Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe comparison

Dell Technologies and Pure Storage are both solutions in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category. Dell Technologies is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.9, while Pure Storage is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.6. Dell Technologies holds a 8.6% mindshare in N, compared to Pure Storage’s 2.7% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Pure Storage users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerMax

Read 84 Dell PowerMax reviews

2,144 Views
1,160 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Read 35 Pure FlashArray X NVMe reviews

914 Views
356 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Dell PowerMax

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on May 18, 2025

In the enterprise storage category, Dell PowerMax and Pure FlashArray X NVMe both compete with their high-end features and performance. Dell PowerMax appears to have the upper hand due to its extensive integration options and reliability in complex environments, while Pure FlashArray X NVMe excels in ease of use and data handling efficiency.

Features: Dell PowerMax impresses with SRDF replication, comprehensive analytics, and high performance with low latency. Its integration capabilities with existing systems make it suitable for complex enterprise environments. Pure FlashArray X NVMe is known for its low latency, efficient data reduction, and simplified management, which make it a favorite for ease of use.

Room for Improvement: Dell PowerMax users seek better NVMe over Fibre Channel support and find room to enhance management tools and interface intuitiveness. Improvements in deduplication and compression are also desired. In contrast, Pure FlashArray X NVMe's pricing structure is a concern, and users seek improved cloud integration and redundancy, along with better replication features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerMax is praised for robust customer support, although some SLA adherence issues are noted. Its extensive support network aids in complex deployments. Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers a straightforward setup and easy deployment, despite some support language barriers. It's deployed in hybrid and cloud settings widely.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerMax is costly but justified by features and savings achieved through consolidation and efficiency, delivering a strong ROI. Users of Pure FlashArray X NVMe find it expensive, yet competitive, due to powerful features. While Dell users benefit from cost efficiencies, Pure Storage's customers appreciate its performance and regular updates for simplifying operations.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerMax vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe Report (Updated: May 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe

May 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

Dell PowerMax

Ranking in All-Flash Storage

7th

Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

3rd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Ranking in All-Flash Storage

14th

Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

6th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of Dell PowerMax is 8.6%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 2.7%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

Featured Reviews

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

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.

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

"The solution has good operability and easy scalability."

"Dell PowerMax NVMe has been a significant enhancement for data handling in my industry. Its improved security features and data calculation capabilities make it a valuable solution for our customers. The most critical feature of Dell PowerMax NVMe for performance enhancement is its strong network support and integration with other vendors, along with its efficient use of hardware components like CPU and memory. Data reduction technologies in PowerMax have been highly beneficial for our company, allowing us to optimize storage and reduce costs by consolidating files"

"It is a very stable solution. I would rate it a ten out of ten."

"The solution's technical support was good, and it is one of the tool's main advantages."

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

"It's faster and more resilient."

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

"The PowerMax software and CloudIQ let us get an inside view of our compression and compaction, as well as our usage of the storage."

More Dell PowerMax 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."

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

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

"The solution is very straightforward to set up."

"The solution is scalable."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

Cons

"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."

"We've had issues with whole waves of memory DIMMs that had to be replaced in a machine, which is 32 sticks of memory in one director. It was a tedious day; we've had that on multiple arrays due to a bad batch of memory."

"With Dell PowerMax, engineering always has to be involved if you want to expand the system with a couple of disks or anything. It is quite a tedious process."

"The initial setup was complex. ESRS is a very complex solution to put into our environment, because it requires external access to the Internet. That's a very tough thing for us to do, because we are a PCI and PII company. We store a lot of data for people which is personal. Therefore, going out to the Internet is not our preferred path."

"There is some room to grow, especially with some of the installation quirks."

"There is room for improvement in adjusting into the existing infrastructure easily without much of the technical contribution."

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

"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."

More Dell PowerMax cons

"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."

"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."

"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."

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

"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."

"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Dell PowerMax NVMe's price is expensive."

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

"Our costs for the product are three million."

"The tool is very expensive."

"The price is okay."

"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."

"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."

"One area for improvement, one that everybody always comes to, is price... it's still quite expensive to purchase these big arrays... For us, the pricing doesn't make Dell EMC uncompetitive."

More Dell PowerMax pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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 offerings and integrated into the PowerStoreOS. The installation and setup have a ...

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 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 should not incur extra charges. This is one of the main things organizations need.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 27% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 13% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 10% of the time

Dell VMAX All Flash vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 9% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 5% of the time

More Dell PowerMax Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 29% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 19% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 5% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax

June 2025

Download Dell PowerMax product report

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

June 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Also Known As

Dell PowerMax NVMe, Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax

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

Overview

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

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

Sample Customers

Rackspace, Open Line

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe

May 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerMax vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe

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