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 1.1% mindshare in N, compared to Dell Technologies’s 22.6% 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: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell PowerStore

August 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 August 2025, in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 2.9%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DDN IntelliFlash is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 22.6%, down from 25.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

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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Hassan_Zaki

Senior Presales Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Integrated AI and clustering enhance storage operations effectively

I promote and recommend Dell PowerStore for all workloads to my clients and customers. Most of my customers have one appliance per site. Approximately 80% of my customers have Dell PowerStore implemented in their data centers. We always use CLS as another Dell solution for cybersecurity and data security. The CLS is integrated with the Data Domain, PowerProtect Data Domain, not with Dell PowerStore. Windows, Linux, and some customers use Red Hat or SUSE. We have many operating systems working with Dell PowerStore in the same environments and data centers. CloudIQ and Storage IQ are used by some customers, but Apex AIOps has not been widely adopted yet. Dell PowerStore has integration with VMware and Kubernetes. Most workloads work fine and have very good integration with Dell PowerStore, except for one or two specific workloads in the market. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Dell PowerStore a nine.

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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

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

"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."

"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

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

"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."

"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

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

"The initial setup is straightforward."

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

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

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

"It's very fast. We were seeing read latencies of less than one millisecond. It is robust."

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

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

More DDN IntelliFlash pros

"The solution is stable."

"The solution is easy to use and has good performance."

"Moving and optimizing workloads within the cluster is quite easy based on my experience with Dell PowerStore."

"The management portal is particularly user-friendly."

"That's the value Dell creates; you invest less, and you get a better ROI."

"The pricing of Dell PowerStore is quite on point and very competitive overall."

"The beauty is the simplicity - customers can manage multiple workloads from a single dashboard with scale-out architecture."

"Dell PowerStore has good value for money and some scalability features that are better than other products."

More Dell PowerStore pros

Cons

"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."

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

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

"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."

"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."

"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."

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

"It is on the expensive side."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"They need to offer better integration for a virtual platform to enable you to create hyper-converged solution."

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

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

More DDN IntelliFlash cons

"From our region perspective, it would be beneficial to have support with local languages for Dell PowerStore. However, English is acceptable for us as it serves our needs."

"The support team should have more people with experience in the solution's installation process, as it is one of the areas where I see certain shortcomings."

"AI will be a challenge and we must manage different kinds of data with more performance and security."

"The biggest area in PowerStore that needs improvement is the overall visibility within the ESX environment."

"The maintenance is a bit expensive. The service and support are there for three years, but after the third year, it is pretty pricey for renewal."

"The design needs to be something similar to Pure Storage. It would be beneficial if there are different color or lighting options for different product casings."

"PowerStore's management console could be improved."

"Dell PowerStore is a very expensive storage solution. That said, the speed for recovering information is amazing. I would make the product cheaper. The discounts from Dell to South America are not sufficient because we need better pricing. The discounts for small PowerStores are not enough to close deals since I'm a distributor. As both a user and seller, it's challenging to sell Dell PowerStore to the channel or final customers because we don't have enough discount from Dell."

More Dell PowerStore cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

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

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

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

"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."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

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

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

"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."

"The solution’s pricing is always too high."

"There are no separate licenses required as all the basic licenses are included in the bundle."

"We are happy with the pricing that we get from Dell."

"Dell PowerStore is affordable and the license is just a face license which is great."

"The price of Dell EMC PowerStore could be better, it is a bit expensive."

"Pricing depends on the model and negotiation. Sometimes we manage to get good discounts, sometimes not."

"The price is high compared to the Tunisian market."

More Dell PowerStore pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

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Comparisons

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

VAST Data vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 36% of the time

NetApp AFF vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 18% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 17% of the time

Tintri VMstore T7000 vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 10% of the time

More DDN IntelliFlash Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 15% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 12% of the time

Dell PowerVault vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 11% of the time

IBM FlashSystem 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

August 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash

August 2025

Download DDN IntelliFlash product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore

August 2025

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 stands out for its high performance, flexibility, and easy integration with VMware. It offers notable data compression and deduplication capabilities while providing powerful NVMe support and machine learning to optimize IT operations.

Dell PowerStore is designed to offer a comprehensive approach to IT infrastructure by enhancing performance and simplifying management. It is particularly suitable for companies that require scalable solutions to increase compute or capacity independently. Featuring built-in intelligence, PowerStore allows efficient storage consolidation and reduced footprint, while integration with CloudIQ enhances monitoring and analytics. However, there are areas for improvement, such as stability, enterprise features, and the user interface. Pricing is high, and support responsiveness needs attention. Organizations primarily use PowerStore for VMware environments, storage, and data protection, supporting high-performance databases and VMware workloads. It is utilized in data centers for disaster recovery and hybrid setups.

What are the key features of Dell PowerStore?

Flexibility: Independently scales compute or capacity
High Performance: Offers powerful NVMe support and machine learning
Integration: Easily integrates with VMware
Data Efficiency: Provides data compression and deduplication
Simplified Management: Built-in intelligence for efficient storage management

What benefits should users consider?

Performance Optimization: Enhance IT operations with machine learning
Scalability: Increase compute or storage capacity as needed
Integration Potential: Improve efficiency with VMware and CloudIQ
Data Protection: Reliable for disaster recovery and hybrid environments

In industries like IT, finance, and healthcare, Dell PowerStore supports efficient data management and enhances infrastructure performance. Organizations leverage it to manage extensive data, streamline virtualization processes, and facilitate migration from legacy systems, while integrating cloud and on-premises infrastructures for improved operations.

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

August 2025

Free Report: DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell PowerStore

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