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Dell PowerMax vs Dell PowerStore comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 30, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
1.0
Organizations reduced costs and improved performance with Pure FlashArray X NVMe, achieving quick ROI and efficient resource management.
Sentiment score
6.7
Dell PowerMax users enjoyed lower costs, fast performance, and quick ROI, citing substantial financial benefits and increased efficiency.
Sentiment score
5.6
Dell PowerStore offers financial benefits through efficiency, cost reductions, and reliable performance, ensuring a strong return on investment.
If you wait more than seven years to buy another one, you get a return on your investment.
Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR
During a DCDR setup and migration from VMAX to Dell PowerMax, what was planned as a two-day downtime was completed in just three to four hours.
The performance metrics or benchmarks I use to measure success with Dell PowerMax include uptime as well as our response times on our platforms, both of which are exactly where we want them to be, which is five nines and as fast as possible.
Senior Manager, Disaster Recovery, Storage & UNIX Systems at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
My client has seen significant ROI since the install, and when you don't go down, that's an ROI in and of itself.
Chief Executive Officer at Contour Data Solutions
If you purchase storage with 300 terabytes, you can easily achieve one petabyte of effective capacity.
Regional Sales Manager at New Horizon Computers
It's been trouble-free the entire time, with very high performance, as it has been designed and built properly.
Storage Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
We have seen a return on our investment in Dell PowerStore; definitely our cost per terabyte has been very good compared to some of the other vendors that we would have been using previously, and our performance benchmarks have exceeded what we were expecting.
Director of Global Platform at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Pure FlashArray X NVMe's technical support is praised for responsiveness, despite occasional follow-up issues, earning high customer satisfaction.
Sentiment score
8.4
Dell PowerMax support is praised for responsiveness, despite some delays and communication issues, with room for SLA improvement.
Sentiment score
6.5
Dell PowerStore's support is praised for expertise and responsiveness, despite occasional regional inconsistencies and communication issues.
Customers always have their issues resolved promptly.
Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR
Technical support is good at least through vendors, not directly with the principal.
Infrastructure Specialis at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
I would rate Dell PowerMax support as a ten, as I have never had an issue with Dell support as it relates to this product.
Chief Executive Officer at Contour Data Solutions
ProSupport Next Business Day offers part replacement within four hours for data leaks.
AI Solutions Architect at TierOne
Dell support for Dell PowerMax is exceptional, rating a perfect 10 out of 10.
I would rate the technical support of Dell PowerStore between nine and ten out of ten.
Solution Architect at CDA
They're responsive, knowledgeable, and have a quick turnaround.
Systems Engineer at a government with 11-50 employees
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Dell support as a ten, focusing on that aspect alone, because it's what allows me to sleep at night.
Head of IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers scalable storage with low latency, easy upgrades, though capacity customization and high costs are noted.
Sentiment score
7.7
Dell PowerMax offers seamless scalability and flexibility, handling large data needs efficiently with enterprise-level reliability and performance.
Sentiment score
6.8
Dell PowerStore offers scalable growth, advanced NVMe performance, and ease of expansion, though upgrade costs can be high.
It hasn't broken down anytime in the last six to seven years, despite hurricanes, earthquakes, and power outages.
Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR
Scalability is not an issue.
Senior System Engineer at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Dell PowerMax is good for enterprises, and it also depends on how much workload you're going to bring in on Dell PowerMax in terms of performance and how many users are going to use the database you're hosting.
Lead Consultant - Cloud & Infrastructure Services at Infosys
PowerScale is better suited for AI and overall buzz solution currently.
AI Solutions Architect at TierOne
The solution's scalability is a ten out of ten.
Pre-Sales Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
It scales up and scales out both ways, and as our data keeps growing, it is very easy to just keep attaching and keep growing.
Associate Director at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Scaling up can be done from a single enclosure that already has two controllers to a maximum of four storage units with up to eight controllers, and a massive amount of storage can be added.
Nutanix at Senior System Engineer
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Pure Storage offers exceptional stability and reliability with outstanding support, consistently achieving high user ratings for performance and service.
Sentiment score
8.6
Dell PowerMax is praised for minimal downtime, high stability, quick support, impressive uptime, and is favored for critical tasks.
Sentiment score
7.6
Dell PowerStore offers reliable performance with high uptime, strong failover capabilities, and effective support, despite early firmware issues.
I would rate the stability of the product at seven out of ten.
Project Manager at a government with 11-50 employees
These patches can be applied on the fly without requiring software upgrades or system downtime.
I would rate it nine out of ten since there are no required downtimes, even during firmware upgrades.
System and Storage Admin at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
There has been no downtime with Dell PowerMax; it's been extremely reliable, easy to manage, easy to upgrade, and trustworthy as we've upgraded over the years from one version to another.
Chief Executive Officer at Contour Data Solutions
When I removed all the cables, it failed over within five minutes.
Consultant
It's quite stable and reliable in general.
Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
I have not experienced any downtime, bugs, or glitches, and it's much better than previous technologies.
Storage Backup Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Pure FlashArray X requires cost-effective improvements in UI, integration, cloud features, multitenancy, analytics, backup, AI, and scalability.
Dell PowerMax users face challenges with efficiency, complexity, costs, and integration, impacting automation and user experience.
Dell PowerStore needs improved features, better integration, stability, automation, security, scalability, analytics, and affordability, according to user feedback.
One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware.
Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR
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.
Cloud Architect at DXC Technology
Storage replication should be essential.
Infrastructure Specialis at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Compared to competitors such as NetApp, which integrates with public cloud hyperscalers (GCP, Azure, AWS), Dell PowerMax lacks in this aspect.
Dell can assist by providing plug-and-play integrated templates that allow customers to drag, drop, modify, and connect with any target system for generating snapshots without logging into the storage directly.
System and Storage Admin at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Implementing Natural Language Processing at the storage level would be beneficial, especially considering the advancements in artificial intelligence technology.
Sr. Project Manager IT at ITC Ltd
Something needs to be done with the caching to ensure that if some issue occurs, there needs to be an ability to disable caching during maintenance to make it static, safe, and good.
CISO Admin at a analyst firm with 51-200 employees
Pricing must also be considered, as Dell PowerStore is quite expensive compared to competitors in the market like HPE Alletra, Huawei Dorado, or Hitachi storage, for example.
Unit Head - Technology Services at Shahnawaz Ltd
The main reason why people move to Pure Storage is because it's simplified.
IT Director at a recreational facilities/services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers see Pure FlashArray X NVMe as a justified premium investment due to performance and comprehensive licensing.
Dell PowerMax is priced high yet competitive, offering premium performance and reliability, with negotiation advised for cost-effectiveness.
Dell PowerStore offers robust features with cost-effective performance, though costs rise with higher capacity needs and material challenges.
While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits.
Manager, System Infrastructure & Security at Organik Kimya San. ve Tic. A.S.
The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there.
Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR
The higher cost compared to other vendors is justified by additional features, vendor-managed upgrades, and superior support services.
It is the best choice for large projects in terms of price and features compared to midrange solutions.
Presales Engineer at Project Informatica srl
The price is starting from $500,000.
Senior Sells at Enterprise Sigma Technology
Likely the cost is $400,000 whereas IBM may be $250,000.
Adv. Service Manager at ECC Solutions
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.
Deputy General Manager at HCLSoftware
I asked for a new quotation on a server, and it is quite expensive; it is really expensive.
Responsable Plateformes Et Cloud at a media company with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers exceptional performance, reliability, scalability, and seamless VMware integration, enhancing workload efficiency and user experience.
Dell PowerMax offers robust performance with reliability, scalability, and security, supporting enterprise needs with high availability and efficiency.
Dell PowerStore impresses with flexibility, performance, seamless VMware integration, AI-driven features, and robust security for optimized storage.
Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen.
Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR
Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed.
Manager, System Infrastructure & Security at Organik Kimya San. ve Tic. A.S.
We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options.
Project Manager at a government with 11-50 employees
NVMe provides additional fast cache, similar to random access memory (RAM), which improves overall system performance and read/write experience for users.
Dell PowerMax NVMe is very supportive of our operational growth since we require daily performance from our core banking systems and need to facilitate data movement efficiently.
System and Storage Admin at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
The key benefits of using Dell PowerMax, quantified in terms of saved hours and saved costs, is having one single platform that provides functionality to all of our internal customers.
Senior Manager, Disaster Recovery, Storage & UNIX Systems at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
This includes storage sharing, adding servers to the service, and the wireless host connection on the network side.
Senior System Administrator at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
Dell PowerStore offers good integration capabilities, especially since it helps with backup, which is an important aspect.
CISO at a construction company with 10,001+ employees
In terms of whether my company could reduce the power consumption with Dell PowerStore, I would say that my company had a use case with a customer around three weeks ago where their old Dell EMC VNX Storage System used to draw about 2500 watts compared to Dell PowerStore which drew about 800 watts, which is a really a big saving looking at the twenty-four hours and seven days of usage of the system.
Data Center Consultant at a retailer with 11-50 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
17th
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
6th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell PowerMax
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
6th
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell PowerStore
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
1st
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
167
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (4th), NAS (1st), Enterprise SAN (1st)
 

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 Dell PowerMax is 9.5%, up from 9.2% 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
ProductMarket Share (%)
Dell PowerStore19.6%
Dell PowerMax9.5%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe4.2%
Other66.69999999999999%
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
 

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Gouranga Maiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Project Manager IT at ITC Ltd
High‑performance all‑flash storage has transformed data warehousing and reporting speed
The features of Dell PowerMax that I find most valuable so far include its all-flash capability, along with its performance, reliability, and efficiency. Additionally, it has snapshot-level features that allow me to take snapshots or backups within only a few seconds. There is no need to wait long, and unnecessary high bandwidth used for backup does not occur because I can take the whole snapshot backup within a fraction of a second. I have used the deduplication feature of Dell PowerMax. Deduplication and compression are very effective, so despite my large amount of data, the effective size is reduced due to this deduplication and compression, allowing me to store more data on the same storage. Regarding the impact of Dell PowerMax's real-time data encryption on my data protection strategies, I have not used that feature personally. However, in another department, my colleagues are using it, and they have not faced any performance bottlenecks due to data encryption. The encryption is very powerful, but I have not implemented that encryption in our database data warehouse systems since they are for internal use only, not exposed worldwide. At first, I faced several issues, and our report rendering complaints were quite annoying. However, now with Dell PowerMax storage's high IOPS handling capabilities, the output comes within a fraction of a second, making our users happy. Whatever our requirement or demand is, it has already been implemented in Dell PowerMax with its all-flash NVMe storage. New bricks can also be added if a size increase is required, allowing for additional bricks to be added as needed. Everything is in place; therefore, I do not think any other improvements are required. However, it is worth noting that Dell is continuously inventing and releasing more powerful types of storage. This results in increased reliability, enhanced data handling capabilities, improved deduplication ratios, and the fulfillment of more IOPS demand.
reviewer2304864 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise56
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business55
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise84
 

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.
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...
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 ...
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...
What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe?
First, it's an enterprise storage solution. This is very important for us. Another important feature is replication.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe?
When comparing Dell PowerMax NVMe with other vendors, such as IBM enterprise solutions, the price is relatively higher.
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...
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...
What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerStore?
It's a great product. Integrating PowerStore with the IT workflow is easy.
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
Dell PowerMax NVMe, Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax
PowerStore
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Rackspace, Open Line
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerMax vs. Dell PowerStore and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.