Dell PowerPath vs Pure Storage FlashArray comparison

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Dell Technologies Logo
260 views|89 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
Pure Storage Logo
19,368 views|10,287 comparisons
99% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell PowerPath and Pure Storage FlashArray based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp, DataCore, Dell Technologies and others in Storage Software.
To learn more, read our detailed Storage Software Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,857 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"We have found the solution to be quite flexible and very scalable.""OS-aware multipathing is a valuable feature of the product.""It provides a high availability and will increase the performance of any server or operating system.""The user interface is good.""The product is very reliable.""The most valuable feature of this solution is migration without disruptions.""The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that disaster recovery scenarios are very good and easy to use in Dell PowerPath since it is available in a simplified form.""The solution has improved our performance, reliability, and redundancy."

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"Performance, deduplication, compression, and fast response time for requests from servers and applications.""Having an intuitive user interface to get things running is great.""We've had to use tech support on a number of occasions. They did everything remotely and talked us all the way through. They fixed the issue within 30 minutes. Every single time we contact them, they're perfect. I would give their technical support a ten out of ten.""This is the best all-flash storage array on the market.""It's very fast and very easy to use. It performs well and is both flexible and compatible. We like it because it's easy to use.""Access speed and power consumption are most valuable.""The job of support for the storage engineers dramatically changed. We know more quickly the automation of the provisioning. We can now focus on things that bring more value to the company than just managing storage.""The speed is the most valuable feature, along with the ease of getting it connected. We were able to get it online in less than a day."

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Cons
"Although PowerPath is very mature and has been on the market for more than 15 years there are still a lot of bugs that have been profiled with PowerPath, specifically, during any OS upgrade.""While I utilize it for data migration, I would love to do that data migration in a GUI from an ease of use perspective.""Customers do not choose PowerPath unless they have Unix or Linux.""The solution should provide extensive reports on backups and backup failures.""The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required.""The product must adapt to other storage technologies like HPE 3PAR.""The solution is quite stable, although they have not quite worked out all of the kinks.""The technical support is good but they are not available all the time."

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"Pricing could be better in comparison to other solutions.""The way Pure Storage does the controller storage warranty or replacement has been an issue for some people who just replace the controllers every couple of years, and that's where some of the confusion with pricing and support has come in. They should be clear on the way the controller replacements happen, as it is important to know whether or not you can get a good return on them, because it can be a little confusing.""In the next release, I would like to see file-level encryption.""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. It has limited ability to do so.""The technical support is okay, but could be improved.""We would like to be able to connect to data tape for backup, specifically to the LTO backups.""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.""We would like to see better troubleshooting aspects. It helps us if we can find out where the problem is. Right now, it's difficult. Sometimes it's difficult to pinpoint the issue. If they had more visibility and more troubleshooting feature built into the tool that would really help."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The price of the solution is fair."
  • "Pricing is good. I don't have any issues with the pricing of this solution."
  • "There are no additional costs associated with the product."
  • "I rate the product's price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is affordable, and ten is really expensive. Dell PowerPath is an expensive tool."
  • "The solution is expensive."
  • "The product is a little bit expensive."
  • More Dell PowerPath Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "We feel that the pricing is fair and the licensing process was easy for both."
  • "There is always room for negotiation."
  • "The price was slightly higher than others, but competitive, if you consider all the other features that you get from it."
  • "It is a more expensive solution, but it is worth it. You are getting what you paid for."
  • "For pricing, you have to take into account their performance on deduplication and compression in a $/GB comparison."
  • "We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO)."
  • "It is a cheaper solution."
  • "Pure Storage is all-flash, so this sometimes tends to make it a bit more expensive in the beginning."
  • More Pure Storage FlashArray Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The solution has improved our performance, reliability, and redundancy.
    Top Answer:The product is a little bit expensive. It is a little pricey because it provides multipathing with other OSs. I rate the pricing a five out of ten.
    Top Answer:The product must adapt to other storage technologies like HPE 3PAR. When we use 3PAR storage, we have to use another technology to load balance. The product must be integrated with other products like… more »
    Top Answer:Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Storage. It may be more expensive, but it should pay for itself for its… more »
    Top Answer:We consume less physical storage because of the solution’s deduplication and compression.
    Top Answer:We have customers who use a three-year or five-year license. We also have customers who use Evergreen.
    Ranking
    3rd
    out of 6 in Storage Software
    Views
    260
    Comparisons
    89
    Reviews
    4
    Average Words per Review
    383
    Rating
    8.7
    3rd
    out of 48 in All-Flash Storage
    Views
    19,368
    Comparisons
    10,287
    Reviews
    20
    Average Words per Review
    441
    Rating
    9.1
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    PowerPath
    Learn More
    Overview

    EMC PowerPath: Host-based software for automated data path management, failover and recovery, and optimized load balancing. PowerPath automates, standardizes, and optimizes data paths in physical and virtual environments as well as cloud deployments to deliver high availability and performance.

    AUTOMATE FAILOVER/RECOVERY

    PowerPath automates data path failover and recovery to ensure applications are always available and remain operational.

    OPTIMIZE LOAD BALANCING

    Adjust I/O paths constantly to leverage all available data paths and to monitor and rebalance the dynamic environment for the best application performance.

    STANDARDIZE PATH MANAGEMENT

    Simplify and standardize data path management across heterogeneous physical and virtual environments as well as cloud deployments.

    Pure Storage FlashArray is the world’s first enterprise-class storage array that runs exclusively on the nonvolatile memory express (NVMe) protocol for memory access and storage. It represents a totally state-of-the-art type of storage technology. It offers users shared accelerated storage that delivers cutting-edge features in the realms of performance, simplicity, and consolidation. Pure Storage is fresh and modern today and will be for the next decade. Without forklift upgrades or planned downtime, Pure Storage takes the work out of storage ownership and delivers unprecedented customer satisfaction.

    Pure Storage FlashArray is built with simplicity and reliability in mind. The solution can be implemented and optimized in hours, as opposed to other similar solutions that can take days. It has no moving parts, which removes areas where it could potentially be vulnerable to suffering errors. It is highly stable and gives users the ability to manage system shutdowns in a way that  prevents data loss.

    Benefits of Pure Storage FlashArray

    Some of the benefits of using Pure Storage FlashArray include:

    • A much higher level of speed than similar pieces of technology. Pure Storage FlashArray maximizes the speed at which data can be transferred while at the same time minimizing system latencies that might slow the transfer down. Additionally, it offers users quick memory read and data access speeds.

    • A higher bang for your buck in terms of the storage capabilities you get for the money you pay. They are smaller in size than more standard storage technologies, but they offer flash memory, which enables users to store larger amounts of data than the current standard.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Pure Storage FlashArray is a highly effective piece of storage technology which stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its overall robustness and the value that it offers by way of its reliability and ease of use. It provides users with many valuable features that allow them to maximize what they can do with this solution. Pure Storage FlashArray’s reliability and ease of use make it a highly valuable solution. 

    PeerSpot user Prabakaran K., a technical consultant at Injazat Data Systems, notes the robustness of this solution when he writes, "FlashArray has many valuable features. It's very user-friendly and it has high availability, so there is comparatively less downtime. During maintenance, there is no shutdown procedure, so you can directly power off the Array and manage the shutdown process without any data loss, which is a unique feature. Managing replication and data migration is also very easy."

    PeerSpot user Jason D., a cloud solutions architect at a tech services company, notes three features that make this solution valuable when he writes, "We've had different types of storage, and three things of this solution are valuable. The first one is its outstanding performance. The second one is its stability. In the about three years that we've had it, we've had component failures, but we never had a service interruption or any data loss. The third one, which is really critical, is that it is super easy to use in terms of provisioning, storage, and managing the arrays. I'm able to maintain a multi-site environment with a couple of dozen arrays with a single mid-level storage admin."

    Sample Customers
    Healthcare Residential Service Company
    Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company29%
    Mining And Metals Company14%
    Outsourcing Company14%
    Non Profit14%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Government13%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Energy/Utilities Company9%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Healthcare Company12%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization31%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise25%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise65%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise57%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise40%
    Large Enterprise42%
    Buyer's Guide
    Storage Software
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp, DataCore, Dell Technologies and others in Storage Software. Updated: March 2024.
    768,857 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Dell PowerPath is ranked 3rd in Storage Software with 8 reviews while Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 174 reviews. Dell PowerPath is rated 8.4, while Pure Storage FlashArray is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Dell PowerPath writes "A resilient and reliable solution that has many load-balancing technologies and provides high availability". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pure Storage FlashArray writes "Effective provisioning, helpful support, and reliable". Dell PowerPath is most compared with NetApp ONTAP, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem and VMware vSAN.

    We monitor all Storage Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.