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Dell SC Series vs SolidFire 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
4th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
217
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)
SolidFire
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
33rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 7.5%, up from 6.3% 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 SolidFire is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray7.5%
Dell SC Series1.5%
SolidFire0.8%
Other90.2%
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.
Ramil Cerrada - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution lead at Globe Mobile
A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance
The most significant benefit lies in its exceptional performance, driven by its Flash-based architecture. This enhances routing speed and, consequently, database performance. The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance which is particularly valuable for tasks like data mining, where quick results are essential.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The seamless integration into the public cloud has improved my organization."
"We are very happy with the data deduplication and compression ratio that we have on the platform."
"We have seen savings in our storage. The speed of deployment has gone from several days to a few minutes. This product has reduced that time into minutes, simplifying storage for us."
"This solution has improved my organization because it has good performance."
"We noticed a dramatic increase in application performance when moving it from NetApp to Pure Storage."
"Access speed and power consumption are most valuable."
"The compression and deduplication features help to make the best use of the capacity."
"One of the lesser sung advantages was when we started running our interface engine on Pure Storage. The ability to process messages and pass them through in our organization skyrocketed purely because of a disk that I owned which we were getting out of Pure Storage."
"It has good dedupe and compression. Also, the built-in data migration capabilities are pretty good, as is the federation. When we started migrating the workloads from different storage platforms, like NetApp and XtremeIO, it helped us in moving to that direction."
"The solution is stable; we've had no problems at all."
"The process of reallocating data from fast disks (SSD or SAS) to slow disks (SATA) gives you better performance and better use of resources."
"Component support was great; on a scale of one to ten they were a ten, they were always helpful."
"Everything is sub-5 MS for us. What I've found is that, with all-flash, when an app from my business is slow, I pretty much know it's them and not me. It leads to a performance conversation that has really hit an interesting threshold point where we are better than what they need. So now we get to have that "refactoring your application" conversation a lot quicker because now the performance on the infrastructure side isn't in question anymore."
"It is easy to use, expand the hard drives, add storage, and set up replication."
"The flexibility of this solution has been valuable for our business."
"The technical support is quite good, especially coming from the speed of the technology and support that we received in the past."
"The difference between SolidFire and other storage is that it is a stand alone storage; no one has that good storage software or that scalability and performance."
"The square footage for doing development is at a premium when dealing with government networks, and to be able to put a lot of IOPS in a lot of high-speed performing drives in a very small location which requires very little HVAC with very little power is very valuable to us."
"The simplicity of it."
"Provisioning times have gone down and a lot of the random errors from different things that we've seen across time kind of all went away."
"One of the most valuable thing aspect of the solution is the fact that it's all in one and all in a very small physical footprint."
"What is nice with SolidFire is that the QoS is embedded, and for each volume you create, you put the QoS on it, and you're sure to grantee the service level agreement for the customer, depending on the workloads he needs."
"To my mind, it offers a unique combination that isn't easily matched in the marketplace."
"Feature-wise, it is a good solution allowing users to monitor and simplify their networks. The solution also provides its users with flexibility by enabling them to utilize its extensions."
 

Cons

"I like what they're doing, but some of my customers complain that they do not have all the bells and whistles and knobs to fine-tune workloads that some of the competitors have. In my opinion, that's good. All customers don't have dedicated storage gurus, and they can get themselves into trouble if they fine-tune too many of those high-performance knobs, but they do get knocked down. 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. I personally think 95% of my customers are better off letting the system fine-tune itself. That was something that you needed to do 12 or 15 years ago, but now with all-flash, the technology can handle what it needs to handle. Customers just end up shooting themselves in the foot if they are tweaking too many default settings."
"On a couple of occasions, the waiting time for an upgrade has been pretty substantial."
"The internal garbage collection process has been fixed recently in some OS updates so it is more efficient but that could be just a little better."
"A noticeable area for improvement is the support for object storage."
"I would like to see a Nagios monitoring plugin which watches the health and performance of the system. The only one available just checks volume capacity."
"The scalability of the solution is not as good as it probably could be."
"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."
"The connectivity needs improvement. You do not have the possibility to have a file and block connectivity at the same time on the same machine."
"Dell could improve the upgrading process."
"There's always room for improvement in the operating code."
"To begin with, we were ready to throw it out the window."
"In some customer cases, customers experienced more performance or latency."
"The only issue with scaling up is that the pricing gets pretty high."
"Compellent comes in the form of a component that's not true of a unified storage platform."
"One option I would like to see is, when you're up on the view-screen, to be able to incorporate getting to what HPE call the iLO, the Integrated Lights-Out. To be able to get that instead of having to go back and trying to find IP addresses and re-institute those would be good. It would be good to be able to that put on the initial splash screen."
"The cost of the solution could be better."
"The technical support is really bad and has to be improved."
"We've had issues with the stability of our platform."
"So feature-wise, I would say more reporting tools that could be merged into it."
"The level of monitoring could be better."
"I would like to see more of the fiber channel connect, legacy-type, Linux-type front-ends to it."
"SolidFire should start from two nodes instead of the four nodes. That's the only thing. In a lot of solutions, we have to use four nodes, that's the better thing. But as a starting point, two is better. That's why their starting point is expensive."
"This solution would be improved if it were made to be more compatible with other products."
"Though it is a stable solution, its users may face some security issues at times...The security provided by the solution is one area that can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is an annual or perpetual license required for this solution."
"It is cheaper than NetApp."
"Cost-wise, I imagine that the product's price would probably give you a nosebleed if you were a younger company."
"The pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray is reasonable."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"It is not the cheapest one out there. We're paying yearly, but I'm not 100% sure."
"Pure Storage FlashArray's pricing is very competitive."
"The Evergreen Storage subscription is great, because then I get new controllers every three years."
"We have found the solution to be affordable."
"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."
"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."
"It has a good price point and offers some value-added enterprise features."
"The pricing is reasonable, but it is expensive."
"This product is too expensive compared to others, and I don't see any value in using it."
"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."
"There are costs involving the solution, vendor fees and product safety which are additional."
"Based on what I heard from other people, its price was on the higher side."
"It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for what you get."
"The price of this solution is more expensive than others."
"We would probably use SolidFire more, except we're getting more bang for our buck with our purchases of ONTAP right now, and the deal we made with NetApp, so it's more of just a cost decision"
"On a scale where one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the solution between three and four. It is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Performing Arts
6%
Construction Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business65
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise151
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise17
 

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?
The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...
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.
Ask a question
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Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
SC Series Storage, Compellent
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric
California Public Utilities Commission, RFA, 1&1, Ultimate Software , Endicia, ezVerify, MercadoLibre, Sungard Availability Services, ServInt, Elastx, Hosted Network, Colt, Crucial, iWeb, Datapipe, Databarracks
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell SC Series vs. SolidFire and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.