Dell ECS vs MinIO comparison

Dell Technologies and MinIO are both solutions in the File and Object Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.1, while MinIO is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.0. Dell Technologies holds a 7.9% mindshare in FaOS, compared to MinIO’s 20.4% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of MinIO users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Dell ECS and MinIO are key contenders in the object storage sector, each catering to enterprise needs. MinIO shows an edge with its simplified deployment and flexible storage, while Dell ECS is distinguished by its strong support and integration capabilities.

Features: Dell ECS includes extensive enterprise integration, advanced security, and a seamless integration with Dell EMC products, providing a complete solution with both hardware and software. It is also valued for its compliance mode, scalability, and load balancing facilities. MinIO offers high-performance object storage, a user-friendly interface, and compatibility with Amazon's S3 for seamless application integration. The solution provides useful features like erasure coding and easy management, which is critical for cloud-native applications.

Room for Improvement: Dell ECS could improve in reducing deployment complexity and enhancing flexibility for smaller scale environments. There's a need for streamlined processes within complex setups and opportunities for better simplicity in usage. MinIO could benefit from more personalized support options, better extensive documentation, and further development on enterprise integration for comprehensive security. Enhancements in user interface customization and broader ecosystem support would also be advantageous.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell ECS can present a complex deployment requiring substantial IT resources, yet it is supported by comprehensive documentation and strong customer service. MinIO offers a significantly simpler deployment process, with flexibility and quick scalability, although it may lack the personalized customer service options that Dell ECS provides.

Pricing and ROI: Dell ECS typically involves higher initial costs due to its sophisticated hardware and enterprise support, but it is designed for a longer-term ROI with deep scalability and integration benefits. MinIO, conversely, presents a cost-effective setup ideal for smaller projects or limited budgets, offering rapid deployment and scalable infrastructure at a lower initial investment.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell ECS vs. MinIO Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell ECS vs. MinIO

March 2025

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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

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.8%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell ECS is 7.9%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MinIO is 20.4%, down from 24.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

File and Object Storage

Featured Reviews

Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us

The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.

Read full review

SamuelThomas

Consultant at Key Information Technology L.L.C.

Managing efficiently with user-friendly interfaces for monitoring and managing resources

We normally recommend Dell ECS to enterprise customers and government customers Dell ECS is very easy to handle, primarily because the web UI dashboard and everything is very easy to manage for every customer. They can monitor the DPS, access failures, bandwidth, failed requests, and latency.…

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Abdelrahim-Ahmad

Data Scientist at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees

Provides good object storage functionalities

MinIO should provide an easier subscription model for companies that don't have a huge amount of data. Our company has a maximum of 100 terabytes of data. The solution should provide more bugging tools in the open-source version to encourage people to buy the support services. It's not an easy decision. If I go to the management and tell them that I need to buy a service, there should be an easier subscription model for companies that don't have huge amounts of data. For me, getting a subscription for 15,000 a year for a system already in production might be a bit hard. I think MinIO supports a minimum of one petabyte or 100 terabytes of data. Since we don't have such huge amounts of data, buying a subscription for the solution is a bit difficult. Hence, we're only using the open-source version for now. If MinIO becomes really crucial for our business, we could ask the management to get a subscription.

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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 features include the ease of implementation, ease of use and the speed that you can do backup and recovery on."

"The ease of deployment and management has helped us simplify our storage. We also do not have to worry about capacity management as much. A lot of these things are native to Pure Storage."

"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."

"We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."

"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is user-friendly. It's replication feature is great because it has active replication and active DR. That's the beauty of the product. It's a perfect solution for block storage."

"The performance of FlashBlade is excellent. It does not necessarily leverage the SOS API that some of the newer products leverage, but I found its speed pretty much on par and comparable. It is fast, and it does what it is supposed to do."

"The product is scalable and easy to expand."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The performance and support from Dell EMC are very good."

"It's my understanding that the initial setup is straightforward."

"I like that the solution is easy to scale and that's its stable."

"It is 100% stable. It is also scalable."

"Dell ECS is very easy to handle, primarily because the web UI dashboard and everything is very easy to manage for every customer."

"Dell's technical support team is good."

"This solution is very easy to use, and is very reliable."

"What I like best about Dell ECS is its stability. I also like that you can use it for large-scale data purposes. The solution works fine for me, and I haven't encountered any issues with it."

More Dell ECS pros

"I use the solution's basic object storage functionalities, like AWS S3 compatible APIs and creating buckets."

"The most valuable feature of MinIO is its ease of use, replication, and active directory. All the capabilities are in this solution."

"The container installation features are good. The S3 feature provisions the storage buckets making it easy. It allows me to spin up the public buckets with open-source technology."

"The features that I have found most valuable with MinIO is its coding bit rot protection and how it distributes the workload over all the servers."

"The solution has good compatibility with different kinds of storage."

"The initial setup was straightforward as MinIO provided good support documentation and took a couple of days to complete."

"The stability of MinIO is good."

"MinIO can work with attributes and folders, and it has the ability to use a stream approach for files. I have moments that should work exclusively. It also has some management features you can use, like exclusive locks that you can perform on one record or a collection."

More MinIO pros

Cons

"In terms of scalability, it doesn't expand out quite as robustly as some of the others, but it covers 90% of the market in what it does."

"I would also like to see better support for CIFS workloads."

"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."

"Commvault has mainly driven the Analytics, providing data and reports. However, the product has room for improvement, especially regarding storage analytics. Upgrading firmware has caused issues, requiring feature disabling to revert to traditional backups. The firmware upgrades sometimes affect Commvault backups."

"It would be beneficial if the layer could support the S3 protocol and be container ready in the next release."

"File storage needs a lot of improvement. Mainframe connectivity also needs improvement because it requires additional components to be integrated with Pure Storage FlashBlade. If you want to keep your backup data, then this becomes an even more expensive solution because Pure Storage FlashBlade will not be able to meet your backup needs."

"An area for improvement in Pure Storage FlashBlade is its price. It could be reduced. The technical support for Pure Storage FlashBlade also needs improvement. It used to be good, with more experienced engineers. Nowadays, it isn't, and it takes longer for support to solve problems."

"We haven't been able to use much of the cloud area of Pure Storage. We have a storage server and it would be better if it could integrate with other cloud features of this solution."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"Its security can be improved."

"The initial setup is not so easy."

"They could provide centralized reports."

"If Dell ECS would be available as standalone software, so you can use any hardware with it, would make the solution better. It would also be good if Dell ECS had more integrations with other products."

"The solution could be more cost-effective and secure."

"One area for product improvement would be the garbage collection process. It takes longer than expected, so speeding up that process would be beneficial."

"Dell EMC ECS should support segregation of duty, particularly for role-based access controls. Having a single pane of glass for smarter observation and better control mechanism would also make this solution better."

"The troubleshooting feature of this solution needs to be improved, to allow organizations to fix issues without having to contact the support team."

More Dell ECS cons

"The monitoring capability is really bad and needs to be improved."

"There should be the ability to expand the size after it has already been deployed. Currently, you cannot do that. It doesn't support an increase in size. Each time we spawn a new MinIO, we need to track the particular MinIO instance or tenant that has the file. Therefore, we had to create a multi-tenant solution that tracks the MinIO that has our artifacts. It isn't in one single instance. It should have better multi-tenancy support."

"The only downside I see is that you do not have a complete picture of an object."

"MinIO should provide an easier subscription model for companies that don't have a huge amount of data."

"The tool’s pricing needs to improve. We also encountered challenges while deploying the tool in Kubernetes. The documentation also was not too great. We have currently deployed the solution in a stand-alone fashion."

"The scalability is one of the limitations we have found. We are looking for another solution but they must provide the same characteristics, such as an affordable price and continuity."

"Its reverse proxy features could be better."

"There is a lack of good addons to integrate without having to use third-party applications."

More MinIO cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."

"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."

"Support is a separate line item. Support is a different cost, but whatever your support is now, that's what you're going to pay forever. If your support's $100 today, six years from now it's $100. It doesn't fluctuate unless you upgrade it, or change it, etc."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"We initially purchased all of the licenses at the same time."

"The price of Dell ECS should be reduced."

"The solution's cost is quite reasonable."

"The charges for this solution are made in blocks of models, which are purchased depending on what features an organization requires."

"We are not paying for the license at this stage."

"Dell ECS is a cost-effective solution."

"The product is quite expensive."

"It's a lease-based model, so it's capacity-based. We already negotiated the price a lot, but we're still doing that with Dell because somehow the product was not installed successfully, so there was a lot of struggle in the distributor territory between Dell and the environment itself. I would give the solution a 6 out of 10 for the pricing. There's a little room for improvement."

More Dell ECS pricing and cost advice

"This solution is open source so it is free."

"We use the solution's open-source version."

"My company hasn't tried the version of the solution where we need to pay to use it."

"This is an open-source solution but I am using the licensed version."

"MinIO is a free open-source solution."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

37%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

22%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.

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What do you like most about Dell EMC ECS?

The tool is easy to use.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC ECS?

The price is reasonable given the abundance of features, including managing, control, host resources, dockers, and co...

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What needs improvement with Dell EMC ECS?

There is a need to improve the infrastructure, particularly for SUSE Linux experts. The deployment is not easy, and s...

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How does Red Hat Ceph Storage compare with MiniO?

Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This ...

See all answers

What do you like most about MinIO?

I like that if you have a problem, you can buy the home server. It is stable and robust.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MinIO?

We use the solution's open-source version.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 21% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 12% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

Qumulo vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 4% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Dell ECS

Compared 19% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Dell ECS

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Dell ECS

Compared 13% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Dell ECS

Compared 8% of the time

Hitachi Content Platform vs Dell ECS

Compared 4% of the time

More Dell ECS Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs MinIO

Compared 58% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs MinIO

Compared 7% of the time

Cloudian HyperStore vs MinIO

Compared 4% of the time

Scality RING vs MinIO

Compared 3% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs MinIO

Compared 3% of the time

More MinIO Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

March 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell ECS

March 2025

Download Dell ECS product report

Buyer's Guide

MinIO

March 2025

Download MinIO product report

Also Known As

No data available

EMC ECS, Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage, EMC Elastic Cloud Storage

No data available

Overview

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

Enterprise-ready. Future-proof. Data-first.

Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS) is a file and object storage solution from Dell EMC. ECS has been created to support both traditional and next-generation ecosystems equally. ECS boasts unrivaled economics, manageability, resilience, and scalability to satisfy the demands of today's next-gen, robust business enterprise ecosystems. ECS can easily be deployed in a software-defined model or as a turn-key appliance. ECS is software-defined and multi-layered for unlimited scalability. Every layer is abstracted and scalable with no single point of failure.

Data service layer: Provides S3 access along with access to SWIFT, CAZ, NFS, HDFS.
Storage service layer: Stores, retrieves and protects data.
Fabric layer: Provides clustering, configuration management, health monitoring.

Everything is done within the software, which is containerized, using docker.

ECS is currently deployed using basic commodity hardware, which can easily be federated across as many as eight different locations and managed as a single resource. Additionally, ECS can also protect data at the site level, locally, disk, node, and rack levels. The federation enables a single global namespace with everywhere access to content. Applications can quickly rewrite in an active/active or everywhere active manner.

ECS is also able to be used as secondary storage or archival storage. This will free up valuable primary storage of data that is stale, redundant, or used infrequently, and the data will remain easily accessible. ECS uses policy-based tiering such as Data Domain, Cloud tiering, Isilon using cloud polls, and Geodrive, which give Windows systems direct access to ECS. Windows users can still use server message block (SMB) while leveraging the more expansive ECS storage.

ECS is enterprise-grade and offers valuable features such as retention, multi-tenancy, metering, monitoring, quotas, and more. ECS builds in robust security from the ground up and encrypts data. ECS is compliant with STIG guidelines and adheres to SEC rule 17A-4F.

ECS is an enterprise-ready solution that allows organizations to easily simplify object storage management and visualize information in intuitive new ways, and empowers your business to do even more with data. With ECS, enterprise organizations can deliver cloud-scale economics in-house that will lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and scale, creating greater levels of productivity and profitability.

Reviews from Real Users

One user, who is a deputy director at a tech service company, says ECS offers “good performance, reliability, and technical support”.

Dell EMC ECS is “a stable solution which is easy to scale, install and manage”, relates another user, who is a senior buyer at a tech service company.

"What I like best about this product is that it is a complete solution, both hardware, and software, by the same vendor," summarizes a system engineer at a tech services company.

Dell Technologies

MinIO is an open-source object storage system. It is designed to efficiently store and retrieve unstructured data, such as photos, videos, and backups. MinIO can be used as a standalone object storage server or as part of a larger system, such as a data lake or a private cloud, and can be deployed on-premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid environment, making it a flexible storage solution for a variety of use cases.

MinIO’s features include erasure coding, bitrot protection, and checksum validation, which help ensure data integrity and reliability. The solution’s multi-tenancy support makes it ideal for multi-user environments. MinIO’s edge computing tools enable data storage and processing closer to users' locations, reducing latency and improving performance. MinIO can easily scale to accommodate storage and power demands, making it ideal for use in large-scale, data-intensive environments.

MinIO Benefits and Features:

MinIO offers several key benefits and features for organizations looking for a scalable and high-performing object storage solution:

Scalability: Horizontally scale to increase storage space and processing power as your needs grow.

High performance: MinIO’s edge computing and low latency provide fast data access.

Seamless integrations: MinIO is compatible with the Amazon S3 API, which enables integration with third-party systems and tools.

Data integrity: Security features, such as erasure coding, bitrot protection, and checksum validation, ensure data integrity and reliability.

Reduced costs: MinIO is an open-source solution, making it a cost-effective option for organizations looking for a scalable object storage solution.

Support: MinIO’s large open-source community of developers and users provides a wide range of resources and an active support network

Multi-tenancy: Multi-tenancy support makes MinIO suitable for use in multi-user environments.

Easy deployment: MinIO is easy to deploy and can run on a variety of platforms, including on-premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid environment.

Access control: Role-based access control, enabling you to control access to data based on users permissions.

Event notifications: Automate workflows based on changes to objects in your storage.

Cross-region replication: Duplicate data between different regions for disaster recovery and data backup.

Intuitive interface: MinIO’s user-friendly dashboard can be accessed via any browser and can be used to perform multiple object operations including object creation and management.

Reviews from Real Users

MinIO stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its flexibility, integration options, and performance.

Süleyman Fazıl Y., a senior software engineer at a tech services company, writes, “The most valuable features are that MinIO is open, it works on-premise, and is compatible with the Amazon industry which is great for finding compatible libraries in many languages which is very good for developers.”

Rebecca S., CTO at NIASE, says, “MinIO is much improved over the prior solution, updates are simple to apply, and we anticipate that future capacity requirements will be easier to meet. Our customers are using this solution to retrieve tens of thousands of objects (documents and files) per hour, and MinIO seems to be able to keep up with it.”

MinIO

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

Atos

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell ECS vs. MinIO

March 2025

Free Report: Dell ECS vs. MinIO

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell ECS vs. MinIO and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

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