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Dell PowerMax vs Huawei OceanStor comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 18, 2025

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
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Dell PowerMax
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (3rd)
Huawei OceanStor
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 Huawei OceanStor is 2.2%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Moin-Shah - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
ChukwuemekaOnyemelukwe - PeerSpot reviewer
Uses a proprietary technology with simple interface and has easy deployment
If you are not generating a substantial amount of data, the available storage space might suffice, making scalability less of a concern. However, if your data generation increases and you require more storage, Huawei OceanStor offers solutions to expand your storage capacity. Expanding storage resources can involve additional costs and configuration efforts. Acquiring more storage solutions and ensuring their integration with your existing setup might require a significant investment of time and resources. While this process can be complex, it allows for seamless scalability as your data storage needs grow. I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."
"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."
"The solution is scalable."
"NVMe technology improves input/output performance."
"PowerMax is a compact high-performance appliance. It is one of the best devices in terms of performance specs. It includes an NVMe All-Flash Array."
"The compression and deduplication are the most valuable features because of the cost savings."
"The product is very fast and reliable."
"The PowerMax software and CloudIQ let us get an inside view of our compression and compaction, as well as our usage of the storage."
"I would rate my experience with the initial setup a nine out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy."
"It is very stable. We expect superior performance and reliability from this particular storage system."
"The SRDF site-to-site replication for the volumes is the most important feature for us. That enables us to do site recovery and replication for our VMware infrastructure."
"Its technical support team is helpful."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"Huawei OceanStor offers good IOPS and is reliable and energy-efficient."
"Huawei OceanStor is a good product. Its interface is very simple. The complexities we encounter with recovery points are gone. We just attach to remote storage, click the application, and it starts."
"The main selling point of Huawei OceanStor is its ability to handle all storage protocols, including block, file, and object."
"If your virtual machine that resides on it completely fills the storage space, thanks to it's built-in function of all-zero data space reclamation, you just have to ask to System Engineer to run a zero-free on hosts (thin provisioned) and you will get more space instantaneously."
"Huawei is much cheaper compared to Dell, offering a competitive price that makes companies consider their options."
 

Cons

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"The software layer has to improve."
"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."
"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."
"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."
"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."
"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."
"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."
"I would like them to continue improving the management tools and continue moving towards a RESTful API versus CLI."
"The NVMe integration could be improved."
"It's a relatively new product, but for the next release I would like to see higher bandwidth on the front-end adapters. This would allow even greater scalability for critical workloads and consolidation for non-critical workloads. The hosts may not require that level of I/O performance today. However, it allows us to scale physical non-cloud environments without large investment."
"I would like NVMe to be end-to-end in the next release. Right now, it is not end-to-end."
"Setting up PowerMax with VMAX is always complex."
"The initial setup was a little bit complicated."
"The main feature that I personally want to see is the possibility to upgrade to the next generation without changing all the components and just change the engine, relying on the compatibility matrices between two different generations. Meaning that we could just keep the enclosure and upgrade the engine, integrating the enclosure to the existing pool, then adding automation tools for orchestration."
"The price cap of Dell PowerMax NVMe is very high."
"I would like to see more iterations and direct integration with other solutions."
"The solution could improve by having better integration."
"The management is not a good feature in all of Huawei products. It's not easy or simple. Huawei has some problems with management and handling storage information from one interface."
"The security could be a bit more robust."
"Huawei is not that cheap."
"The technical support has been a let down for us. It's something the company has to work on. We haven't been satisfied with their level of service."
"Unfortunately, this product doesn't support Flash Disks, but it's IOPS capacity is a great compromise."
"The main concern is regarding the usability of the data storage."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"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."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"The product is expensive."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"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."
"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."
"Dell is expensive compared to other products and I would rate its pricing a four out of ten."
"We hope that with the combination of both NVMe and SCM the next PowerMax will be much cheaper that the one which we acquired."
"The pricing for this solution is good compared to other products in the market."
"The pricing is comparable to other vendors."
"The price is starting from $500,000."
"The labor savings and support have been significant. If we're talking 100 hours of labor every three months, that is 100 hours of a database engineer costs. There are performance latency numbers as well as costs associated with recovering data that gets lost, and this system doesn't lose data. You can look at numbers that go around the cost of downtime, if data is not available. This system doesn't go down. Everyone's ROI is going to be unique, but the dependability and performance of the system combined with its ease of operation will definitely save businesses of all sizes money."
"Negotiate hard and consider the commercial advantages/benefits to Dell EMC for onboarding your product."
"It is high-end storage and it is a bit expensive, but it is doing what it is meant for: running business-critical applications or latency-sensitive applications..."
"Its price is affordable."
"The price of the license is quite low, so it's not something special or expensive."
"The price of Huawei OceanStor should be less expensive. It is expensive at the moment."
"The product is cheap."
"The price of the solution could be less expensive. However, there are not any licensing costs."
"We pay a monthly licensing fee for this solution. The price could be less expensive."
"Pricing is very fair."
"Huawei's prices are very good compared to those of its competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

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.
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 ...
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?
Dell offers various pricing models, including a pay-as-you-go option where storage is provided without upfront charge...
What do you like most about Huawei OceanStor?
Huawei OceanStor has the capability of SSDs, high-performance disks, and higher disk support.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Huawei OceanStor?
Huawei OceanStor's pricing is very aggressive, making it highly competitive.
What needs improvement with Huawei OceanStor?
Huawei currently lacks a solution for high-performance AI, unlike other companies like DDN, WekaIO, or IBM BlueStore....
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
Dell PowerMax NVMe, Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax
OceanStor Dorado V3 All-Flash Storage System, OceanStor 18000 V3 Series Storage Systems, OceanStor 6800 V3 Storage System
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Rackspace, Open Line
Piraeus, Clinique Univeritaires Saint-Luc
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerMax vs. Huawei OceanStor and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.