Dell PowerMax vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe comparison

Dell Technologies and IBM are both solutions in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category. Dell Technologies is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.8, while IBM is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.3. Dell Technologies holds a 9.3% mindshare in N, compared to IBM’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of IBM users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 30, 2025

Dell PowerMax and IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe compete in the high-performance storage solutions category. Dell PowerMax tends to have a slight edge due to its comprehensive integration capabilities and superior replication features.

Features: Dell PowerMax offers comprehensive integration, superior replication with SRDF, and efficient storage consolidation that ensures uptime and low latency. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe features unique FlashCore technology, high IOPS performance, and a user-friendly interface, making it ideal for high-traffic environments.

Room for Improvement:Dell PowerMax can improve deduplication, compression efficiency, and NVMe over Fibre Channel support. Enhancements in automation and GUI are also desired. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe could focus on better storage expansion integration, enhanced ransomware protection, and more competitive pricing.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:Dell PowerMax is primarily used on-premises and provides robust technical support, praised for effective problem-solving and swift deployment. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe supports hybrid and public cloud deployments with reliable support, noted for responsiveness and effective issue resolution.

Pricing and ROI:Dell PowerMax is expensive but offers significant ROI through performance and consolidation capabilities, contributing to data center efficiency and reduced maintenance time. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is generally more cost-effective, offering competitive pricing and good value, particularly for larger enterprises, with cost advantages over cloud alternatives.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerMax vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

January 2026

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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 NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 4.0%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerMax is 9.3%, up from 9.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is 1.5%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell PowerMax	9.3%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	4.0%
IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe	1.5%
Other	85.2%

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

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.

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MohammedIsmail

Datacenter Manager at Tracker Connect

Enhanced storage performance and an easy setup with compression challenges

We use IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe as a storage device in the IT industry The features I find most valuable include its use for storage and performance. The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best. Furthermore, support from the partner could also be improved as it's been…

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's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

"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."

"The tool's valuable features are speed, security, data compression, and reliability. Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen. It helps us to save money and resources."

"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

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

"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"I have been highly satisfied with the resiliency and scalability of the solution."

"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 features I find most valuable about Dell PowerMax are its stability and flexibility."

"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."

"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."

"PowerMax NVMe has made it a lot easier to understand how much we are able to provision. It has made it a lot faster to provision new things. 90% of my time for provisioning has been reduced. Also, it has made it very easy to understand and see everything behind it versus the older heritage, where Dell EMC was very convoluted and hard to get working. Things that used to take an hour, probably now take five to 10 minutes."

"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."

"Dell PowerMax is pretty much 100%."

More Dell PowerMax pros

"IBM FlashSystem provides the same software on each box, including virtualized solutions."

"The FlashCore modules support more value to the architecture due to their unique characteristics."

"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is easy to use and comes with good performance."

"A key feature is that compared to storage systems that we've been familiar with over decades, IBM simply does not fail. The reason is that IBM is the only manufacturer that engineers its own flash module, and there is a key architectural difference from everything else that we have seen in the market. The difference is that the flash module has the computational capability, which allows reliability and capacity enhancements to be uploaded from the main controllers and run in each module. So, each of the flash drives becomes its own little storage system, and that is extremely effective architecture. In this field, with this type of system, IBM has made a statement. They've never had one of these modules cause an outage. So, the failure rates on these things are just in a whole different universe from what we were accustomed to."

"It's easy to use, has good stability, and many features."

"Good performance with a user-friendly UI."

"The storage serves the virtual environment. Most of our applications run in the virtual environment, and it serves nearly 30% of the bank's capacity."

"It is a very stable product. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten because we did not face any issues in the last three years."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe pros

Cons

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

"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 have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."

"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."

"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."

"The software layer has to improve."

"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."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"I remember an episode where we had a performance issue based on one disk or more, which caused a performance drop for all equipment."

"Remove the need for physical or hardwired virtual servers to run consistency groups, instead make the expensive array controllers handle that."

"The price could be lower, and we are unhappy with the price."

"Part validation could be improved."

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

"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 the scalability to improve, as it requires additional footprints."

"The solution does not use new versions of OS and patches. Its installation is also difficult. The solution is not as fast as other storage in the market."

More Dell PowerMax cons

"I'd like to be able to connect to tape drives behind the storage device to back up the tape if need be. We have all of our storage running in all-flash, and we make a copy on tape. Currently, when we want to hook up tape drives, we have to add some extra equipment, which is a little bit complex. We want IBM to add a feature where we could install a tape into the storage so that we can connect it through a single pane of glass. We'd like to have a feature in the IBM flash storage system so that we can connect backup tape drives through the IBM storage system and we can manage the backup tape from the storage system."

"In the FlashSystem 5200, there were only four ports of 32 fiber channels for the architecture. This has been resolved in the new generation."

"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is an expensive solution, and its pricing could be improved."

"The support could be better."

"The storage system itself should have built-in capabilities for different ransomware attacks."

"The efficacy of the GUI in IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe could be enhanced, and it would be beneficial to include a feature that can prevent ransomware attacks."

"IBM's support is not good. I experienced a big problem where I opened the console IBM Storage and would see that something was broken. I called the call centers, and I said, "I have a problem. My drive is not working." They want me to give them the serial number, I gave it to them and they told me "I cannot find your product. Your product is not here.""

"The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

"The price is really high."

"The cost has room for improvement."

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

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

"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."

More Dell PowerMax pricing and cost advice

"The price of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMele can be considered affordable when taking into account the operating system that is required for it to function properly. This operating system, which is licensed by IBM, may carry a higher cost, but it is worth the investment for larger corporate entities, such as insurance companies, Fortune Five companies, and banks, who make up a significant portion of their target market. The FlashSystems are designed for larger corporations and multinational enterprises, and may not be the most cost-effective solution for smaller businesses."

"Price-wise, the solution offers excellent pricing to its users. In short, the prices offered by the solution are competitive compared to similar solutions."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing an eight."

"It's a lot less costly than cloud storage. People get surprised by the cost of cloud storage, which is extremely expensive and four or five times the cost of storage on-premises. People don't realize what they're spending on storage until they start getting bills from Amazon, Microsoft, and others. This is a good way to reduce your cloud storage expenses."

"The price of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is less than Dell. For upgrades, the Dell solutions are more expensive."

"The solution's price is competitive."

"The tool's pricing is competitive."

"The product has an average cost."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe pricing and cost advice

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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

Government

Computer Software Company

Recreational Facilities/Services Company

Manufacturing 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	15
Large Enterprise	55

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	5

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...

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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.

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 IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?

The storage serves the virtual environment. Most of our applications run in the virtual environment, and it serves ne...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?

The tool is expensive, though I do not know the specific licensing costs.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?

The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best. Furthermore, support from the partner could al...

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

Dell VMAX All Flash vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 7% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 7% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 7% of the time

More Dell PowerMax Competitors

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 19% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 18% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 18% of the time

Hitachi VSP E Series vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe 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

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Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

January 2026

Download IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe product report

Also Known As

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

Dell PowerMax NVMe, Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax

IBM FlashSystem 9100, FlashSystem 9100

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

IBM FlashSystem 9100 combines the performance of flash and Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) end-to-end with the reliability and innovation of IBM FlashCore technology and the rich features of IBM Spectrum Virtualize - all in a powerful 2U enterprise-class storage system. Providing intensive data driven multicloud storage capacity, FlashSystem 9100 is deeply integrated with the software defined capabilities of IBM Spectrum Storage allowing you to easily add in the multicloud solutions that best support your business.

IBM

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Rackspace, Open Line

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

January 2026

Free Report: Dell PowerMax vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

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