Dell PowerStore vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800 comparison

Dell Technologies and NetApp are both solutions in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category. Dell Technologies is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7, while NetApp is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.5. Dell Technologies holds a 23.6% mindshare in N, compared to NetApp’s 2.7% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

NetApp NVMe AFF A800 and Dell PowerStore are two leading storage solutions. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 has an edge in performance and reliability, while Dell PowerStore is preferred for its scalability and flexibility.

Features: NetApp NVMe AFF A800 provides superior performance, efficient data management, and seamless integration with cloud environments. Dell PowerStore offers an adaptive infrastructure, advanced storage automation, and robust support for diverse workloads.

Room for Improvement: NetApp NVMe AFF A800 users suggest improvements in initial setup complexity, automation integration, and detailed customer support documentation. Dell PowerStore users highlight the need for better pricing options and enhanced data reduction capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is known for a challenging deployment process but has well-regarded customer service. Dell PowerStore offers a more straightforward deployment experience and has responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: NetApp NVMe AFF A800 has higher initial setup costs but delivers substantial long-term ROI in terms of reliability and performance. Dell PowerStore, despite higher potential costs, is valued for its feature-rich capabilities and scalability, which are perceived to justify the investment.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerStore vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 Report (Updated: February 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800

February 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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 2.6%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 23.6%, down from 27.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is 2.7%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

Featured Reviews

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

Ken Boyer

Associate Director, Systems & Engineer at IQVIA

Reduces the footprint, is easy to use, and can handle heavy workloads

The systems I currently have in place are old, and their support is running out. They're at the end of their life cycle. One of the key improvements that PowerStore is going to bring is that it will enable me to shrink the physical footprint. I'll be going from 5 physical HP arrays, which are about 12 racks in size, down to 4 PowerStores, which can fit on one rack. As a result, I'll be able to shrink the footprint, save power, cooling, etc. I will also be able to improve the existing performance and longevity of the platform. When we put the PowerStore in for the Oracle database, it was previously on NetApp. The staff wanted to do snapshots but also clone, and then be able to clone from a clone to add it to another system. PowerStore enabled them to do just that. They not only got their performance back to where it needed to be from previously being on the NetApp array but also got some of the feature functions that they require for the application.

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Tanveer Rahman

Chief Technical Office at Novotel Ltd.

A scalable solution that serves as a storage for the cloud services opted by organizations

My company uses NetApp NVMe AFF A800 as storage for our cloud The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O. The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better. I don't expect to see additional…

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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

"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."

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

"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 initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."

"The solution is very straightforward to set up."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"It provides a big benefit when upgrading a new VMware environment. For example, in a big environment with 10 to 30 ESXs, you can take everything and put that into PowerStore. So, it is cost-effective, which is very important and has been massive for us. You reduce almost 80% from the hardware and work directly from PowerStore. Building hardware, especially in a big VMware environment, is a big issue for my organization."

"It is a stable solution."

"The simplicity and performance are great."

"The latency and the security are the most valuable features of Dell PowerStore."

"The tool's most valuable features are compression and speed."

"The most valuable aspects of Dell PowerStore are the promising roadmap, and the interesting features to come."

"It is very easy to use. Access is very friendly. It shows you a lot of important information at the first glance. It has been very easy to use."

"Reliable, with comprehensive features and a well-established support base."

More Dell PowerStore pros

"NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is easier to use than some other solutions and the UI is very good to use for day-to-day activities. Overall, the solution has good technology."

"The storage features are valuable."

"Low latency is the most valuable feature."

"You can easily scale up, and scale-out."

"During the use cases of the solution, its reliability and suitability are the best."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O."

"The most valuable features are stability and performance."

"We find the product to be very flexible."

More NetApp NVMe AFF A800 pros

Cons

"The software layer has to improve."

"We need better data deduplication."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"Dell PowerStore is an unfinished product compared to the HPE systems because it is relatively new."

"Dell PowerStore currently only allows us to copy data from our main production system to the disaster recovery site."

"More demonstration and training options are needed."

"It's also only supported with a limited amount of switches."

"The previous version of Dell PowerStore we used was easier to use compared to the current one. They have made it more cumbersome to handle, although it still works. It has become more complicated to manage."

"When it comes to Dell PowerStore, I would like to see more integration and more security features included. It's unfortunate that the solution does not feature Flash trace."

"There are certain shortcomings with the technical support team of Dell PowerStore, where improvements are required."

"Monitoring is an area of concern in the product where improvements are required."

More Dell PowerStore cons

"The technical support has room for improvement."

"The product’s UI could be better."

"Increasing the RAM, and including physical cords would be beneficial."

"The initial setup is complex."

"The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better."

"Stability is an area with a certain shortcoming where the solution needs to improve"

"The initial setup should be easier, and more like a plug-and-play approach."

"Sometimes, it takes a while to get somebody competent on the other end of the line. They do have engineers in multiple time zones around the world. However, their level-one support is not always the best."

More NetApp NVMe AFF A800 cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

"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."

"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 licensing is on a yearly basis."

"The product is expensive."

"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 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."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"There's still a cap on the upgrade path, where you can consume all the engines within the frame before you have to go to another frame... Normally, we exceed the IOPS on the frames before we can ever exhaust the storage, so anything they can do to help us avoid stranded storage capacity, capacity that we couldn't get to, would be beneficial."

"It is easy to work with Dell from the licensing perspective."

"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."

"We only have a single machine and we are currently using half of the hard disk slots. We have asked for an upgrade for the rest of the hard disks but, from my point of view, it costs too much. We have 12 to 15 hard disks inside and if we try to upgrade only the hard disks, it costs the same as the complete system. This is something I don't understand."

"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."

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

"The solution is expensive."

"Dealing with the licensing part of the product is very simple, especially considering the fact that we don't have many licenses associated with the tool."

More Dell PowerStore pricing and cost advice

"The solution is expensive."

"There are licenses for the use of this solution, such as commercial licenses."

"Considering the requirements and the situation, I don't feel that this is an expensive product."

"Though NetApp NVMe AFF A800 may seem like a highly-priced product, it is not extremely expensive."

"I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Manufacturing Company

23%

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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?

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 ...

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...

See all answers

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...

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about NetApp NVMe AFF A800?

The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp NVMe AFF A800?

Though NetApp NVMe AFF A800 may seem like a highly-priced product, it is not extremely expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp NVMe AFF A800?

The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better. I don't expect to s...

See all answers

Comparisons

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 12% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 7% of the time

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Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 15% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 9% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell PowerStore

Compared 8% of the time

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NetApp ASA vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 29% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 16% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 9% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 9% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 6% of the time

More NetApp NVMe AFF A800 Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

March 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore

March 2025

Download Dell PowerStore product report

Buyer's Guide

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

March 2025

Download NetApp NVMe AFF A800 product report

Also Known As

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

PowerStore

No data available

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 stands out for its high performance, flexibility, and easy integration with VMware. It offers notable data compression and deduplication capabilities while providing powerful NVMe support and machine learning to optimize IT operations.

Dell PowerStore is designed to offer a comprehensive approach to IT infrastructure by enhancing performance and simplifying management. It is particularly suitable for companies that require scalable solutions to increase compute or capacity independently. Featuring built-in intelligence, PowerStore allows efficient storage consolidation and reduced footprint, while integration with CloudIQ enhances monitoring and analytics. However, there are areas for improvement, such as stability, enterprise features, and the user interface. Pricing is high, and support responsiveness needs attention. Organizations primarily use PowerStore for VMware environments, storage, and data protection, supporting high-performance databases and VMware workloads. It is utilized in data centers for disaster recovery and hybrid setups.

What are the key features of Dell PowerStore?

Flexibility: Independently scales compute or capacity
High Performance: Offers powerful NVMe support and machine learning
Integration: Easily integrates with VMware
Data Efficiency: Provides data compression and deduplication
Simplified Management: Built-in intelligence for efficient storage management

What benefits should users consider?

Performance Optimization: Enhance IT operations with machine learning
Scalability: Increase compute or storage capacity as needed
Integration Potential: Improve efficiency with VMware and CloudIQ
Data Protection: Reliable for disaster recovery and hybrid environments

In industries like IT, finance, and healthcare, Dell PowerStore supports efficient data management and enhances infrastructure performance. Organizations leverage it to manage extensive data, streamline virtualization processes, and facilitate migration from legacy systems, while integrating cloud and on-premises infrastructures for improved operations.

Dell Technologies

Your data is a gold mine. Get the most out of it - faster - with AFF A800. Designed for NVMe media, further accelerated with NVMe/FC connectivity to the host, AFF A800 all-flash systems deliver an incredible sub-200 microsecond latency. Providing more than 11.4M IOPS and 300GB/s throughput in a single cluster, AFF A800 redefines the limit of what’s possible with artificial intelligence and deep learning.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerStore vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800

February 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerStore vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerStore vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.

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