DDN IntelliFlash vs Dell PowerStore comparison

DataDirect Networks and Dell Technologies are both solutions in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category. DataDirect Networks is ranked #14 with an average rating of 9.0, while Dell Technologies is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7. DataDirect Networks holds a 1.8% mindshare in N, compared to Dell Technologies’s 19.6% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of DataDirect Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Dell Technologies users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

DDN IntelliFlash and Dell PowerStore are two competing storage solutions. Dell PowerStore has the upper hand due to its extensive feature set, better customer service, and higher long-term ROI.

Features: According to user reviews, DDN IntelliFlash is valued for its performance, hybrid storage capabilities, and ease of deployment. Dell PowerStore is praised for its scalability, advanced data services, and comprehensive feature set.

Room for Improvement: DDN IntelliFlash users have noted issues with software updates, integration with third-party tools, and customer service response times. Dell PowerStore users highlight a need for better documentation, enhancements in replication features, and more straightforward deployment processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: DDN IntelliFlash is appreciated for its straightforward deployment but has mixed reviews about customer service. Dell PowerStore deployment is noted to be more complex, but users find the customer service responsive and helpful.

Pricing and ROI: Users find DDN IntelliFlash setup costs to be reasonable with satisfactory ROI. Dell PowerStore is more expensive upfront, but users report higher long-term ROI due to its robust features.

To learn more, read our detailed DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell PowerStore Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell PowerStore

January 2026

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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 February 2026, in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 4.2%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DDN IntelliFlash is 1.8%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 19.6%, down from 23.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell PowerStore	19.6%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	4.2%
DDN IntelliFlash	1.8%
Other	74.4%

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

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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Anil Rahulwar

Storage Engineer at Movate

Good customer service and support and suitable for large environments

It is very easy to install. Users don't need to remember anything while deploying IntelliFlash because everything will be taken care of by tech support. They can easily modify the installation or change the password with the help of the tech support. It is very easy to integrate IntelliFlash with other solutions. We have plugins that can be integrated with other solutions. It will require maintenance. It is the same as any other storage solution: updates and upgrades, firmware upgrades, and drive upgrades.

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reviewer2304864

Vmware Windows Senior Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Resilience has supported proactive management and secured audit readiness across multiple sites

The resilience in Dell PowerStore benefits my company from an auditing perspective because we know we have that resilience in place. I see Dell PowerStore playing a bigger role in the future because we are starting to use it more, and that is pushing it. The biggest return on investment for me when using Dell PowerStore is scalability. Scalability is key. I can amplify that scalability is the biggest return on investment because we have redundancy between two sites; if something goes down, we have to manage it, but we want to do it proactively.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

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

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

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

"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."

"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."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"High performance and ease-of-management are the most valuable features."

"It provides a combination of all the protocols that you need, without losing deduplication and compression."

"EasyTier/hotcaching: Valuable because it allows greater performance than standard SAS disks"

"Data Compression: Up to 80% space reduction in the database"

"It performed great originally, and when it performed great, it was awesome."

"It has reduced our electricity usage by reducing the amount of disks needed for the virtual environment."

"We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

More DDN IntelliFlash pros

"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerStore is the metro cluster because we have two data centers and high availability."

"The latency and the security are the most valuable features of Dell PowerStore."

"Dell PowerStore has helped reduce my organization's capital expenditures because once the storage is made available to the VMware environment in a clustered way, it makes it easy for the end user or VMware administrator to deploy virtual machines instantly."

"I am saving costs because I am getting better performance and deduplication rates."

"Currently, the features of replication and deduplication have been very important to us."

"As a primary storage, it has all the features that our customers need, with only minor tweaks or enhancements needed here and there."

"Reliable, with comprehensive features and a well-established support base."

"The improvement is massive; even a couple of milliseconds makes a significant difference to our production throughput, allowing products to leave the door more efficiently, which also cuts back on overtime and ensures we can complete our daily tasks in the required hours."

More Dell PowerStore pros

Cons

"I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert."

"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."

"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."

"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."

"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."

"We need better data deduplication."

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

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"Snapshots are not as easy to access as on a NetApp device."

"In the proxy section you can’t choose a user account and password, so it is not allowed at the moment to go out, if customer has such constellation."

"We had just one small stability problem with power flapping and it did not start up again automatically. We had to access service ports and manually restart the storage processors."

"It's somewhat scalable, but maybe not so much as some of the competition."

"In future releases, I look forward to more AI features."

"Technical support is bad. It'd grade them at 30% or 40%. The response time is terrible."

"It only keeps one hour of real-time data without the ability to do deep analysis of each element."

"Performance is horrible now. Our original intent was to buy new storage in about two years. But since it became a critical urgency for us, we decided to purchase a new one in two or three months."

More DDN IntelliFlash cons

"I would suggest that Dell PowerStore could come with various other features, such as a hybrid model apart from only all-flash, which would really help the customers."

"Where the system needs to improve is by adding more enterprise features like replication on other sites. We would also like it to be much more aligned with the VMware version. For example, today we have two different versions of VMware ESXi running to keep the PowerStore online. It would be better if the software cycling was faster."

"There is no Synchronize replication feature on the storage."

"If Dell PowerStore had more controllers, making it more reliable and resilient, it would be better."

"The solution’s security and technical support could be improved."

"I do not have any current pain points that I would like them to fix, although we did have one issue when an update stopped the phone-home solution, however they fixed that via support."

"What would make it perfect is addressing the occasional lack of continuity with consultants who are on projects for five to six weeks regarding Dell PowerStore."

"The customer service and support are bad."

More Dell PowerStore cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"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."

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."

"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."

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

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

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"I recommend the full bundle software in order to have all the functionality. It is more expensive to purchase it one by one."

"I think we pay around 100 grand per year for three arrays or four arrays."

"Licensing is very simple. Everything is included in the basic license. There are no concerns about having to pay to add a feature. Everything is there."

"If we use the 500 or 1000, the licensing and pricing are reasonable. PowerStore can compete with any vendor and the price isn't that expensive."

"HCL Tech has a TLA with Dell, so in terms of price point, we are very competitive. Based on my experience, the cost of Dell PowerStore for around 500 GB of capacity is very competitive compared to any other platform in the market."

"The pricing rates at seven out of ten as it is considered overpriced. Entry-level models are reasonably priced, starting around $30,000 for a base model with 6 drives. However, upgrades become costly - adding 6 additional drives can cost another $30,000."

"The solution's price was comparable to other products for the use case, size, and setup."

"We are currently using Dell PowerStore for our smaller storage and there is no competition for pricing."

"The pricing structure and licensing model of Dell PowerStore are very good and I like it. We chose it because it was reasonably priced and met our requirements"

"Dell PowerStore has been priced aggressively, especially when compared to other NVMe storage options. It is likely one of the most cost-effective options for organizations seeking a pure NVMe play in terms of pricing."

More Dell PowerStore pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Healthcare Company

Construction Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	3

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	54
Midsize Enterprise	34
Large Enterprise	83

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 ...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IntelliFlash?

It is a bit cheaper than other products, 10% to 20% cheaper.

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What needs improvement with IntelliFlash?

DDN IntelliFlash should improve in terms of sales. In future releases, I look forward to more features about AI and M...

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What is your primary use case for IntelliFlash?

We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways. They have large scalability and use more th...

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What do you think about Dell EMC PowerStore? Is it actually a new product?

PowerStore is flexible, scalable, simple, and performant with market-leading economics for a wide range of legacy and...

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How does Dell's EMC PowerStore compare with its EMC Unity XT?

Dell EMC PowerStore is a unified storage platform that has the added benefit of being scalable. The automated managem...

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What's the difference between DELL EMC Powerstore and Powermax NVMe?

Dell PowerStore is an all-solid-state midrange storage system. It has many internal elements taken from other Dell of...

See all answers

Comparisons

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

NetApp AFF vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 7% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

VAST Data vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 25% of the time

NetApp AFF vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 9% of the time

Tintri VMstore T7000 vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 9% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 7% of the time

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 7% of the time

More DDN IntelliFlash Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 14% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 11% of the time

Dell PowerVault vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 8% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 8% of the time

More Dell PowerStore Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore

January 2026

Download Dell PowerStore product report

Also Known As

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

Tegile, IntelliFlash N-Series, IntelliFlash T-Series, IntelliFlash HD-Series

PowerStore

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

Western Digital through its IntelliFlash arrays delivers high-performance storage with a complete range of features and connectivity options, including inline compression and deduplication, application and VM consistent snapshots, replication, RAID, data encryption, VMware vCenter integration, and multi-protocol support for SAN (FC, iSCSI) and NAS (NFS, SMBv3). IntelliFlash arrays deliver high availability through dualredundant and hot-swappable components, active/active or active/passive controllers, non-disruptive software upgrades, eMLC flash, and proactive cloud-based monitoring, analytics, and intelligence. A RESTful API provides scripted or programmatic control.

DataDirect Networks

Dell PowerStore is a scalable, high-performance platform supporting both modern and traditional workloads, enhancing IT operations with AI-driven automation and advanced data reduction features.

Designed for flexibility, Dell PowerStore integrates seamlessly with VMware, providing robust security and high IOPS. Users benefit from fast NVMe storage, intelligent data management, and scalable performance to handle diverse workload demands. However, improvements are needed in replication, enterprise functionalities, and UI complexity. Stability and support issues highlight the need for enhanced monitoring and pricing strategies.

What are the key features of Dell PowerStore?

Advanced Compression: Optimizes storage capacity effectively.
Data Deduplication: Reduces redundant data, improving efficiency.
Scalability: Easily adjusts to growing business needs.
VMware Integration: Enhances virtualization performance.
AI-Driven Management: Simplifies IT operations.
NVMe Storage: Provides fast, reliable access to data.
Robust Security: Ensures data protection.

What benefits does Dell PowerStore offer?

High Performance: Supports demanding applications with high IOPS.
Flexible Design: Adapts to changing workload requirements.
Cost Efficiency: Promotes ROI through data reduction and scaling.
Enhanced Management: Streamlines operations with AI and integrations.
Improved Data Handling: Efficiently manages databases and storage.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and IT, Dell PowerStore is critical for VMware virtualization, high-performance databases, and backup storage. It supports hosting virtual machines, mirroring storage, and handling SAP and Oracle databases effectively. Its role in hybrid and on-premises setups showcases its adaptability and integration capabilities for mission-critical tasks.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Bank of Stockton, Barnsley College, Boyes Turner, Brigham Young University

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell PowerStore

January 2026

Free Report: DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell PowerStore

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