No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Dell PowerMax vs NetApp AFF C-Series comparison

Why PeerSpot?
Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell PowerMax
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (3rd)
NetApp AFF C-Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
27th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
3.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 6.7%, up from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerMax is 4.6%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF C-Series is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray6.7%
Dell PowerMax4.6%
NetApp AFF C-Series0.7%
Other88.0%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
Gouranga Maiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Project Manager IT at ITC Ltd
High‑performance all‑flash storage has transformed data warehousing and reporting speed
The features of Dell PowerMax that I find most valuable so far include its all-flash capability, along with its performance, reliability, and efficiency. Additionally, it has snapshot-level features that allow me to take snapshots or backups within only a few seconds. There is no need to wait long, and unnecessary high bandwidth used for backup does not occur because I can take the whole snapshot backup within a fraction of a second. I have used the deduplication feature of Dell PowerMax. Deduplication and compression are very effective, so despite my large amount of data, the effective size is reduced due to this deduplication and compression, allowing me to store more data on the same storage. Regarding the impact of Dell PowerMax's real-time data encryption on my data protection strategies, I have not used that feature personally. However, in another department, my colleagues are using it, and they have not faced any performance bottlenecks due to data encryption. The encryption is very powerful, but I have not implemented that encryption in our database data warehouse systems since they are for internal use only, not exposed worldwide. At first, I faced several issues, and our report rendering complaints were quite annoying. However, now with Dell PowerMax storage's high IOPS handling capabilities, the output comes within a fraction of a second, making our users happy. Whatever our requirement or demand is, it has already been implemented in Dell PowerMax with its all-flash NVMe storage. New bricks can also be added if a size increase is required, allowing for additional bricks to be added as needed. Everything is in place; therefore, I do not think any other improvements are required. However, it is worth noting that Dell is continuously inventing and releasing more powerful types of storage. This results in increased reliability, enhanced data handling capabilities, improved deduplication ratios, and the fulfillment of more IOPS demand.
Shailendra Choudhary - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Reliable flash storage has delivered strong data reduction and secured sensitive information
There is still some room for improvement when it comes to scalability, mainly in the interoperability and integration aspects. Every storage vendor has certain limitations, and this is not limited to NetApp; it applies to everyone in the industry. I do not see any other significant areas for improvement with NetApp AFF C-Series at this time. NetApp is working on their roadmap, which is solid, and they are developing certain features that are yet to be released.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like its speed. It has all the features that I need."
"This solution has helped my organization by cutting down on provisioning time. I used to have to provision a VM and it would take ten minutes. Now, it takes thirty seconds."
"We saw a vast improvement when we switched over to using the Pure Storage model over the XtremIO."
"I would highly recommend this solution; it has all the features we need and tests all the software solutions that are currently available and that will be available in the future."
"The most valuable feature is replication."
"FlashArray's data reduction and NAS features are incredible. Its performance is the best I've worked with."
"While all these products have their own uses, Pure Storage FlashArray is in a market of its own."
"The most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray is the all-flash storage performance, low latency, and efficiency of their de-duplication technology. Additionally, the ease of use is good compared to other storage systems. The features in data protection, snapshotting, and replication between data centers and sites are superior to other solutions."
"First, it's an enterprise storage solution. This is very important for us. Another important feature is replication."
"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 most valuable aspects include the remote replication features, as it allows us to protect our data using different data centers and replicate bi-directionally between our two main data centers."
"The solution's snapshot capabilities and replication are very good features. Snapshots are allowing us to quickly build analytical models directly from production data. This gives us amazing insights into market trends and allows us to build more effective trading algorithms. Replication offers us unparalleled levels of resilience."
"We are doing a PoC with PowerMax and it's working very well compared to VNX."
"We have no performance related issues due to hardware."
"We expect it to deliver exceptional performance and capacity utilization metrics."
"We are using the solution's application and snapshot feature."
"NetApp AFF C-Series is a good product for entry-level flash storage, the system is competitive in terms of pricing, and the value proposition is strong."
"NetApp offers a cost-effective solution with very robust hardware."
 

Cons

"The solution is not cheap."
"Historical analytics would be useful. At the moment, they don't have any type of application built for historical analytics."
"Self-backup is the only feature lacking in this solution."
"The setup needs to be improved the most. They can do a little more with the user interface, but the setup is what I would like to see made a bit easier."
"The primary drawback is the cost, which can be prohibitive for small configurations."
"We've had it in place for about a year and a half and have had zero complaints, other than that box-to-box replication is not encrypted."
"It falls far short of protocol support."
"I would like to see data tiering to AWS."
"Dell PowerMax could be improved with additional features such as a one-click upgrade capability that would allow us to perform upgrades ourselves without scheduling support, and long-term support capability so that we do not have to continually upgrade multiple times a year, as we prefer to minimize disruptions to the system."
"I would like NVMe to be end-to-end in the next release. Right now, it is not end-to-end."
"They can make the GUI better, especially for the ones that come out of the box."
"The solution should include more AI features to make it smarter."
"The initial setup was complex, and we had experienced people working on it."
"The initial setup process is difficult."
"The technical support is lacking. We are working with Dell EMC to get some better understanding of this."
"The installation of equipment needed support's help."
"There is still some room for improvement when it comes to scalability, mainly in the interoperability and integration aspects."
"We faced one bug that impacted our NetApp last month, and it took some time to identify the underlying issue."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have seen a reduction in the TCO, because Pure Storage is partnering with Belfrics. This partnership reduces our latency and space."
"The price is too high."
"In comparison to the competitors, Pure is very price-competitive for the future functionality that it provides."
"It's priced higher than the market."
"It's a good price point and it's a solid product for the price."
"For us, as the customer, it reduced the price of the management."
"There is always room for negotiation."
"Pure Storage has not helped us to reduce our licensing costs."
"The cost of the solution is quite noticeable, but it provides a good fit regarding the price of the hardware and all of the required licenses."
"The price is starting from $500,000."
"The PowerMax appliance pricing was reasonable. Dell EMC quoted us a substantial discount."
"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 comparable to other vendors."
"Our costs for the product are three million."
"The pricing for this solution is good compared to other products in the market."
"The pricing might be a bit high for small organizations, so it's more suitable for larger enterprises."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Healthcare Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
9%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise63
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I find the pricing of Everpure FlashArray to be quite high compared to other storage solutions; however, the reliabil...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I believe we have covered the most important features; the architecture of Pure Storage is essential, and features su...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was great.
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe?
Dell PowerMax can be improved because there are very strict guidelines when it comes to installation and the amount o...
What needs improvement with NetApp AFF C-Series?
There is still some room for improvement when it comes to scalability, mainly in the interoperability and integration...
What is your primary use case for NetApp AFF C-Series?
I would recommend NetApp AFF C-Series for various types of companies depending on the use case. A small company, an e...
What advice do you have for others considering NetApp AFF C-Series?
I recommend Dell PowerStore to some of my customers, but usually the differences are taken care of. I focus primarily...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
Dell PowerMax NVMe, Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Rackspace, Open Line
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerMax vs. NetApp AFF C-Series and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.