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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
238
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (4th), 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 September 2026, in the NAS category, the mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 7.3%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Panasas ActiveStor is 1.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerStore7.3%
Panasas ActiveStor1.8%
Other90.9%
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

"The solution is easy to use and has good performance."
"Dell PowerStore has been very stable for us, and we have performed upgrades to it, including capacity expansions and a recent upgrade from a 96-core to a 128-core system, with the upgrade process being fairly easy and the storage remaining stable while fitting in well with our other Dell storage systems as tier one or tier one and a half storage."
"The improvement is massive; even a couple of milliseconds makes a significant difference to our production throughput, allowing products to leave the door more efficiently, which also cuts back on overtime and ensures we can complete our daily tasks in the required hours."
"The features of Dell PowerStore that I appreciate the most are that it just works; it's tried and true and amazing, and we never have to worry about it."
"I have found the most valuable part of Dell PowerStore is the price."
"It's unified storage, so it can cover file, SAN, and block both. It's good storage; it gives good IOPS and less latency."
"I find all of the Dell PowerStore features to be valuable."
"What I appreciate most about Dell PowerStore is its performance and speed."
"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

"Dell PowerStore is a very good product, and we would love to sell more of these products. Pricing is the only thing that could still be improved."
"I would say it needs easier or increased compatibility with other storage solutions for easier application, such as Dell's own PowerVault. They don't communicate or talk to each other, and they don't replicate to each other, which makes it harder to mix and match."
"When a customer wants to increase any type of size, the only limitation is that the customer has to add an entire appliance."
"They could improve the upgrade process. Currently, there are many manual steps required before upgrading the firmware."
"Other products have better management and analytics features."
"There are some issues in the firmware and operational system for Dell PowerStore, such as certificate issues from legacy firmwares."
"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."
"The pricing could be lower. It is very expensive."
"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

"PowerStore's pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"We are currently using Dell PowerStore for our smaller storage and there is no competition for pricing."
"The price of Dell PowerStore could improve. The price should be managed more compared to Huawei Dorado or IBM All-Flash series."
"We are happy with the pricing that we get from Dell."
"Pricing depends on the model and negotiation. Sometimes we manage to get good discounts, sometimes not."
"The price of Dell EMC PowerStore could be better, it is a bit expensive."
"HCL Tech has a TLA with Dell, so in terms of price point, we are very competitive. Based on my experience, the cost of Dell PowerStore for around 500 GB of capacity is very competitive compared to any other platform in the market."
"The solution's price is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business79
Midsize Enterprise45
Large Enterprise119
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: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.