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Dell ECS vs NetApp StorageGRID comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 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

Pure Storage FlashBlade
Sponsored
Ranking in File and Object Storage
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (16th), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (7th)
Dell ECS
Ranking in File and Object Storage
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp StorageGRID
Ranking in File and Object Storage
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 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 7.8%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp StorageGRID is 5.7%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
File and Object Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Eric Black - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
SamuelThomas - PeerSpot reviewer
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.…
Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Object-based storage and offers intuitive management tools, making it easy to configure and maintain
The only thing missing is flexibility in configuration to cater to specific customer requirements. Another area of improvement is marketing. NetApp's marketing of StorageGRID isn't optimal. They should present it more effectively, especially in regions like Pakistan. Here, I haven't seen any marketing campaigns from NetApp for StorageGRID or the Solid State Platform (SSP). While StorageGRID is a globally recognized product, I haven't seen any marketing efforts from NetApp in Pakistan. Even competitors are promoting object storage solutions here, but NetApp seems less efficient in selling StorageGRID. There might be one or two customers, but even as a NetApp partner, I'm not aware of any major sales. I've been trained on StorageGRID, and it is a good product. I'm unsure why it hasn't gained traction in Pakistan compared to other countries. So, I just recommend improving the marketing campaigns in Pakistan. I'm pretty confident that if we have one example of successful StorageGRID implementation in Pakistan, other customers will follow suit.

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 of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."
"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."
"It's very easy-to-use."
"The tool's most valuable features are data warehousing, speedy recovery, and analytics. Its latest release is cost-effective."
"It has also helped to simplify storage for us in the way that it's easy to manage. Their automatic monitoring really helps when things break or are about to break. They see a problem coming and alert us even before our own system does."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power outages when we need to quickly move data between different data centers. It ensures efficient replication and helps maintain our data centers' uptime."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is performance."
"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."
"It's definitely good for unstructured data. In earlier days, we had Centera, so for the DR it's really good. It has load balancing facility, and we're using it with the Kemp Load Balancer."
"This product is very competitive."
"The tool is easy to use."
"It is 100% stable. It is also scalable."
"The support is good."
"It is a stable solution."
"The setup was straightforward."
"The scalability is good."
"It helps automate our storage infrastructure."
"The technical support team is reliable and responsive."
"The ability to get to the StorageGRID from anywhere on my network. The solution is remote. You don't have to be at a physical location."
"NetApp StorageGRID is a great alternative to AWS S3 buckets."
"Duplication, interface and the manageability is good and simple."
"It has enabled us to save money on storage costs. We removed our tape library."
"The backup features are valuable. I've heard from our backup and data protection people that our clients are very satisfied with the performance in junction with the backup, which they archive on this type of object storage."
"The management portals have most significantly improved our data retrieval times. They've made it much easier to restore data compared to our previous methods."
 

Cons

"Compared to, for example, Hitachi NAS, the solution is not mature at all. It's just in its infancy as far as technology goes."
"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."
"It would be nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade should improve on more cloud integration."
"I would like to see better integration."
"Its configuration should be easier."
"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."
"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."
"We have concerns about the write performance. We would also like it to be easier to scale out, to add more boxes to the system. And we want improved performance, to use a next-generation NFS service."
"We have had issues when the ECS is expiring or the NetBackup is expiring images."
"In Taiwan, they don't have professional technical support."
"They do not have complete documentation, which is very weak and could be improved."
"The solution could be more cost-effective and secure."
"The solution’s stability could be improved."
"Dell ECS needs to improve its performance."
"Its security can be improved."
"I just recommend improving the marketing campaigns in Pakistan."
"There was a small amount of confusion when working with StorageGRID and Active Directory for access. We had to do things three to four times resulting in our engineer troubleshooting a couple of things. The location of the menu, along with what is inside the menu: configurations, settings, etc., is not straightforward to users. Most users are Windows-based. So, when make logical changes to the menu which are not similar to Windows, users and administrators get confused."
"They can enhance the deduplication and compression features, which are crucial for saving more disk space."
"We want to move towards Azure in the cloud. Right now, the system is all physical."
"Improvements need to be made in the support area."
"The redundancy and reliability are great, but I also see room for improvement there. I would like to see more efficiency in the storage and dedupe/compression solutions."
"I would like to see them integrate more with the monitoring platforms. It is a bit difficult to get automated monitoring of the system."
"The only real issue that we have run into is, when we are cloning, we cannot do a thin provision clone, it has to be a full clone."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is very expensive."
"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."
"Our licensing is renewed annually."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."
"The price could be cheaper."
"I feel that the price could always be lowered."
"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."
"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."
"If I remember correctly, Dell ECS is an appliance, so if you buy Dell ECS, you also have to buy the hardware, while IBM is standalone software, so you can buy IBM as software only without needing to buy the hardware. On a scale of one to five, I'm rating the pricing for Dell ECS a four."
"It is an inexpensive product."
"The price of Dell ECS should be reduced."
"Dell EMC ECS is too 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."
"The price of Dell ECS should be reduced."
"The solution's cost is quite reasonable."
"We are not paying for the license at this stage."
"I rate the product pricing around five out of ten—it's negotiable, depending on the circumstances."
"We save money on storage costs from this solution since it allows us to have a source of revenue from customers consuming the service."
"The pricing is quite flexible and depends on the specific customer requirements. The initial cost is primarily based on the desired capacity, so it's not a fixed price."
"NetApp is not known for being the cheapest storage option on the market. Almost all of the other storage options we looked at were less expensive than StorageGRID. The price is one thing to criticize, which is what we hear internally and from customers as well. They find the cost of the terabytes in this class of storage a little bit higher than expected."
"We chose NetApp because of price and performance."
"The price is attractive."
"With respect to pricing, it is okay. This product is mid-range."
"It is very cost-effective."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Manufacturing Company
19%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
5%
 

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...
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...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC ECS?
The pricing is moderate and at par with the market. As a service provider, we receive good margins, indicating a favo...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC ECS?
Dell ECS is not fully compatible with S3 ( /products/amazon-s3-reviews ), as it supports around ninety percent of S3 ...
What do you like most about NetApp StorageGRID?
The management portals have most significantly improved our data retrieval times. They've made it much easier to rest...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp StorageGRID?
I rate the product pricing around five out of ten—it's negotiable, depending on the circumstances.
What needs improvement with NetApp StorageGRID?
The product's continual innovation and enhancement in integration capabilities with other NetApp solutions could be b...
 

Also Known As

No data available
EMC ECS, Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage, EMC Elastic Cloud Storage
Storage GRID
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Atos
ASE, DARZ GmbH
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell ECS vs. NetApp StorageGRID and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.