Dell PowerStore 4.1 Boosts Enterprise AI with Secure, Intelligent Data
Artificial intelligence (AI) is driving global innovation and transformation. Preparing for AI has become a pressing issue for businesses. Dell Technologies recently released the latest Dell PowerStore 4.1 operating system update. Its flexible and agile design architecture not only makes enterprise workloads more efficient and easier to use, but also helps businesses meet future needs.
In addition to linear horizontal and vertical expansion for superior scalability, an end-to-end NVMe design for improved performance and low latency, and a 5:1 Data Reduction Guarantee (DRR Guarantee), PowerStore 4.1 also introduces numerous innovative features, including true Active/Active synchronous replication across data centers, a design that accelerates Storage Direct Protection restores by 4x, new observability capabilities for carbon emissions, and secure snapshots on file systems to protect critical data.
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Dell Technologies senior technical advisor Junying Lin noted that the storage challenges posed by AI for enterprises extend beyond space expansion and configuration. Furthermore, the company must address increasingly complex workloads, security threats, and rising energy costs, requiring more adaptable architectures, efficient and intelligent data reduction, and faster recovery mechanisms. “PowerStore 4.1 was born to meet these demands,” she said.
Two-way protection creates high availability
To address increasingly complex cybersecurity threats, Dell PowerStore has introduced the Metro Volume feature since version 3.0, supporting manual configuration to achieve zero RPOs/RTOs. Subsequently, PowerStore 3.6 added the Witness feature to ensure business continuity by actively monitoring dual sites. The newly evolved PowerStore 4.1 overturns traditional practices. No third-party tools are required. Metro Volume can be built by connecting two PowerStore devices in series, providing efficient and stable front-end operation services. With this update, PowerStore also adds support for front-end Windows Server 2016, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 operating systems and above, further expanding operating system relevance to meet diverse application needs.
Lin Junying further explained that Metro Volume offers numerous benefits to enterprises. Its zero RPOs/RTOs targets enable operations to be automatically taken over by a secondary PowerStore cluster in the event of an unexpected failure in the primary data center. Because it’s volume-based, the two PowerStores can also load-balance front-end workloads. Metro Volumes on both PowerStores can read and write data in real time, achieving block-level active-active data synchronization (Active/Active).
Furthermore, in response to the increasing prevalence of ransomware attacks, PowerStore 4.1 also extends the Secure Snapshots feature to file systems. Lin Junying explained that typical snapshots cannot be edited but can be deleted. In the event of a hacker attack, these snapshots could be deleted, posing a security risk. However, Secure Snapshots are neither editable nor deletable. Even storage administrators must wait until the retention period expires before deleting them, thus protecting critical data.
Multi-cloud architecture extends to overseas data centers
Another highlight of PowerStore is Storage Direct Protection. As early as PowerStore 3.5, you can use Storage Direct to back up volume data to Data Domain on-premises or DD Virtual Edition (DDVE) in the cloud. With simple setup, protection policies can be configured in just 90 seconds, allowing for rapid data backup.
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The newly released PowerStore 4.1 enables faster data restores, supporting restores between different PowerStore storage devices and significantly improving restore efficiency by up to four times. This is particularly suitable for financial institutions deploying offshore data centers to support business expansion or risk diversification. Storage Direct extends this solution beyond offshore data centers, allowing data to be backed up to the cloud-based DDVEs of the three major public clouds via local PowerStore devices, and then rapidly restored to PowerStore devices in offshore data centers.
Leveraging DRR and QLC for both cost-effectiveness and efficiency
The newly evolved PowerStore 4.1 also enhances efficiency in multiple ways. Continuing the intelligent data reduction built into PowerStore 4.0, it achieves a data reduction ratio of up to 5:1. This means businesses can accommodate five times the amount of data within the same storage footprint. In other words, 100TB of storage capacity can be met with just 20TB of hard drive space. Leveraging built-in Intel chip hardware, PowerStore performs inline deduplication and compression, saving space while ensuring uncompromised I/O performance, allowing businesses to achieve both extreme performance and exceptional capacity efficiency. (Data reduction ratios may vary for individual applications. For example, files that are encrypted or compressed on the front end, PDFs, audio files, or images, cannot be deduplicated. Please refer to the relevant terms and conditions for details . )
For environments requiring large storage capacities but limited budgets, or with infrequent data changes, Dell Technologies offers a cost-effective solution without sacrificing performance for backup, archiving, media asset preservation, and cold data storage applications. Enterprises can choose NVMe QLC SSDs to meet these needs. Lin Junying explained that the PowerStore 3200Q shares the same architecture and framework as other PowerStore series models, differing only in its use of 15.36TB NVMe QLC SSDs. This, coupled with a 5:1 data reduction guarantee, makes it ideal for highly scalable and cost-sensitive enterprise environments.
Lin Junying finally emphasized that PowerStore 4.1 also provides predictive analytics. Enterprises can set up the Security Connect Gateway (SCG) locally to transmit device data to Dell AIOps for analysis. “This is a free monitoring service provided by Dell Technologies. We found that from 2020 to 2025, 79% of repair reports from existing users (Installed Base) were proactively initiated by Dell, and messages were also sent to storage device administrators.” Furthermore, the Dell AIOps Health Score can understand the health of devices based on five core factors: components, configuration, capacity, performance, and data protection. Furthermore, to meet ESG sustainability requirements, Dell AIOps (formerly known as CloudIQ) has added carbon emissions analysis. Energy usage and carbon emissions data can be presented on the dashboard, allowing enterprises to have a clear overview.
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