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Dell PowerStore vs Panasas ActiveStor comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 2024

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 NAS
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
249
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (7th), Enterprise SAN (1st), All-Flash Storage (1st), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (1st)
Panasas ActiveStor
Ranking in NAS
22nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the NAS category, the mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 8.1%, down from 10.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Panasas ActiveStor is 1.9%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerStore8.1%
Panasas ActiveStor1.9%
Other90.0%
NAS
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2304864 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
MW
Project Manager at Realnux
A stable solution with good performance and bandwidth
The tool's setup is not difficult. The deployment is completed within two to three days and we would require three engineers to handle the process. First, we need to install the software which can take around two to three hours. Next, comes the configuration and connection to the central network which is complex. It can take about eight to ten hours to complete.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution is very useful to us as we use it internally for all of the services that we need. We use it as a lab and we showcase new technology to the customers and how it can help them going forward."
"The most valuable features are the three-to-one data reduction and the ability to scale out and up."
"For the targeted workload that we have, it's performing substantially better than we had expected within our business case."
"It is a stable solution."
"Dell PowerStore has positively impacted my organization by adding a very big storage capacity at a relatively low price, and it has also been very easy to use."
"We have found the solution very stable and we like it very much."
"Dell PowerStore is used for any storage of files and blocks where performance, scalability, and manageability are needed, and it is easy to use Dell PowerStore for optimizing workloads."
"Dell PowerStore is GUI-based applications storage, it is easy to use and understand, making storage management tasks such as provisioning and reclaim activity quite manageable."
"The stability is excellent and we've found the product's performance to be very good."
"I am impressed with the tool's performance and bandwidth."
"We've found the product to be quite flexible."
 

Cons

"The design needs to be something similar to Pure Storage. It would be beneficial if there are different color or lighting options for different product casings. Different colors are helpful when working in the data center server room."
"While the performance is good, I haven't seen any specific outcomes or measurable benefits."
"The support for Dell PowerStore is similar to others; not too extraordinary, but acceptable."
"In one instance, a single PowerStore array provided only 3 to 4 GBPS, which was not satisfactory."
"One suggestion for improvement would be related to volume management by both controllers. Currently, a volume is managed by a single controller, with alternate controllers managing different volumes based on load distribution. For example, if volume one is managed by controller one, volume two will be managed by controller two. In other vendors' solutions, both controllers participate in the I/Os. It would be more efficient if the volumes were controlled by both controllers in an active-active configuration."
"I would say a bit more user-friendliness and in-depth features in the monitoring interface of CloudIQ would be an improvement; sometimes it is quite difficult to find the information I want."
"Horizontal scaling has room for improvement."
"If Dell PowerStore had more controllers, making it more reliable and resilient, it would be better."
"We have received complaints from customers that the tool is not easy to use. The tool's local technical service is slow. The solution is good for Linux customers and not for customers with other operating systems like Windows. The solution should provide storage without client software integration."
"The solution is quite expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing structure and licensing model of Dell PowerStore are pretty decent. It's pretty competitive."
"The pricing structure and licensing model of Dell PowerStore are very good and I like it. We chose it because it was reasonably priced and met our requirements"
"I rate the price of Dell PowerStore a seven out of ten."
"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."
"As compared to others, PowerStore is cheaper."
"The pricing rates at seven out of ten as it is considered overpriced. Entry-level models are reasonably priced, starting around $30,000 for a base model with 6 drives. However, upgrades become costly - adding 6 additional drives can cost another $30,000."
"Dell PowerStore is not a cheap solution."
"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."
"The solution's price is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business83
Midsize Enterprise49
Large Enterprise124
No data available
 

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 ...
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Also Known As

PowerStore
ActiveStor
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Advanced Mask Technology Center Airbus Argonne National Laboratory The University of Texas at Dallas School of Arts Technology and Emerging Communication Башнефть Boeing Bosch California Academy of Sciences Caltech Canon Case Western Reserve University Conoco Phillips Deluxe DirecTV Fairfield Technologies United States Federal Reserve Garvan Institute of Medical Research Goodyear Halliburton Harvard Medical School Honeywell In-Depth Geophysical Intel Kawasaki Lockheed Martin 3M Magseis Fairfield Mammal Studios The Man Group McLaren Mercedes-Benz MINES ParisTech NASA US Navy National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center NBCUniversal National Institutes of Health Nio National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Northrup Grumman Novartis Partners Healthcare Procter & Gamble PGS Pratt & Whitney Rutherford Appleton Lab Siemens Sim International Sinopec Solers Square Cnix TGS Toyota Motorsport GMBH Toppan Turner UMass Medical School United Technologies University of Georgia University of California Los Angeles University of Minnesota University of Notre Dame University of California San Diego Center for Microbiome Innovation Whiskytree
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerStore vs. Panasas ActiveStor and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.