Dell PowerMax vs HPE Alletra Storage comparison

Dell Technologies and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.6, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #4 with an average rating of 9.1. Dell Technologies holds a 3.9% mindshare in AFS, compared to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s 9.2% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on May 18, 2025

Dell PowerMax and HPE Alletra Storage are competing solutions in the enterprise storage category. Dell PowerMax holds an advantage in advanced data services and integration, while HPE Alletra Storage stands out for predictive analytics and ease of integration.

Features: Dell PowerMax is noted for its advanced replication capabilities, performance with NVMe technology, and efficient Unisphere management. Users appreciate its compression and deduplication for cost-effectiveness, though seek higher efficiency ratios. HPE Alletra Storage highlights its InfoSight analytics for predictive insights, ease of integration, and strong data availability guarantees, offering an on-premise cloud-like experience.

Room for Improvement:Dell PowerMax could enhance deduplication and compression efficiency, improve API integrations, and refine reporting capabilities for simpler storage management. HPE Alletra Storage needs improved cloud integration and a more intuitive interface to reduce implementation demands and support diverse workloads. Users request better documentation and flexibility in system configurations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerMax is effective in on-premises deployments, but has room to enhance SLA compliance and regional support. HPE Alletra Storage offers adaptability in hybrid environments, with proactive issue resolution via InfoSight, although cloud platform integration could be improved for setup streamlining.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerMax is considered costly, especially in maintenance, but offers ROI through performance and system reliability. HPE Alletra Storage provides competitive pricing with cost-effective models like GreenLake, although both vendors are similarly positioned in high-performance enterprise storage costs, suitable for complex environments.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerMax vs. HPE Alletra Storage Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. HPE Alletra Storage

April 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 May 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerMax is 3.9%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Alletra Storage is 9.2%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature

One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.

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Moin-Shah

System and Storage Admin at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Seamless management and exceptional performance facilitate efficient data handling

I have not faced significant problems or challenges with Dell PowerMax NVMe during this time, although one area for improvement is its user-friendliness, as it's a bit engineer-oriented. Specific knowledge and expertise are required to manage it properly, which some users might find a bit challenging, yet it's not a big deal for me. With user experience in mind, an improvement for Dell PowerMax NVMe could be clearer total capacity measurements from snapshots and clones, which should be more visible for better planning. Additionally, a template script from PowerMax could assist customers in easily integrating their API-interconnected systems without needing extensive knowledge. To improve regarding scripts, I recommend that if a customer wants to automate snapshots from other systems, 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.

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Lisa Whalen

System Engineer at University of Nebraska

Provides a cloud-like operation model on-prem for managing data infrastructure

I've always said I love that it's easy to use. At one point in time, we had a 3PAR. And with 3PAR, I always thought it was a little more difficult. There was so much more to maintaining it, setting it up, and everything. With the [HPE] Alletra [Storage], it's just easy. It's easy to provision space to use and to set up. InfoSight is invaluable to me. With it, I can just quickly go out there and see what is going on. Alletra provides a cloud-like operation model on-prem for managing data infrastructure. [HPE] Alletra [Storage] is very good for predicting problems and preventing them before they occur. InfoSight has really helped with that. I honestly don't have to look at it much. However, there's the alerting and everything that will tell us what's going on. That said, I check InfoSight every once in a while. [HPE Alletra Storage] reduced the time spent on storage provision. It's so much easier than the 3PAR. It's just so much easier. I don't spend time in there at all. The product improved our storage performance experience in terms of IOPS. Our end users that use the SAP environment were a little concerned at first. We said we were going to switch over from the 3PAR to the Alletra since they've always been more familiar with the 3PAR. However, when we moved them over, they noticed a performance increase.

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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 initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

"The solution is scalable."

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

"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."

"The solution is very straightforward to set up."

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

"I appreciate the performance."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"NVMe technology improves input/output performance."

"The response time, compared to XtremIO, is far better."

"Enterprise Cloud Storage is the most valuable feature, along with the data services which come with it, plus the deduplication and compression."

"The performance is very good on our servers. It's superior. And the QoS capabilities for providing work congestion protection are also important because about 99 percent of our servers are production servers."

"The high availability that other systems don't have. In other systems, there is an owner in the storage processes. But for PowerMAX, there is no owner. All the process storage is passed to all nodes without ownership. So, there is no response feature in the storage in PowerMax. In the other systems, there is a response, which is a very nice feature. No systems have such a feature."

"First, it's an enterprise storage solution. This is very important for us. Another important feature is replication."

"The stability is amazing. Zero downtime reported over the last years."

"It has reduced our footprint in different physical locations."

More Dell PowerMax pros

"It is simple to manage and integrate with our virtualization platform. There is also the storage efficiency."

"The GUI for onboarding is straightforward."

"The uptime is excellent."

"We are saving a lot of money after procuring Alletra."

"One of the best benefits I can think of is that the support team is top-tier."

"The reliability is very good."

"More deduplication and compression are valuable because capacity matters."

"The tool's notable feature is that we don't need to log a case directly with the vendor. The tool has access to all the logs on-premises. This is an on-premises solution. Additionally, we can provision data as thick or thin provisioned. Moreover, it includes data grid duplication and compression features."

More HPE Alletra Storage pros

Cons

"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"It is on the expensive side."

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

"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The NVMe integration could be improved."

"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."

"When it comes to Oracle and database workloads, data reduction could be a little bit better. Some of the competition, like Pure, have post-processes which do additional deduplication and compression on the backside; everything is in-line and then they do a secondary process. It would be a good option if you could start getting 5:1 or 6:1 data reduction on database workloads."

"Dell PowerMax NVMe needs to increase storage and improve scalability."

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

"The price cap of Dell PowerMax NVMe is very high."

"I would like them to continue improving the management tools and continue moving towards a RESTful API versus CLI."

"The tool needs to improve its performance. Today's applications are demanding a response rate of one millisecond or below. The product should also look into AI integration."

More Dell PowerMax cons

"In the future, it might be nice to get text notifications for issues beyond simply getting emails."

"We have more than traditional use cases. If they could explore new configurations for data storage, it would be ideal."

"I'd like to see larger cluster sizes beyond four nodes."

"Previously, the [HPE] 3PAR [storage array] gave us the ability to build on SSC or spindles. The Alletra doesn't allow for this."

"They have a new update coming out that I'm going to be using as far as lack of snapshots. I'm going to put that into place as soon as I upgrade to the new version."

"The solution could use more monitoring of their split-brain system controllers."

"Some of the upgrades can take a while to come through. The release cadence of versions is a little bit slow."

"We had a good base with 3PAR, which we're replacing Alletra right now. However, the integration with DCCS could still use some work. It's in its infancy and needs more features."

More HPE Alletra Storage cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The pricing for this solution is good compared to other products in the market."

"Dell PowerMax NVMe's price is expensive."

"The pricing is competitive. I would rate the pricing of the solution a six out of ten."

"Since Dell PowerMax NVMe is an enterprise storage, its price is premium."

"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."

"In terms of price-performance, it beat out other competitors when we were taking a look and comparing it to the market. That was one of the biggest driving points for us."

"The price is starting from $500,000."

"The pricing might be a bit high for small organizations, so it's more suitable for larger enterprises."

More Dell PowerMax pricing and cost advice

"There is a license. HPE Alletra uses a cloud-based model."

"It is fairly priced. It is in line with industry standard pricing and cost models."

"Its licensing is good. Pricing-wise, there can be a little bit more flexibility. It would help to have different sizes. However, it fits into the budget that we have, so we are happy."

"For us, its price is good."

"So far, so good."

"Its pricing is very competitive."

"It is reasonably priced."

"Overall, it was good. It had a good price per gigabyte."

More HPE Alletra Storage pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...

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?

Dell offers various pricing models, including a pay-as-you-go option where storage is provided without upfront charge...

See all answers

What do you like most about HPE Alletra?

It offers rich features and high speed for transferring data.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Alletra?

Scheduling a Proof of Concept to demonstrate ROI - Will be a well documented way to portray Alletra's performance, ju...

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What needs improvement with HPE Alletra?

I would say that maybe the user interface and experience could be improved. There are a few areas where enhancements ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 31% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 18% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 5% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 27% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 10% of the time

Dell VMAX All Flash vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 8% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 5% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 4% of the time

More Dell PowerMax Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Alletra Storage

Compared 28% of the time

HPE Primera vs HPE Alletra Storage

Compared 14% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs HPE Alletra Storage

Compared 9% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE Alletra Storage

Compared 8% of the time

NetApp AFF vs HPE Alletra Storage

Compared 5% of the time

More HPE Alletra Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

May 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax

May 2025

Download Dell PowerMax product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Alletra Storage

May 2025

Download HPE Alletra Storage 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

Dell PowerMax offers robust performance, reliability, and efficient data handling. It is recognized for its compression, deduplication, and NVMe technology, significantly benefiting data centers with its advanced replication and uptime.

PowerMax is equipped to handle mission-critical applications, providing impressive performance metrics with low latency and high IOPS capacity. Its CloudIQ and Unisphere interfaces enhance manageability, while REST API support simplifies storage management. Users in sectors like healthcare, finance, and telecommunications leverage its capabilities for database management, high-transaction block storage, and disaster recovery. However, opportunities for improving deduplication efficiency, interface complexity, and automation remain.

What are the key features of Dell PowerMax?

Data Reduction: Combines compression and deduplication for efficient storage use.
NVMe Technology: Enables swift data handling with high throughput.
CloudIQ and Unisphere: Streamlines manageability and control.
REST API Support: Simplifies integration with management tools.
High Availability: Ensures consistent uptime across platforms.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Performance Metrics: Look for low latency and high IOPS as indicators.
Reliability: Consistent operations with minimal interruptions.
Manageability: Efficient control over storage environments.
Cost Efficiency: Note any potential savings in data processing and storage.

Industries utilize Dell PowerMax to support diverse environments like VMware, Oracle, and PostgreSQL. It serves multiple sectors such as healthcare, finance, and government, aiding in data storage consolidation, disaster recovery, and high-availability hosting for critical systems and applications.

Dell Technologies

HPE Alletra Storage is designed for high-performance virtualization, data centers, and hyper-converged infrastructures, supporting applications with block storage and databases across sectors like healthcare and finance.

HPE Alletra Storage excels in delivering low-latency, high-I/O operations and data reduction capabilities. It integrates seamlessly with VMware and vCenter, handling large SQL databases and multiple virtual machines efficiently. Its features, such as NVMe drives and predictive analytics with InfoSight, offer a streamlined management experience. However, users seek improvements in NVMe tier integration, a more compact chassis design, and better energy efficiency. The operational efficiency is increased by reducing data provisioning time and enhancing storage performance for complex environments.

What are the key features of HPE Alletra Storage?

Seamless vCenter Integration: Enhances virtualization management.
High IOPS NVMe Drives: Delivers high-speed and low-latency access.
Deduplication & Replication: Increases storage efficiency and protection.
Cloud-like Models: Simplifies operations with intuitive management.
InfoSight Analytics: Provides predictive diagnostics and proactive problem-solving.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Reduced Provisioning Time: Accelerates deployment processes.
100% Data Availability: Ensures uninterrupted access to data.
Simplified Management: Streamlines storage operations and enhances satisfaction.
Reliability and Performance: Supports demanding applications with reliable performance.

In healthcare and financial industries, HPE Alletra Storage supports the storage of sensitive data and operations of critical applications, facilitating quick access to information and maintaining high availability. However, users recommend improvements in training resources, energy efficiency, and integration with backup solutions like Veeam to enhance implementation efficiency and cost management.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Rackspace, Open Line

Accenture, Aetna, AIG, Airbus, Allianz, American Express, ATT, Bank of America, Barclays, BASF, Bayer, Berkshire Hathaway, Boeing, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Coca Cola, Comcast, Credit Suisse, Dell, Deutsche Bank, ExxonMobil, Ford Motor Company, General Electric, Google, HSBC, IBM, Intel, JPMorgan Chase, Kroger, L'Oreal, Merck

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. HPE Alletra Storage

April 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerMax vs. HPE Alletra Storage

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