We performed a comparison between Dell EMC PowerStore and Pure Storage FlashArray based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both products received high marks from users. Pure Storage FlashArray has a slight edge in the comparison due to its superior customer support.
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"The solution is scalable."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"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."
"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."
"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."
"The most valuable feature is that it is easy to use this frame. I am a SAN administrator, but I was able to train my colleague, who had only been a VMware administrator, on the PowerStore in about half a day. Now he's autonomous in assigning volumes and creating data stores..."
"When compared to Pure Storage, Dell PowerStore's cost was quite attractive."
"The main feature of Dell PowerStore is its support for NVMe as well as hybrid solutions."
"It is a stable solution."
"This solution is very useful to us as we use it internally for all of the services that we need. We use it as a lab and we showcase new technology to the customers and how it can help them going forward."
"Dell EMC PowerStore is scalable."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The product's initial setup phase was very easy."
"Our storage phones home. It is smart and intelligent in that aspect, which has been huge for us. We don't have to be storage administrators."
"Technical support has been amazing."
"The stability is perfect. The reliability is 100% and the latency is always lower than 1 millisecond."
"Processes that used to take 40 minutes to two hours can be completed in five minutes."
"I like FlashArray's ActiveCluster as well as its snapshot and cloning capabilities."
"The first year, we started out with one or five terabytes and it took what was 20 terabytes of storage down to less than one terabyte."
"I never have to worry about its performance or if it is the root cause of an issue."
"Performance, dedupe, and that it works well with database workloads are its most valuable features."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"The cost of technical support is high."
"With PowerStore, we have to choose between block storage and NAS functionality."
"We would consider this solution if the pricing is competitive with other options, as it offers a very good solution. However, the current price is slightly higher than the competition."
"PowerStore's management console could be improved."
"When it comes to Dell PowerStore, I would like to see more integration and more security features included. It's unfortunate that the solution does not feature Flash trace."
"Reporting is an area that could be improved. It's very simplistic sometimes, and some of the very technical guys on my team want to see more of the details and be able to massage the report a little bit better."
"The storage could be improved. I would like a feature for how to best secure an appliance and the storage since we are connecting the container to the public cloud. I would like them to develop another level of security, making it more secure than from what they have now."
"It doesn't support SSD or Flash."
"It would be good to have metrics of the box's performance so we can see what it delivers, but currently, I can't see what it's actually doing."
"As partners, we should have the option to download the software, rather than have to go back through Pure to obtain it."
"I would like to see more detailed reporting on the data. However, it would be nice to know what are the exact VMs usage after deduplication and/or what that VMs actual latency and bandwidth is, outside of VMware."
"The support for NFS protocols right out-of-the-box need improvement. I'm used to other storage vendors who have NFS support right out-of-the-box, and Pure Storage doesn't seem to have anything."
"As long as they always improve on IOPS speed, that's all we're really looking for. The faster the storage can be the more we can do speed of application and speed of use."
"I would like to see a Nagios monitoring plugin which watches the health and performance of the system. The only one available just checks volume capacity."
"In the next release of this solution, we would like to see automated copy data management for SQL Server."
"One thing I'd like to see in a future release is integration between their main storage array and what they call their FlashBlade product; to be able to snapshot directly from the primary array into multiple different backup copies on FlashBlade."
Dell PowerStore is ranked 1st in All-Flash Storage with 47 reviews while Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 174 reviews. Dell PowerStore is rated 8.6, while Pure Storage FlashArray is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Dell PowerStore writes "It has a very strong NAS that can support a lot of big, heavy environments". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pure Storage FlashArray writes "Effective provisioning, helpful support, and reliable". Dell PowerStore is most compared with Dell Unity XT, IBM FlashSystem, NetApp AFF, Dell PowerMax NVMe and Huawei OceanStor Dorado, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem, VMware vSAN and Dell Unity XT. See our Dell PowerStore vs. Pure Storage FlashArray 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.