Dell PowerStore 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 #1 with an average rating of 8.7, while IBM is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.3. Dell Technologies holds a 19.6% mindshare in N, compared to IBM’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 96% 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 Sep 18, 2024

IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe and Dell PowerStore are leading storage solutions in the market. Dell PowerStore stands out for its versatile features, making it a preferred choice for comprehensive storage needs.

Features: IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is praised for its high-speed performance, durability, and advanced data protection capabilities. Dell PowerStore is commended for its scalability, ease of integration with existing systems, and robust data security features. Dell PowerStore holds an edge due to its user-centric design and flexibility in managing diverse workloads.

Room for Improvement: IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe users note that firmware updates and initial setup complexity could be improved. Dell PowerStore users highlight areas such as enhanced performance reporting and faster support response times.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe's deployment is noted to be more complex and time-consuming, while Dell PowerStore is known for its relatively simpler and quicker setup process. Customer service reviews for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe suggest timely assistance but room for faster resolution times. Dell PowerStore's customer service is highly rated for its responsiveness and problem-solving approach, giving it an advantage in ease of deployment and support.

Pricing and ROI: Users report that IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe has higher upfront setup costs but delivers strong ROI through enhanced performance. Dell PowerStore's pricing is considered competitive with a balanced ROI attributed to its feature-rich offering and operational efficiency.

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

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore 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 February 2026, in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 4.2%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 19.6%, down from 23.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is 1.5%, down from 1.8% 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 PowerStore	19.6%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	4.2%
IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe	1.5%
Other	74.7%

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.

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reviewer2304864

Vmware Windows Senior Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Resilience has supported proactive management and secured audit readiness across multiple sites

The resilience in Dell PowerStore benefits my company from an auditing perspective because we know we have that resilience in place. I see Dell PowerStore playing a bigger role in the future because we are starting to use it more, and that is pushing it. The biggest return on investment for me when using Dell PowerStore is scalability. Scalability is key. I can amplify that scalability is the biggest return on investment because we have redundancy between two sites; if something goes down, we have to manage it, but we want to do it proactively.

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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…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"I appreciate the performance."

"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."

"FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle."

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."

"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."

"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The most valuable features of Dell PowerStore are the resilience, scalability, flexibility of expansion, and ease of managing the entire solution including the servers and storage."

"I have seen a return on investment with Dell PowerStore as it does what we wanted it to do. It gives me peace of mind."

"Gives us flexibility, performance, and ease of use. It also has some very good compression capabilities. We were looking for a solution that was easy to install in our VMware environment, that was flexible. PowerStore X is a type of a VMware cluster that you install inside your environment. If you have a VMware environment, like we have in production, it's easy to install and use."

"The solution is very easy to implement."

"The solution's most valuable features are its form factor and switching to NVMe."

"Overall, I rate Dell PowerStore a ten out of ten."

"Dell PowerStore has supported the growth and operational success of our organization by reducing the footprint, rack space, power consumption, and the resources needed to run the backend storage, which has been consolidated into just 2U, thereby enhancing efficiency."

"Updates come with enhancements. Each time we do an update, there is an enhancement, like new features, which is extraordinary. Other companies would try to charge for all that, but the enhancements just come with it."

More Dell PowerStore pros

"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."

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

"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."

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

"There are many valuable features of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMele I have found to meet my needs. Specifically, the maintenance cycle is a standout feature of this solution. The main component of the IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is the maintenance of the batteries, which have a predetermined and reliable four-year life cycle. This is in stark contrast to other solutions that may use spinning disks, which can fail unexpectedly, causing unwanted downtime and maintenance. Having a predictable maintenance cycle is a significant advantage and has made this solution a preferred choice for me."

"Its ease of use, performance, and hardware compression is very useful feature."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its upgrades, as we don't have to do much homework because of its different controllers."

"The solution is more available for IOPS warehousing, resolving issues, and reporting than other products."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe pros

Cons

"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."

"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'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."

"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."

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."

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

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The data resiliency and cybersecurity features of Dell PowerStore are just normal and would be considered medium; we need additional components such as cybersecurity vault for increased resilience."

"We did have one issue when an update stopped the phone-home solution, however they fixed that via support."

"One improvement I would suggest relates to the service that pings Dell when there's an issue. I would say it needs to be more transparent."

"Reporting is an area that could be improved. It's very simplistic sometimes, and some of the very technical guys on my team want to see more of the details and be able to massage the report a little bit better."

"Users can be enrolled in lifecycle extension with pro support. The pricing for that is too high for PowerStore."

"As a partner, I'd like to be added to each customer's CloudIQ to take a look."

"Data reduction needs improvement."

"I would like to see additional features or functionalities for the Metro in Dell PowerStore, especially because there are a few workloads still not supported."

More Dell PowerStore cons

"The support could be better."

"There could be a possibility of not requiring to buy a new box while upgrading to a newer version."

"In the future, the limitation is upgrading the same storage by adding a shelf to the desk. There is a limitation in the backend connection between the storage and extended shelf."

"The pricing should be more competitive."

"The ZIO interface could be improved."

"The tool's architecture is complex. It also needs to add data utilization reports."

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

"I would like to have replication functionality built directly in the product, rather than having to use a separate device for this."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

"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."

"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."

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

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"The product is expensive."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"Dell PowerStore is affordable and the license is just a face license which is great."

"We are currently using Dell PowerStore for our smaller storage and there is no competition for pricing."

"When we compared it with the other solutions, the pricing of PowerStore was equal. The pricing is good."

"The price of Dell EMC PowerStore could be better, it is a bit expensive."

"The price is not cheap, but it's worth it for the features you get from the storage. If you can afford it, you are probably buying the best solution that you can have for this virtual environment."

"We are happy with the pricing that we get from Dell."

"In the pricing and licensing department, the product is always too expensive."

More Dell PowerStore pricing and cost advice

"The price of the FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable."

"The solution's price is competitive."

"The tool's pricing is competitive."

"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."

"The product has an average cost."

"There are pricing options from the mid-rand to the high-range, of which the suitability depends upon the requirements."

"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."

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

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Marketing Services Firm

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

Recreational Facilities/Services 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	55
Midsize Enterprise	34
Large Enterprise	84

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 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...

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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 managem...

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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 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 PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 12% 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 9% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 7% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 14% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 12% of the time

Dell PowerVault vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 8% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 8% of the time

More Dell PowerStore Competitors

Dell PowerMax vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 24% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 15% of the time

Hitachi VSP E Series vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 12% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 11% 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 PowerStore

February 2026

Download Dell PowerStore product report

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

PowerStore

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

Dell PowerStore is a scalable, high-performance platform supporting both modern and traditional workloads, enhancing IT operations with AI-driven automation and advanced data reduction features.

Designed for flexibility, Dell PowerStore integrates seamlessly with VMware, providing robust security and high IOPS. Users benefit from fast NVMe storage, intelligent data management, and scalable performance to handle diverse workload demands. However, improvements are needed in replication, enterprise functionalities, and UI complexity. Stability and support issues highlight the need for enhanced monitoring and pricing strategies.

What are the key features of Dell PowerStore?

Advanced Compression: Optimizes storage capacity effectively.
Data Deduplication: Reduces redundant data, improving efficiency.
Scalability: Easily adjusts to growing business needs.
VMware Integration: Enhances virtualization performance.
AI-Driven Management: Simplifies IT operations.
NVMe Storage: Provides fast, reliable access to data.
Robust Security: Ensures data protection.

What benefits does Dell PowerStore offer?

High Performance: Supports demanding applications with high IOPS.
Flexible Design: Adapts to changing workload requirements.
Cost Efficiency: Promotes ROI through data reduction and scaling.
Enhanced Management: Streamlines operations with AI and integrations.
Improved Data Handling: Efficiently manages databases and storage.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and IT, Dell PowerStore is critical for VMware virtualization, high-performance databases, and backup storage. It supports hosting virtual machines, mirroring storage, and handling SAP and Oracle databases effectively. Its role in hybrid and on-premises setups showcases its adaptability and integration capabilities for mission-critical tasks.

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

January 2026

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