Dell PowerMax vs Dell XtremIO comparison

Dell PowerMax and Dell XtremIO are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell PowerMax is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.9, while Dell XtremIO is ranked #23 with an average rating of 7.8. Dell PowerMax holds a 4.6% mindshare in AFS, compared to Dell XtremIO’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell PowerMax users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Dell XtremIO users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 24, 2025

Dell XtremIO and Dell PowerMax compete in the enterprise storage solutions category. Users find Dell XtremIO to have an advantage due to its intuitive interface and simpler setup, while Dell PowerMax is described as having superior advanced features and scalability.

Features: Dell XtremIO offers data deduplication, ease of management, and consistent performance, making it a choice for high data reduction and simplicity. Dell PowerMax provides advanced end-to-end NVMe, real-time machine learning, and robust security features, appealing to organizations focused on cutting-edge technology and scalability.

Room for Improvement: Dell XtremIO could improve in offering advanced technological features and scalability options to compete with PowerMax. Users of XtremIO have also noted room for better integration capabilities. Dell PowerMax could enhance its ease of use and deployment speed, and reduce its high initial pricing to become more competitive with simpler solutions.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerMax offers comprehensive deployment options with personalized customer service, focusing on flexibility. In contrast, Dell XtremIO is known for rapid setup and straightforward management, making it suitable for quick deployment without extensive customization.

Pricing and ROI: Dell XtremIO is recognized for competitive setup costs and efficient space-saving technology, leading to significant ROI. Dell PowerMax, despite higher initial expenses, offers a strong return through high performance and extensive technological capabilities. The choice between the two often depends on businesses' budget considerations and long-term performance goals.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerMax vs. Dell XtremIO Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. Dell XtremIO

September 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 868,787 peers since 2012

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 October 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerMax is 4.6%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell XtremIO is 0.8%, down from 1.0% 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	4.6%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.0%
Dell XtremIO	0.8%
Other	93.6%

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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Stanislaw Jagielski

Trainer, Storage Consultant at Oxon

Efficient and straightforward setup boosts data management capabilities

Scalability is a significant feature of Dell XtremIO, as it is easy to expand and manage. It provides a lot of features suited for complex systems, such as scalability and the ability to define multi-domain systems, which are beneficial for data management and storage separation. It is efficient from the customer's point of view, offering deduplication at both the volume and file levels. The configuration and setup are straightforward, provided one has knowledge in setting up network infrastructure like VLANs. It is easy to install, use, and configure, making it a reliable product.

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

"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."

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

"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."

"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."

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

"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."

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

"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"There is no management overhead involved in optimizing performance. It does it so well on its own. We don't have to manage much at all. It really is like a set it and forget it solution. My storage engineers love the system. It is a lot less work than our previous systems, which weren't bad by any means. There is not nearly as much management as before. So, we are saving dozens of hours per month for our storage team, and that is a real cost in our business."

"It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"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."

"We removed the need to observe whether we ran into issues with the performance of disks or number of IOPS. Previously, our Oracle Database would throw us performance errors. Now, with PowerMax, everything runs smoothly."

"We are using the solution's application and snapshot feature."

"For the migration process from the older VMAX arrays to PowerMax, we VMotioned everything. It was easy."

"Dell PowerMax is pretty much 100%."

"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."

More Dell PowerMax pros

"The solution's most valuable feature is its high performance."

"The feature I like most about Dell Xtremio is its hardware quality compared to other vendors. It's clear they're continuously improving their research and development."

"I like the deduplication and auto-tiering features."

"It is great for applications like Microsoft Exchange, ERP, SQL and VDI; basically saved the VDI buy-in from users, as now performance was seamless in comparison to a physical PC."

"The solution's most valuable features are the inline data reduction and deduplication."

"It was very easy and straightforward to setup."

"Linear performance – The XtremIO wasn’t the fastest in all tests against other all flash arrays, but even with a massive workload, the response time and user experience were absolutely predictable with no sharp drop-offs."

"Ease of management, aside from the serious performance, is the best feature."

More Dell XtremIO pros

Cons

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

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

"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

"We need better data deduplication."

"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."

"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"Dell can improve the Service Level Agreement (SLA) compliance. Sometimes, when we need to replace a component, the SLA says four hours, but for some reason, the technician doesn't arrive until the next business day or even six to eight hours later before the case is placed. So, focusing on respecting the SLA is where Dell could improve."

"My understanding is that Dell PowerMax is very expensive."

"The initial setup was complex, and we had experienced people working on it."

"We are very interested in NVMe over Fibre Channel, which I understand is on the horizon. We would like to see that come to fruition."

"Some of the management features could be simplified and that's probably the main thing they need to address."

"Setting up PowerMax with VMAX is always complex."

"The initial setup could be easier."

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

More Dell PowerMax cons

"Ease of use is key in the converged and hyper-converged world that requires administrators to have both hypervisor and storage skills."

"We've encountered challenges in integrating other products with Dell Xtremio, as it tends to be more vendor-locked. This means we can't easily explore other solutions that might work alongside Dell."

"Right now, external appliances are needed to replicate XtremIO to XtremIO, or to another EMC system."

"I would like to see more scalability."

"Sometimes we don't get an immediate response from the support team. The initial POC also took a lot of resources."

"If you are looking at flash storage solutions, XtremIO doesn't offer any unique features. Most of my customers are migrating their workload from XtremIO to other formats because of this."

"In the next release, the solution could have better integration and if we can host assets on the cloud, such as NetApp has the NetApp volumes, which we can host on the cloud directly called NetApp CVO (cloud volume ONTAP). Dell EMC should come up with something purely on the cloud rather than manage services."

"Scalability could be better."

More Dell XtremIO cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"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."

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

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

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

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"From reclaiming data center space which is so tightly constrained these days, it will pay for itself in a short amount of time, which is fantastic. Anything we can do to get more out of our current physical data center space helps us a ton, and PowerMax has helped enable that."

"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."

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

"The cost has room for improvement."

"The pricing is comparable to other vendors."

"Dell offers various pricing models, including a pay-as-you-go option where storage is provided without upfront charges, billing only for used capacity. As a 360° partner, significant discounts are available."

"Dell PowerMax NVMe's price is expensive."

"We hope that with the combination of both NVMe and SCM the next PowerMax will be much cheaper that the one which we acquired."

More Dell PowerMax pricing and cost advice

"It's not cheap, but it absolutely gets the job done. I don't have any real comment regarding licensing specifically."

"XtremIO is an all-flash array, which means it's a costly solution. When compared with general mid-range storage solutions, this is more expensive. As far as I know, there are no additional costs besides the license."

"It is costly but worth it."

"The initial purchase price was good but when you need to upgrade, it's a different story."

"It is expensive if you need to increase scalability."

"This is the best flash array on the market for high-end workloads, so expect to pay for that. But the support subscription cost is fixed for seven years, which made it easier for us to plan on the maintenance costs."

"The price of the solution should be reduced. The price matches the price of a VMAX service but it does not have the capability of a VMAX service. However, the prices of Dell EMC XtremIO can be reduceable."

"Dell XtremIO's price is affordable and I would rate it a five out of ten."

More Dell XtremIO pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Comparison Review

it_user182013

Federal Civ/Intel Engineering Lead at Rubrik

May 1, 2015

Measuring Up: EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR

Leading up to EMC World 2015, IT Central Station asked how I would compare EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR. Until recently, the flash storage conversation in my organization and many others has centered on XtremIO and Pure Storage, the leaders of the all-flash array (AFA) space. To that end, I've written a…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

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	16
Large Enterprise	54

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	29

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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 XtremIO?

The feature I like most about Dell Xtremio is its hardware quality compared to other vendors. It's clear they're cont...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell XtremIO?

Pricing is hard to determine as it depends on the given configuration. XtremIO offers features that justify a potenti...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell XtremIO?

The interface could be simplified for beginners to ease the configuration of special objects in the system. While the...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 23% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 24% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 10% of the time

Dell VMAX All Flash vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 10% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 7% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 2% of the time

More Dell PowerMax Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 39% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 14% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 13% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell XtremIO

Compared 11% of the time

More Dell XtremIO Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

September 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax

October 2025

Download Dell PowerMax product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell XtremIO

October 2025

Download Dell XtremIO product report

Also Known As

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

Dell PowerMax NVMe, Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax

Dell EMC XtremIO Flash, Dell EMC XtremIO X2, XtremIO, XtremIO X2

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

Bring all-flash, scale-out storage to your enterprise applications with EMC XtremIO. Purpose-built for flash, XtremIO storage arrays are amazingly fast. Delivering high IOPS at less than 1 millisecond latency is just the start. EMC XtremIO helps you harness the power of flash storage by building in innovations like content-based data placement and dual-stage metadata.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Rackspace, Open Line

Raiffeisen Bank Bulgaria, Wentworth-Douglas Hospital

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. Dell XtremIO

September 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerMax vs. Dell XtremIO

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerMax vs. Dell XtremIO and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Dell PowerMax vs. Dell XtremIO 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.