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Dell SC Series vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell SC Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
18th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Frame-Based Disk Arrays (2nd)
NetApp EF-Series All Flash ...
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
24th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 7.4%, up from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell SC Series is 1.5%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 1.3%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray7.4%
Dell SC Series1.5%
NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays1.3%
Other89.8%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
RafaelGamaluis - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect Engineer, IT INFRASTRUCTURES Project Manager at Vilavi
User interface offers clarity and detailed information while technical support consistently delivers
The best features of Dell SC Series are stability and replication. The replication solution is excellent, and they have a solution named Live Migration. It is a robust platform. The interface and the GUI (graphical user interface) for administrating the Compellent are exceptional, with abundant information that is very clear. The management capabilities are excellent, and the stability of our storage hardware is remarkable.
Tayo Olubanke - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at GCET
Offers flexibility and top-notch technology
You can go to bed peacefully if you have a NetApp. If you have NetApp within your data center, you get to know about power failure if you are using it. Your NetApp will still come alive. Even if it does not come alive, I can say that it is not like other tools when it comes to dealing with power failure. The tool is affordable, and the technology is top-notch. It is the only technology that has software for what we call inline compression and deduplication. All the products under NetApp are aiming to use AI. I know that you can achieve whatever you want to do with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have seen a huge increase in speed and performance on our databases."
"Firstly, dedupe is the most valuable feature, hands down, and simplifying storage is also a big win overall."
"Biggest lesson learned: Why didn't I switch sooner?"
"NVMe data storage platform that's easy to set up and easy to use. It's stable, with a lower response time, and quick technical support."
"The most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray is the all-flash storage performance, low latency, and efficiency of their de-duplication technology. Additionally, the ease of use is good compared to other storage systems. The features in data protection, snapshotting, and replication between data centers and sites are superior to other solutions."
"The features that are there now are really what we need."
"The technical support is very good."
"Data deduplication features make it easier to manage storage and forecast growth."
"This solution is easy to use."
"It was very easy to install, maintain, and provides excellent manageability."
"Component support was great; on a scale of one to ten they were a ten, they were always helpful."
"I would recommend to buy Dell EMC 3020 to anyone researching these type of solutions."
"The customers really appreciate that the storage is cost-effective and that has enterprise features."
"One time, we had a drive fail and we were notified before we even saw it on the device."
"The flexibility of this solution has been valuable for our business."
"It has given us a reliable and dynamic storage system that we did not match before with our previous solution."
"Our use case is both corporate storage and for all of our datacenter and back-end enterprise applications."
"The deployment is very quick and very simple to use."
"One of the most valuable features is the overall performance it provides. You're able to throw a pile of IOPS at it and it will handle that without much issue."
"We found all of those things in NetApp."
"This solution is dependable for us and our clients and that is what we needed to have."
"For anyone who has critical workloads like Oracle databases or DB2, NetApp All-Flash Arrays will suit their needs, as long as it fits within their budget."
"The hardware and software of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are easy for us to use."
"The speed is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"We had one instance with an eight-hour outage in our primary data center because the upgrade to the controller failed, and the controller redundancy didn't work."
"I would like to see some improvements on the FlashBlade side around the CIFS space support. I am not super familiar with all the different NAS protocols that they run on their box, but there could be some improvements made on SMB CIFS side."
"Pure Storage takes a hit in the minds and opinions of some of the customers because they cannot customize things as much as compared to a legacy storage provider's appliance such as NetApp, Dell EMC, or even HPE."
"One improvement area is the eradication time delay."
"The price could be better."
"I would like some performance analytics which go deeper than today. It should be specific to some hosts and applications. This would be good."
"I would like to see support for NVMe, end-to-end."
"A three wave application or multi wave application synchronization would be an improvement."
"This solution could be improved if overall performance was improved and operated with a higher speed and supported a higher volume of RAM."
"From a performance point of view, it's getting a bit old."
"We had some issues with the battery in the previous version that we were unable to resolve."
"The SC Series doesn't support NVMe storage."
"We have seen some degraded throughput with mixed workloads. We have been working with Dell EMC to correct some of these latency issues."
"This product should be a lot more user-friendly."
"It would be helpful if the solution offered higher performance, at least on the back end."
"This product is too expensive compared to others, and I don't see any value in using it."
"The solution should really build out a more hyper-converged product."
"They could improve the product’s tools."
"From a manageability perspective, I like the look and the feel of the FAS series better than the EF. I think it's more straightforward and simplistic."
"This solution does not have any compression or deduplication."
"The initial setup phase of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is not straightforward and needs improvement."
"There could be an improvement when it comes to SLA support, it could be faster."
"The pricing could be cheaper and it should have documentation in more languages, specifically, Russian."
"Better support technicians for CAPP."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We would like them to improve the pricing, so we could put them to use some more product, like backup or long-term storage. In the future, if the price goes down, then we could buy different types of products."
"It's expensive, but you get what you pay for."
"We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership."
"FlashArray is expensive, but the quality justifies the price."
"The cost was initially high, but once more people were using it, the costs came down. This was because the University was reselling it to other departments."
"Pure Storage is all-flash, so this sometimes tends to make it a bit more expensive in the beginning."
"There are no licensing fees aside from the support."
"For us, as the customer, it reduced the price of the management."
"We were able to afford two tiers of flash storage at a price where the competition was giving us one tier or just a handful of discs."
"The maintenance is usually pretty good. It's not like some of the others where they increase it in the fourth, fifth, or sixth years."
"Pricing depends on varying life cycles."
"We have reviewed many platforms over the years. It is probably the best solution for its value."
"It is one of the most cost effective systems for us. We have been able to run it longer than most, getting the most benefit and money out of it."
"We have the basic license for the use of this solution and it is a permanent license. The overall cost could be less, it is expensive."
"We have found it to be affordable. Comparing the cost with other hardware, it seems to be right in line with the compute and the storage that we get with it."
"Support typically depends on the array. It can range anywhere from $7,000 to a couple of hundred thousand dollars."
"Price-wise, NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is costlier than Dell. You have to buy a lot of licenses separately."
"This solution is not available to many users because the cost is very expensive."
"The pricing of the solution is expensive, considering the initial investment required...At the end of the product's life cycle, it could get cheaper, but the initial investment in NetApp makes it one of the most expensive solutions."
"The pricing of this solution is competitive with other vendors here in Egypt."
"NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is an expensive product."
"The price point for EF is considerably lower than the alternatives."
"They need to improve its pricing. The storage market is dying. So, they need to improve the price because it should reach all people. NetApp is one of the top ones, and they are charging a little bit of royalty as compared to other storage solutions."
"It's a lot cheaper than what the other vendors have for the same type of environment. It saves us money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Construction Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Performing Arts
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise18
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I have knowledge about the licensing part, which we obtained for around 10 years from the time of deployment, but I d...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
When it comes to Everpure FlashArray ports shown in the GUI, it would be better if, when one of the Pure array ports ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell SC Series?
In our case, we received favorable pricing with Dell because of our strong partnership. While I acknowledge that Dell...
What needs improvement with Dell SC Series?
For us, it is a great product. The deduplication and compression could potentially be improved, though they are alrea...
What is your primary use case for Dell SC Series?
We use Dell SC Series in a VMware environment.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?
One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to rene...
What needs improvement with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?
The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. I want NetApp's supp...
What is your primary use case for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?
There are so many things to talk about around the use cases associated with the tool. There are so many reasons why I...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
SC Series Storage, Compellent
NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric
RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell SC Series vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.