Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Dell PowerStore comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.0
Dell PowerScale enhances data management with cost-efficiency, improved performance, storage capacity, resource optimization, and workload automation benefits.
Sentiment score
7.0
Dell PowerStore users report improved efficiency, lower costs, and productivity gains despite higher initial costs, anticipating future benefits.
Despite being more expensive than Huawei, it is stable and most enterprises accept the price due to its stability.
We have reduced infrastructure but the same performance.
With Dell PowerStore, even if the report runs and taxes out the database server heavily, the tool doesn't suffer from a performance hit.
It identified some areas in which we could get some good reductions and could decrease the data center footprint.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.2
Dell PowerScale support is generally responsive, with some escalation needed; users appreciate assistance with complex technical issues.
Sentiment score
7.3
Dell PowerStore's support is fast and proactive, though occasionally hindered by escalation delays and language barriers.
Dell provides support within four hours, and they always fulfill their promises.
They have managed previous issues well.
The service, particularly about hardware issues and support ticket handling, is an area that needs significant improvement.
If necessary, they will search for a specialist within their Dell network who we can approach with our questions.
I would rate the technical support of Dell PowerStore between nine and ten out of ten.
They also struggled with handling cases from different time zones.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) offers strong scalability, easy integration, and minimal overhead, supporting large data and numerous connections efficiently.
Sentiment score
7.2
Dell PowerStore excels in scalability and performance, easily adapting to future needs despite high-end upgrade costs.
Dell PowerScale is highly scalable, as evidenced by the reduced physical hardware and the efficient use of rack space.
Due to both cost and the knowledge required to maintain and use them, there are considerations about scalability.
The customer likely exceeds 20,000 users globally.
The smaller models are not very scalable, while the larger ones offer better scalability.
You can create as many tools as needed, providing scalability based on the use case.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) offers exceptional stability, minimal downtime, easy management, and resilience, maintaining outstanding performance even in challenging environments.
Sentiment score
8.0
Dell PowerStore is highly stable and reliable, with impressive failover capabilities and minimal need for user support.
I would rate the stability of Dell PowerStore a ten out of ten.
There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze.
I would rate the stability of Dell PowerStore as ten out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Dell PowerScale is expensive, lacks cloud version, complicates operations, and needs improvements in encryption, interface, and object storage performance.
Dell PowerStore users request enterprise features, better VMware integration, improved cybersecurity, competitive pricing, and enhanced support and documentation.
Hardware failures under warranty should be addressed within the promised timeline.
If you want to delve into where your I/Os are going, the reporting might need more in-depth information to make informed decisions.
In my organization, we have had to go through two weeks with no replication, which is not very handy for our production environment.
Something needs to be done with the caching to ensure that if some issue occurs, there needs to be an ability to disable caching during maintenance to make it static, safe, and good.
 

Setup Cost

Dell PowerScale is costly initially but offers value through comprehensive features, ease of management, and flexibility long-term.
Dell PowerStore is seen as expensive yet valued for its features, scalability, and competitive edge among NVMe storage options.
The pricing of Dell solutions is higher than that of Huawei.
Likely the cost is $400,000 whereas IBM may be $250,000.
It's an all-inclusive license, so there are no additional charges.
The price of the solution is high compared to IBM.
 

Valuable Features

Dell PowerScale offers scalable management, reliable performance, data security, and efficient storage with minimal administrative effort and cost management.
Dell PowerStore offers flexibility, efficiency, and VMware integration with scalable architecture, high IOPS, low latency, and cost-effectiveness.
Dell PowerScale offers high scalability and stability as well, making it a valuable solution for enterprises.
Dell PowerScale helps in saving costs related to power and rack space, reducing physical hardware from over one hundred to twenty-nine chassis.
Eyeglass is used to monitor for malware, which is very useful for us.
The solution's most valuable features are the quick data compression process and ease of scalability for all types of support contracts.
Typically, high-performance and high-availability features, such as application snapshots and remote and local replication, are highly valued.
The solution promotes data reduction, often meeting the compression ratio.
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)
Ranking in NAS
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (3rd)
Dell PowerStore
Ranking in NAS
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (4th), Enterprise SAN (1st), All-Flash Storage (1st), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the NAS category, the mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 17.8%, up from 17.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 12.3%, up from 11.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS
 

Featured Reviews

Eric Burgueño - PeerSpot reviewer
Simplified data management, tremendously reducing our users’ cognitive overhead
The only thing that I think PowerScale could do better is improving the HTTP data access protocol. At the present, you cannot protect access to data via HTTP or HTTPS the same way that you can secure data access through other protocols like NFS or SMB. You can either access a file because it can be access by anyone in the organization, or you cannot at all. There is no in-between. HTTP is not considered a first-class data access protocol, so the Unified Permission Model that would allow a user to authenticate before being able to access a private file, does not apply. However, with the recent introduction of S3 starting from OneFS 9, I believe the necessary plumbing is already there for HTTPS to also be elevated to a first-class protocol in the future because both protocols sit behind a web server under the hood. It does not sound like it would be too complicated to implement, but it would be a valuable feature and it is currently missing.
Brian Ricci - PeerSpot reviewer
It's constantly enhanced and has impressive reliability and data compression
The maintenance is a bit expensive. The service and support are there for three years, but after the third year, it is pretty pricey for renewal. I hope Dell addresses that. Everything is pricey these days anyway. It is not like the old days of Compellent. We used to be able to see the metrics for our customers. On Compellent, we could look up that customer and see all the metrics. That is not allowed for us now. We cannot do that anymore. I have to be explicitly allowed by the customer to do that, and some companies' security does not allow that.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which NAS solutions are best for your needs.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
The solution provides massive performance, scalability, efficiency, and ease of management.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
Every time we purchase a PowerScale solution, we buy four nodes for one data center and four for another, with five years of maintenance covered by Dell. It's a high-cost offering amounting to thre...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
Dell's customer service needs improvement. Specifically, hardware failures under warranty should be addressed within the promised timeline. I face difficulty in tracing and finding the right suppor...
What do you think about Dell EMC PowerStore? Is it actually a new product?
PowerStore is flexible, scalable, simple, and performant with market-leading economics for a wide range of legacy and next-gen apps. It is only Flash and can support many workloads from today's app...
How does Dell's EMC PowerStore compare with its EMC Unity XT?
Dell EMC PowerStore is a unified storage platform that has the added benefit of being scalable. The automated management of resources feature provides a more simple administration. I found the flex...
What's the difference between DELL EMC Powerstore and Powermax NVMe?
Dell PowerStore is an all-solid-state midrange storage system. It has many internal elements taken from other Dell offerings and integrated into the PowerStoreOS. The installation and setup have a ...
 

Also Known As

PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
PowerStore
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

OMRF, University of Utah, Translational Genetics Research Institute, Arcis, Geofizyka Torumn, Cyprus E&P Corporation, Colburn School, Columbia Sportswear, Harvard Medical School, University of Michigan, National Library of France,
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Dell PowerStore and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.