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Dell PowerStore vs Dell PowerVault comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 PowerStore
Ranking in Enterprise SAN
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (4th), NAS (2nd), All-Flash Storage (1st), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (1st)
Dell PowerVault
Ranking in Enterprise SAN
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Fibre Channel (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Enterprise SAN category, the mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 31.4%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerVault is 30.4%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise SAN
 

Featured Reviews

Brian Ricci - PeerSpot reviewer
It's constantly enhanced and has impressive reliability and data compression
The maintenance is a bit expensive. The service and support are there for three years, but after the third year, it is pretty pricey for renewal. I hope Dell addresses that. Everything is pricey these days anyway. It is not like the old days of Compellent. We used to be able to see the metrics for our customers. On Compellent, we could look up that customer and see all the metrics. That is not allowed for us now. We cannot do that anymore. I have to be explicitly allowed by the customer to do that, and some companies' security does not allow that.
SigfridCecillon - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good stability and simplicity
The room for improvement lies in the responsiveness and real-time feedback of the web server setup. We could set up the installation through a web server, but it's not very reactive on the web server. For example, when you launch a task, and you don't know exactly if the task has begun or if the task is in progress, or if it's finished. You have to wait for three to five to ten minutes to be sure that the task is running or in progress or finished. So at that point, it's not very good. For the rest, we have a good organization for the platform. And it's working everywhere. Another area of improvement is duplication.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's a great product. Integrating PowerStore with the IT workflow is easy."
"The most valuable feature is the encryption in the loop because we can manage data center data from a different perspective, reducing the space used while growing data using the same equipment."
"PowerStore is easy to use, powerful, reliable, and highly customizable to customer's needs."
"The platform's reliability and built-in replication between disk systems have made our customers happy. It has worked consistently well over the years."
"My company found the tool to be really easy to use, expand, and manage."
"There is no complicated configuration for queries and calls. You just create a model and go."
"The most valuable aspects of Dell PowerStore are the promising roadmap, and the interesting features to come."
"Migrations are very easy and fast."
"I find this solution to be cost-effective in providing data storage for clients."
"The initial setup was easy and simple."
"The solution is reliable and stable."
"For us, the initial setup was easy."
"It is an inexpensive storage solution."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it is easy to manage and easy to use."
"Dell PowerVault is user-friendly and easy to deploy."
"Dell PowerVault is cheap."
 

Cons

"It was very new when we first deployed it a year ago. Even the upgrade processes and knowing what to expect, as well as documentation, could be more robust."
"The performance is good, but the management experience and user interface are lacking."
"Sometimes, you have to go back and forth with the technical support team, where they want you to do something you've already done."
"Data reduction needs improvement."
"It would be helpful for us to have support for the S3 protocol because our main competitor has the S3 protocol in their system."
"Horizontal scaling has room for improvement."
"Where the system needs to improve is by adding more enterprise features like replication on other sites. We would also like it to be much more aligned with the VMware version. For example, today we have two different versions of VMware ESXi running to keep the PowerStore online. It would be better if the software cycling was faster."
"The NAS part is very poor. It's very basic. Even Dell EMC has said that to us. We are waiting for version 3 of PowerStore for that. This must be improved and it is in the roadmap."
"If the solution came with a synchronous application, it would be particularly advantageous for small businesses operating across multiple sites."
"The product could support an NVMe hard disk."
"In the next release, I would like the deduplication and compression included, as well as the flash technology. It doesn't currently use it."
"I would like Dell to improve on the configuration of the disk groups. Only one group is expandable. Once you configure the other disk group types, you cannot expand them. It limits scalability. If you want maybe to grow a disk group, you lose information, and then you need to build it up again, which is not a good use case for customers."
"Dell PowerVault is block-oriented storage only."
"Sometimes integrating into a cluster can be difficult as you have to do it manually."
"The tool needs to improve its UI."
"I would like to see improvements made to the user interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is very expensive though when you get to this point of using the 3000 with a client. They will start to think about using another vendor. There are a lot of solutions similar to PowerStore in regards to networking capacity and their prices are very cheap compared to PowerStore."
"It is easy to work with Dell from the licensing perspective."
"Dell PowerStore has been priced aggressively, especially when compared to other NVMe storage options. It is likely one of the most cost-effective options for organizations seeking a pure NVMe play in terms of pricing."
"When we compared it with the other solutions, the pricing of PowerStore was equal. The pricing is good."
"The rate is always too high. Nobody likes paying for it. I have not seen a client yet who says that the price should be higher. Initially, people look at it, but when they see what the benefits are, it is a no-brainer. We can give them good pricing at the outset."
"I rate the price of Dell PowerStore a seven out of ten."
"Dell PowerStore is not a cheap solution."
"The solution is expensive."
"I rate the solution's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."
"The product is inexpensive."
"Dell PowerVault's price is the tool's main attraction."
"I rate the product price a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high."
"They are offering a wide range of support models for the customers such as basic support that is budget-friendly, but they also provide a professional support solution that is a bit costly"
"The solution is more cost-effective than the competitors. It’s an affordable option for small businesses."
"I would rate the pricing model a nine out of ten, with one being expensive and ten being cheap."
"The price of Dell PowerVault could be reduced. It is more expensive than some IBM solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you think about Dell EMC PowerStore? Is it actually a new product?
PowerStore is flexible, scalable, simple, and performant with market-leading economics for a wide range of legacy and next-gen apps. It is only Flash and can support many workloads from today's app...
How does Dell's EMC PowerStore compare with its EMC Unity XT?
Dell EMC PowerStore is a unified storage platform that has the added benefit of being scalable. The automated management of resources feature provides a more simple administration. I found the flex...
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 ...
What do you like most about Dell PowerVault?
Dell PowerVault offers valuable full flash storage.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerVault?
I rate the solution's pricing a seven to eight out of ten.
What needs improvement with Dell PowerVault?
The product is generally stable, but there have been instances, to my knowledge, where we faced issues in the controller during software upgrades. The availability is not at the desired level durin...
 

Also Known As

PowerStore
PowerVault
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Dayco, FAW Foundry, University of Cambridge, Finder, Stadtwerke Pforzheim GmbH & Co.
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerStore vs. Dell PowerVault and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.