Dell PowerMax NVMe vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe comparison

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7,608 views|5,102 comparisons
98% willing to recommend
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1,952 views|1,181 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell PowerMax NVMe and Pure FlashArray X NVMe based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe Report (Updated: March 2024).
770,616 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"For the migration process from the older VMAX arrays to PowerMax, we VMotioned everything. It was easy.""The SRDF replication piece is probably the best feature. It's useful for maintaining recoverability in the event of a disaster.""The smaller footprint of the device has been really nice. We have gone from eight bays to one bay. Having one floor tile in our data center has been pretty awesome. A lot less power and HVAC cooling is being consumed.""It's faster and more resilient.""The performance is very good on our servers. It's superior. And the QoS capabilities for providing work congestion protection are also important because about 99 percent of our servers are production servers.""The stability is amazing. Zero downtime reported over the last years.""PowerMax NVMe has made it a lot easier to understand how much we are able to provision. It has made it a lot faster to provision new things. 90% of my time for provisioning has been reduced. Also, it has made it very easy to understand and see everything behind it versus the older heritage, where Dell EMC was very convoluted and hard to get working. Things that used to take an hour, probably now take five to 10 minutes.""It offers a high level of availability, so pretty much near zero downtime."

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"Technical support has been helpful and responsive.""Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution.""Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.""It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights.""FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle.""Pure has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator.""One of the best features is the support, which is excellent.""The solution is very straightforward to set up."

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Cons
"I would like a more informative CloudIQ for iOS. What you can see via the web UI significantly differs from what you can see via the web application.""Setting up PowerMax with VMAX is always complex.""I would like to see the rack change. They have defaulted to the standard rack, so our fiber cables are crowded when we shut our back door.""The price could be lower, and we are unhappy with the price.""There is also room for improvement in the PowerMax architecture and hardware itself. They should design the PowerMax on the basis of PCIe 4.0. I would like to see the possibility of an NVMe drive that operates on PCIe 4.0 and not PCIe 3.0.""When it comes to Oracle and database workloads, data reduction could be a little bit better. Some of the competition, like Pure, have post-processes which do additional deduplication and compression on the backside; everything is in-line and then they do a secondary process. It would be a good option if you could start getting 5:1 or 6:1 data reduction on database workloads.""I would like it to support NVMe over Fabrics, because that is the next item for consideration on the NVMe roadmap. PowerMax supports NVMe on the back-end, but when it starts supporting NVMe over Fibre Channel, suddenly various hosts can directly communicate with PowerMax, and with NVMe-oF, as well. Suddenly, Gen 6 and Gen 7 switchers will be able to help facilitate that particular communication channel.""The technical support is lacking. We are working with Dell EMC to get some better understanding of this."

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"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified.""We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC.""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.""We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency.""We need better data deduplication.""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.""The UI for this solution needs to be improved.""They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Our costs for the product are three million."
  • "From reclaiming data center space which is so tightly constrained these days, it will pay for itself in a short amount of time, which is fantastic. Anything we can do to get more out of our current physical data center space helps us a ton, and PowerMax has helped enable that."
  • "Our costs are on a yearly basis."
  • "It scales enormously, but it's expensive to do so."
  • "From a general capital investment, it's one of the higher price points in the market. It depends on the size and software features that you would include in a system. So, the cost varies dramatically."
  • "The cost has room for improvement."
  • "The cost is expensive. While VMAX now has good pricing, PowerMax is a little expensive."
  • "We hope that with the combination of both NVMe and SCM the next PowerMax will be much cheaper that the one which we acquired."
  • More Dell PowerMax NVMe Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "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."
  • "We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
  • "With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
  • "Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
  • "As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "The licensing is on a yearly basis."
  • More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Dell PowerStore is an all-solid-state midrange storage system. It has many internal elements taken from other Dell offerings and integrated into the PowerStoreOS. The installation and setup have a… more »
    Top Answer:First, it's an enterprise storage solution. This is very important for us. Another important feature is replication.
    Top Answer:The pricing is comparable to other vendors. There aren't significant price differences. Since the price is high, a few hundred thousand dollar difference between vendors isn't a major deciding factor… more »
    Top Answer:The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability.
    Top Answer:I would rate the solution as an eight out of ten in terms of costliness.
    Top Answer:There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features. We would appreciate a built-in transparent failover in the next release… more »
    Ranking
    8th
    out of 48 in All-Flash Storage
    Views
    7,608
    Comparisons
    5,102
    Reviews
    18
    Average Words per Review
    454
    Rating
    8.3
    15th
    out of 48 in All-Flash Storage
    Views
    1,952
    Comparisons
    1,181
    Reviews
    9
    Average Words per Review
    400
    Rating
    8.8
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax
    Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
    Learn More
    Overview

    Dell EMC PowerMax is the world’s fastest storage array. With end-to-end non-volatile memory express (NVMe), real-time machine learning, seamless cloud mobility, and up to 350GB per second bandwidth, PowerMax features high-speed smarts to power your most critical workloads. PowerMax is true modern scale-up and scale-out storageת designed for mission-critical applications of today and tomorrow – including databases and transaction processing applications as well as real-time analytics workloads that demand uncompromising uptime and extremely low latency.

    PowerMax consists of two models, PowerMax 2000 and 8000. The PowerMax 8000 delivers industry-leading performance density with up to 7.5 million IOPS5 per rack and 187,000 IOPS6 per U (rack unit). PowerMax supports mixed open systems, mainframe, IBM i, block, and file environments. The PowerMax 2000 is the entry point into mission-critical storage, high availability, and delivering robust data services in a safe, secure compact package.

    PowerMax systems incorporate the most current and robust end-to-end NVMe technology with industry-standard NVMe flash drives, NVMe storage class memory drives, and FC-NVMe host connectivity via NVMe over Fabrics. PowerMax SCM, powered by dual-port Intel® Optane™ technology, offers rapid-fire fast performance and secure low latency ideal for electronic trading, real-time analytics, high-performance databases, and big data workloads.

    Features of Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe

    Robust architecture with amazing performance combines demanding mixed workloads.

    • Built-in machine learning automates data placement for maximum performance with no additional management cost.
    • Very secure end-to-end dynamic encryption safeguards digital assets with 3.5:1 data reduction, guaranteed by Dell Technologies.
    • Seamless cloud mobility pushes data from PowerMax to AWS, Azure, Dell EMC ECS, and PowerScale for long-term retention on lower-cost object storage.

    Benefits of Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe

    Powerful Architecture

    • Designed for speed – robust multi-controller scale-up, scale-out architecture with built-in end-to-end NVMe.
    • Performance optimized – up to 350GB/s sustained bandwidth2, under 100µs read latency3.
    • Efficiency without compromise – global inline data reduction with guaranteed 3.5:1 average DRR4.

    Simple Operations

    • Intuitive storage management – provision storage in less than 30 seconds.
    • Workload consolidation – outstanding consolidation of block, file, mainframe, IBM i storage on a single array.
    • DevOps automation and containers – workflow automation and streamlined IT processes (vRA, vRO, CSI, CSM, Kubernetes).
    • Non-disruptive data migration – initiate data migrations from older arrays to PowerMax in three simple steps.

    Trusted Innovation

    • Mission-critical availability – proven six nines availability and the best replication for business continuance, disaster recovery (BC/DR).
    • Deep VMware integration – mission-critical availability and the most efficient scalability for VMware Virtual Volumes deployments (64,000 vVols).
    • Flexible consumption – several options, predictability, and investment protection with pay-per-use solutions and Future-Proof guarantees.

    PowerMax sets the standard for data storage today. It is uniquely, intuitively designed with a multi-controller, active/active scale-out architecture, an industry-standard, end-to-end NVMe. Inline, global dedupe and compression add outstanding efficiency to your data center, even while scaling. Additionally, PowerMax offers you the best in remote replication, proven six nines of availability, and end-to-end efficient encryption so that your data is always secure and your resources are fully optimized.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Ahmed K., a senior storage systems engineer at a pharma/biotech company, says Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe has “secure, fast performance, and good reporting capabilities.”

    Nikolay M. a lead system administrator at Central Hospital of Civil Aviation shares that with PowerMax, “we have not yet hit the ceiling in its efficiency, performance, and scalability… Now, with PowerMax, everything runs smoothly.”

    “We don't have to manage much at all. It really is like a set it and forget it solution. My storage engineers love the system. It is a lot less work than our previous systems… We are saving dozens of hours per month for our storage team, and that is a real cost in our business," adds Paul C., a Senior Solution Architect at Rackspace.

    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.

    Sample Customers
    Rackspace, Open Line
    Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company23%
    Financial Services Firm21%
    Retailer10%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government8%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company23%
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Manufacturing Company18%
    Comms Service Provider14%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Government6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise63%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise65%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise28%
    Large Enterprise34%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise60%
    Buyer's Guide
    Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    770,616 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Dell PowerMax NVMe is ranked 8th in All-Flash Storage with 66 reviews while Pure FlashArray X NVMe is ranked 15th in All-Flash Storage with 28 reviews. Dell PowerMax NVMe is rated 8.8, while Pure FlashArray X NVMe is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Dell PowerMax NVMe writes "Simplified storage provisioning for us, enabling us to assign any volumes in two to three minutes". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pure FlashArray X NVMe writes "Reasonably priced, scales well, and offers good stability". Dell PowerMax NVMe is most compared with Dell PowerStore, IBM FlashSystem, Dell Unity XT, Pure Storage FlashArray and Huawei OceanStor Dorado, whereas Pure FlashArray X NVMe is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, HPE Nimble Storage, Pure Storage FlashArray and TrueNAS R-Series. See our Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe report.

    See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors and best NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays 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.