

Free Report: Dell VMAX All Flash vs. VAST Data

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

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