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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
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (16th), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (8th)
Dell ECS
Ranking in File and Object Storage
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp StorageGRID
Ranking in File and Object Storage
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.8%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell ECS is 7.9%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp StorageGRID is 5.9%, 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 snapshots, replication, and the ability to have immutable blades are the most valuable features. You're putting data snapshots out in those blades, and they cannot be touched. Its performance is great."
"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 this solution an eight plus. It has has good flexibility and stability, it's easy to manage and the response time is good."
"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."
"It's very easy-to-use."
"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 solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."
"The most valuable feature for me is off-site storage."
"The scalability is good."
"It's my understanding that the initial setup is straightforward."
"It is a stable platform."
"The technology is very good, it performs well."
"The performance is good."
"What I like best about this product is that it is a complete solution, both hardware, and software, by the same vendor."
"Dell ECS is very easy to handle, primarily because the web UI dashboard and everything is very easy to manage for every customer."
"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."
"The scalability is very effective for our customers."
"The feature of StorageGRID that I find most valuable for ensuring data durability and protection is its Information Lifecycle Management functionality."
"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."
"The features or capabilities of NetApp StorageGRID that I have found the most valuable include scalability, interoperability, and integration options."
"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."
"Cost-effective and easy to deploy."
"It has improved our operational efficiency through time consumption and logistics by 40 to 50 percent. Everything that had to do with our legacy tape solution has been improved and is now more efficient."
 

Cons

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."
"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 nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."
"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."
"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."
"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."
"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."
"Dell ECS could improve the price of the solution. It is expensive."
"It is a good solution, except for the cost."
"They do not have complete documentation, which is very weak and could be improved."
"You should be able to calculate so that when it's full it's 100% full, not just 90%."
"They could provide centralized reports."
"The disaster recovery could be improved because there should be something in-built within the ECS. Search and recovery should be in-built. Right now, we have to use some external tools for performing the recovery itself. For example, we're using Atempo or deploying Golden Superna, so it has dependency on the external third party vendors."
"The deployment is not easy, and some expertise is required to configure the virtual data center and replication groups."
"The initial setup is not so easy."
"One key improvement I'd like to see in StorageGRID is enhanced visibility for management purposes."
"They can enhance the deduplication and compression features, which are crucial for saving more disk space. It's not at the same level as the NetApp filer or the real NetApp cluster that runs itself on its architecture, as StorageGRID is a software solution that emulates a RAID level."
"It's quite complex, which is a disadvantage; it's enterprise-level, it's complicated to set up, and you need external support."
"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."
"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."
"If I could change anything in NetApp StorageGRID, that would be pricing."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."
"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."
"Licensing fees are paid yearly."
"Our licensing is renewed annually."
"The product is very expensive."
"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."
"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."
"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."
"Dell EMC ECS is too expensive."
"The price of Dell ECS should be reduced."
"The solution could be cheaper."
"The price of Dell ECS should be reduced."
"It is an expensive solution. There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the product."
"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."
"Dell ECS is a cost-effective solution."
"The charges for this solution are made in blocks of models, which are purchased depending on what features an organization requires."
"The licensing that the S3 service provides them from a FabricPool standpoint is more attractive than the licensing from AWS or Azure."
"Creating your own data stores, backups, or storage grids, helps eliminate all these costs of downloading all the data back after you downloaded to the cloud."
"We chose NetApp because of price and performance."
"We pay for a license annually."
"With respect to pricing, it is okay. This product is mid-range."
"It is very cost-effective."
"The price is attractive."
"Our licensing is in INR it was around 25 lakhs, which is roughly two million."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
19%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
6%
 

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 of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...
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?
It's difficult for me to comment on improvements for Dell ECS because we typically do not engage in those areas. We h...
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?
It would definitely be more on the expensive side, especially if you compare it with open source solutions like Ceph.
What needs improvement with NetApp StorageGRID?
If I could change anything in NetApp StorageGRID, that would be pricing. In terms of functionality, reliability, and ...
 

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: July 2025.
863,679 professionals have used our research since 2012.