Dell XtremIO vs Pure Storage FlashArray comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

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

Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Dell XtremIO vs. Pure Storage FlashArray Report (Updated: March 2024).
771,212 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
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use.""We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion.""It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good.""The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly.""It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users.""The latency is good.""The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use.""The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Pros →

"Performance and deduplication. This is a very robust block storage option that offers both performance and data optimization.""Very good IOPS performance""Xtrem10's features are more simple to implement. The integration and interface are also good.""The most valuable features are that it is fast and reliable.""It is great for applications like Microsoft Exchange, ERP, SQL and VDI; basically saved the VDI buy-in from users, as now performance was seamless in comparison to a physical PC.""XtremIO’s capability to run any workload without much in the way of design considerations makes this very easy to use and size.""It was very easy and straightforward to setup.""The program is very stable."

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"The solution offers amazing performance.""Their technical support is excellent. It's the best out of any of the vendors we work with.""Most of the problems that we had in the past with the performance in IOPS have disappeared. It has been a great improvement for our customers' services.""It has good stability for our company.""The stability of Pure Storage is very very good.""I like the speed, and I like the API and how programmable it is.""As soon as we introduced our first Pure Storage FlashArray, the first benefit was at least twice the performance increase. Our production databases simply ran twice as fast with no other change.""The best feature is consistently lower latency, even when IOPS crank up to over 75K. The product maintains submillisecond response time, which is incredible."

More Pure Storage FlashArray Pros →

Cons
"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware.""Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution.""There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product.""They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage.""The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive.""You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me.""We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI.""We have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Cons →

"Ease of use is key in the converged and hyper-converged world that requires administrators to have both hypervisor and storage skills.""XtremIO is coming to its end of life.""In the next release, the solution could have better integration and if we can host assets on the cloud, such as NetApp has the NetApp volumes, which we can host on the cloud directly called NetApp CVO (cloud volume ONTAP). Dell EMC should come up with something purely on the cloud rather than manage services.""XtremIO needs to be lower priced. It also needs better endpoints and scalability.""Right now, external appliances are needed to replicate XtremIO to XtremIO, or to another EMC system.""Management and reporting need improvement.""I am not too impressed with XtremeIO because we had a major failure.""The physical architecture could use some higher levels of redundancy."

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"It is not possible to create a cluster on top of multiple arrays.""The time-to-market could be better at times, but I think that's true for all vendors of hardware.""A minor issue that comes to mind is that, every once in a while, a hard drive will go bad.""I'd like to see a move towards individual VMs for what the performance of each VM is in a VD infrastructure. I can see the overall volume, but I would love to see things in a more granular level on the VM side.""I would like some form of QoS implemented. As a service provider, it would be beneficial to have it.""We understand that they're thinking about it, but one of the things that would be nice is if they added some basic file-level capabilities to the platform. The idea is that they would run a basic NFS or CIF share from the controllers. FlashBlade is the powerhouse for File and Object storage, but if you don't need all that power, a lightweight file function would make FlashArrays more versatile.""With scalability, I have run into a little problem with our last upgrade. There were some undocumented limitations to the number of drives that our controller could run on. So, instead of putting in a new data pack as we had anticipated, we had to keep adding and removing to get up to the capacity that we needed to be. What should have been a one day process (or a few hours) turned into a month and a half process.""In the next release I would like to see integration into other third-party player providers like Google."

More Pure Storage FlashArray Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."
  • "We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
  • "With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
  • "Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
  • "As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
  • "They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."
  • "Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."
  • "The licensing is on a yearly basis."
  • More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Pricing and licensing are in line with other products from other manufacturers. You get what you pay for."
  • "This is the best flash array on the market for high-end workloads, so expect to pay for that. But the support subscription cost is fixed for seven years, which made it easier for us to plan on the maintenance costs."
  • "It's not cheap, but it absolutely gets the job done. I don't have any real comment regarding licensing specifically."
  • "It is great when a product can deliver high-end performance capabilities while offering a very competitive price point."
  • "XtremIO is pretty straightforward about pricing. However, you need to look at your data so you can estimate, with the advice of DEL EMC, what data reduction ratio you will reach. In our case, a 3:1 reduction ration gave us a positive case compared to other storage arrays."
  • "Don’t buy this array. You’re paying for loads of magic beans, since it’s mediocre at best for a platform in a rapidly growing field. Look instead at Pure Storage or something with variable block deduplication. You’ll end up spending less and getting a better product with actual support."
  • "It is costly but worth it."
  • "With some workloads that benefit from compression and deduplication, costs are actually better than some tier 2 subsystems (while latency remains <1ms)."
  • More Dell XtremIO 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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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    Leading up to EMC World 2015, IT Central Station asked how I would compare EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR. Until recently, the flash storage conversation in my organization and many others has centered on XtremIO and Pure Storage, the leaders of the all-flash array (AFA) space. To that end, I've written a few posts already. In 2015, though, the HP giant began to rouse and challenge the mainstream status quo with its 3PAR offering. Quantifying 3PAR's platform is different from XtremIO and Pure, though, as it can seem amorphous given the many ways it can be quoted. Are you asking for all flash? 3PAR will give you that and lay claim to the best-of-breed title. Oh, but you want some mass storage akin to archival or virtual tape, too? 3PAR changes jerseys and shouts, "I'm it!" Is it, though? Let's put 3PAR against XtremIO and see how they measure up! Define the Conversation  The hard part about these comparisons and competitive analyses is that we aren't talking about products of the same species or specialization. I struggle to put it properly, but consider it this way. In pre-AFA days (the age of traditional spinners like NetApp FAS3040, EMC CLARiiON or VNX, and even last-gen 3PAR), the contest was like pitting a Toyota Camry against a Nissan Altima. They did most of the same things with minor strengths, weaknesses, and preferences. Talking about XtremIO versus 3PAR 74xx is more of a discussion about construction-grade, heavy-duty cranes versus massive earth movers. They are in the… Read more →
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover… more »
    Top Answer:I would rate the solution as an eight out of ten in terms of costliness.
    Top Answer:There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class… more »
    Top Answer:The feature I like most about Dell Xtremio is its hardware quality compared to other vendors. It's clear they're… more »
    Top Answer:The license for XtremIO is in the box, so you don't have to buy anything.
    Top Answer:Dell XtremIO needs to provide better performance to keep up with new products.
    Top Answer:Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure… 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.
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
    Dell EMC XtremIO Flash, Dell EMC XtremIO X2, XtremIO, XtremIO X2
    Learn More
    Overview

    Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

    Bring all-flash, scale-out storage to your enterprise applications with EMC XtremIO. Purpose-built for flash, XtremIO storage arrays are amazingly fast. Delivering high IOPS at less than 1 millisecond latency is just the start. EMC XtremIO helps you harness the power of flash storage by building in innovations like content-based data placement and dual-stage metadata.

    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
    Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
    Raiffeisen Bank Bulgaria, Wentworth-Douglas Hospital
    Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company23%
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Manufacturing Company18%
    Comms Service Provider14%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm29%
    Healthcare Company14%
    Insurance Company11%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Financial Services Firm16%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Government6%
    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 Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise28%
    Large Enterprise34%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise60%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise56%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise10%
    Large Enterprise67%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise57%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise40%
    Large Enterprise42%
    Buyer's Guide
    Dell XtremIO vs. Pure Storage FlashArray
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell XtremIO vs. Pure Storage FlashArray and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    771,212 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Dell XtremIO is ranked 26th in All-Flash Storage with 48 reviews while Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 174 reviews. Dell XtremIO is rated 7.6, while Pure Storage FlashArray is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Dell XtremIO writes "Suitable for high IOPS and helps get backup in ten minutes ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pure Storage FlashArray writes "Effective provisioning, helpful support, and reliable". Dell XtremIO is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell PowerMax NVMe, Dell Unity XT, NetApp AFF and INFINIDAT InfiniBox, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem and VMware vSAN. See our Dell XtremIO vs. Pure Storage FlashArray report.

    See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.

    We monitor all All-Flash Storage 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.