Dell PowerMax vs Dell VMAX All Flash comparison

Dell PowerMax and Dell VMAX All Flash are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell PowerMax is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.8, while Dell VMAX All Flash is ranked #28 with an average rating of 8.0. Dell PowerMax holds a 4.8% mindshare in AFS, compared to Dell VMAX All Flash’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell PowerMax users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Dell VMAX All Flash users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 30, 2025

Dell PowerMax and Dell VMAX All Flash compete in advanced data management. PowerMax offers a modern feature set with greater speed and innovation, giving it a slight edge. VMAX, however, is known for its robust performance and reliability.

Features:PowerMax provides advanced data reduction, AI-driven workload optimization, and high-speed connectivity. VMAX delivers strong data protection, consistent performance, and integration with legacy systems.

Room for Improvement:PowerMax could enhance its compatibility with older systems, reduce deployment costs, and expand its feature set for non-dynamic environments. VMAX may improve by adopting more modern data analysis tools, enhancing scalability, and increasing support for hybrid environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:PowerMax features intuitive deployment and responsive technical support. VMAX requires traditional setups but benefits from a comprehensive service infrastructure.

Pricing and ROI:PowerMax involves a premium investment reflecting its advanced technology, delivering efficiency and performance gains. VMAX offers a more predictable cost structure and solid ROI due to its reliability and stable performance.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerMax vs. Dell VMAX All Flash Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. Dell VMAX All Flash

December 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 January 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerMax is 4.8%, up from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell VMAX All Flash is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell PowerMax	4.8%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.4%
Dell VMAX All Flash	0.8%
Other	93.0%

All-Flash Storage

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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MayankChauhan

Lead Consultant - Cloud & Infrastructure Services at Infosys

Delivers essential support and performance for intensive operations in real-time environments

Our infrastructure is spread across the private as well as a public cloud. Our requirement was that the IOPS latency should not be more than one millisecond. If anything goes beyond one millisecond, it's a problem for us. We wanted a system that could handle the transactions and meet our latency requirements. There are performance benefits for sure. The amount of deduplication and compression offered by Dell PowerMax is quite good, especially with databases. Dell PowerMax delivers optimum performance and reliable support, integral for handling failures and ensuring operational continuity. The performance capacity optimization and support we receive from Dell are also valuable.

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Arjun Sadsivam

Solution Architect at a agriculture with 10,001+ employees

Performance and interface improve data processing speeds but require complex configuration

The most valuable features of VMAX are its performance and GUI interface. We have seen significant improvements in technology over the last four to five years. The snap feature, along with deduplication, has notably enhanced our data processing speeds. We haven't experienced any outages or core-level issues in the last ten years, making us comfortable with the storage solution.

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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

"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."

"The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."

"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."

"The best features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe include the volume snapshot capabilities, which allow us to save most of the storage space by volume snapshots periodically."

"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."

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"I use the tool for Oracle databases, Oracle virtual machines, and Oracle Linux databases. I'm on the storage side, not a database administrator."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"A huge benefit of the PowerMax has been the decreasing of our physical footprint. We recently did a consolidation where we went from 58 tiles down to 5. If we had used just the PowerMax, we could have gone from 58 tiles down to 2 tiles, which is huge space savings. If you have 56 newly available floor tiles on a raised floor data center, which you previously had to cool and provide power to, then now, not only are my costs going down, I now have more revenue opportunities because I have more space to put new customers."

"The solution is stable. I would rate it ten out of ten."

"Dell PowerMax has certainly improved our organization by being much faster than what we've had in the past; it's a strong product, and most of the solutions we have or have made with Dell are very fast."

"We are happy with the monitoring that Dell EMC is doing for us. They have helped us to identify many issues during the routine checks, issues which we were not aware of."

"The PowerMax software and CloudIQ let us get an inside view of our compression and compaction, as well as our usage of the storage."

"This platform is reliable in supporting our data availability. We now have a higher performing platform and have been able to consolidate our workloads into one single platform."

"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."

"Dell is the best vendor worldwide, with an end-to-end solution starting from a mouse to Telza Hyperfix or HyperConverged devices."

More Dell PowerMax pros

"It works very well."

"We haven't experienced any outages or core-level issues in the last ten years, making us comfortable with the storage solution."

"The product's initial setup phase was good."

"The most valuable features of VMAX are its performance and GUI interface."

"The snapshot feature has been precious for our testing processes, application development, and managing testing environments due to its efficiency and ease of use."

"The ransomware protection feature is housed in a separate unit, specifically addressing the top twenty most critical threats."

Cons

"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."

"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."

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

"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."

"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."

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

"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 would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"There are quite a few design areas where I have been trying to understand why it has been designed in certain ways. This includes redundancy at the engine level, the virtual engines, or the directors that are installed. It is also related to how the cache destaging happens, or how it's designed, and how read and write caches are designed. These are design areas where I think they can do better."

"The initial setup was complex. ESRS is a very complex solution to put into our environment, because it requires external access to the Internet. That's a very tough thing for us to do, because we are a PCI and PII company. We store a lot of data for people which is personal. Therefore, going out to the Internet is not our preferred path."

"The initial setup was a little bit complicated."

"While Dell PowerMax NVMe is very reliable storage and cannot experience downtime, we sometimes face challenges in our territories regarding the availability of critical parts."

"We have issues that we don't know about, which Dell EMC fixes."

"There is room for improvement in terms of integration with various service providers for public clouds."

"If you go to Pure or you go to NetApp, they deliver in one month. If you go to Dell or HP, they will take up to six months for delivery. This is not a business model for today."

"With Dell PowerMax, engineering always has to be involved if you want to expand the system with a couple of disks or anything. It is quite a tedious process."

More Dell PowerMax cons

"We encountered some challenges during large data migrations that could be addressed for smoother transitions."

"Improvements are needed in both partition recovery and scalability."

"There is room for improvement in the centralized administration."

"The configuration part of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."

"The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability. We've had to procure additional engines to address this limitation."

"The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability."

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."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

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

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"Dell PowerMax NVMe's price is expensive."

"I rate Dell PowerMax NVMe a five out of ten for pricing."

"Support pricing is very high. Our support contract is about to expire and Dell EMC provided us with an extremely high renewal quote. It was four times more than the support contract for our previous EMC VNX solution."

"The PowerMax appliance pricing was reasonable. Dell EMC quoted us a substantial discount."

"Its price is competitive, but they need to have a different price for West Africa. They can do better with the price point to allow us to scale even more. We wanted to migrate our entire storage infrastructure to PowerMax, which would require us to buy more capacity, and from the price point, it didn't attract us."

"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 pricing is comparable to other vendors."

"One area for improvement, one that everybody always comes to, is price... it's still quite expensive to purchase these big arrays... For us, the pricing doesn't make Dell EMC uncompetitive."

More Dell PowerMax pricing and cost advice

"The price falls within the mid-range, neither inexpensive nor high-priced."

"It is not a cheap product."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

16%

Healthcare Company

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	17
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	55

No data available

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.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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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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.

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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.

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell EMC VMax?

The product's initial setup phase was good.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC VMax?

The pricing provided by EMC is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell EMC VMax?

The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability. We've had to procure additiona...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 18% 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 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 7% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 20% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 7% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 7% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 5% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 3% of the time

More Dell PowerMax Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 9% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 8% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 7% of the time

Huawei OceanStor vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 7% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 6% of the time

More Dell VMAX All Flash Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

January 2026

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax

January 2026

Download Dell PowerMax product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

January 2026

Download Dell VMAX All Flash product report

Also Known As

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

Dell PowerMax NVMe, Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax

No data available

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

PowerMax leads in mission-critical enterprise storage with advanced architecture and AI-driven automation, ensuring secure and efficient IT optimization. Its multi-node NVMe scale-out framework delivers unmatched performance and consolidation, backed by Dell’s Future-Proof Program.

PowerMax is renowned for its robust reliability, performance, and efficient data reduction capabilities. Users benefit from its NVMe architecture, aiding significant scalability and cost efficiency through effective deduplication and compression. Unisphere simplifies management, while CloudIQ provides enhanced monitoring. With high availability and strong IOPS capabilities, PowerMax effectively manages demanding workloads and ensures seamless operations. Its compact design and increased storage capacity enhance user experience, particularly with easy maintenance and robust performance.

What are the key features of PowerMax?

Reliability: Ensures consistent service uptime and data integrity.
High Performance: NVMe architecture provides exceptional speed and efficiency.
Data Reduction: Deduplication and compression drive down costs.
Management Tools: Unisphere interface for easy system management.
CloudIQ: Advanced monitoring for predictive insights.
High Availability: Supports mission-critical and demanding workloads.

What benefits should users expect from PowerMax?

Performance Optimization: Handles low latency and high IOPS needs.
Scalability: Expands effortlessly with growing data and workload demands.
Enhanced Monitoring: Predictive analytics for proactive management.
Efficient Maintenance: Streamlined processes reduce downtime and costs.

Dell PowerMax is predominantly employed in mission-critical applications such as SQL, Oracle databases, ERP systems, and high transactional environments. Healthcare, finance, and e-commerce sectors leverage its high performance, scalability, and NVMe technology for low latency and redundancy. It is adept in storage consolidation, data analytics, and disaster recovery.

Dell Technologies

Dell VMAX All Flash is utilized in hyper-converged solutions like VxRail deployments, critical for Data Domain in backup tasks. It supports multi-site replication, disaster recovery, banking IT operations, and high-performance applications.

Dell VMAX All Flash plays a key role in data-intensive environments due to its robust capabilities in storage, data protection, and high throughput tasks. It is crucial in hyper-converged solutions and VxRail deployments, facilitating multi-site replication and disaster recovery. Its applications span across banking and other critical IT operations requiring high performance. The system's ability to support efficient data compression and provide ransomware protection addresses significant security concerns. Multi-site replication and redundancy safeguard data even during power outages or hardware failures, while the snapshot feature aids in testing, application development, and environment management.

What are the key features of Dell VMAX All Flash?

Compression: Efficient data compression capabilities.
Ransomware Protection: Tackles ransomware threats effectively.
Multi-site Replication and Redundancy: Ensures data safety during power outages or hardware issues.
Snapshots: Aids in testing, application development, and environment management.

What benefits should users look for in Dell VMAX All Flash reviews?

Data Protection: Enhanced data security with ransomware protection.
Performance: High throughput for demanding applications.
Reliability: Multi-site replication and redundancy for critical operations continuity.
Support: Adheres to IP strategies with excellent customer support.

Dell VMAX All Flash is critical in industries like banking, where it supports IT operations requiring high performance, and in environments demanding stringent data protection measures. Its role in multi-site replication and disaster recovery makes it invaluable for business continuity and critical data security across sectors.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Rackspace, Open Line

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. Dell VMAX All Flash

December 2025

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