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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 provides scalable, efficient storage with automation, improved performance, reliability, and integrates seamlessly for better ROI.
Sentiment score
7.0
Dell PowerStore boosts efficiency, space savings, and productivity, with long-term benefits outweighing initial setup costs despite varied financial outcomes.
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
8.6
Dell PowerScale support is responsive and knowledgeable, though experiences vary, with reliable 24/7 service and technical assistance.
Sentiment score
7.2
Dell EMC's service is responsive and effective, with some concerns about response times and support in newer regions.
Dell provides support within four hours, and they always fulfill their promises.
They have managed previous issues well.
It's very hard to get an engineer when we need one.
If necessary, they will search for a specialist within their Dell network who we can approach with our questions.
The solution's technical support is excellent.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Dell PowerScale offers scalable storage solutions with easy expansion, strong infrastructure, and efficient handling of large data volumes.
Sentiment score
7.2
Dell PowerStore provides scalable storage solutions tailored for medium to large enterprises, offering future growth potential and varied options.
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.
However, it can not scale out.
By continually extending NVMe, the drives can now reach up to 15 terabytes, which may differ from previous specifications.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Dell PowerScale is highly stable, offering exceptional uptime and reliability, with minimal maintenance and robust performance for critical tasks.
Sentiment score
8.0
Dell PowerStore is praised for stability and reliability, despite occasional minor software and hardware issues, receiving high ratings.
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
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.
 

Room For Improvement

Dell PowerScale needs pricing improvements, better cloud integration, enhanced redundancy, and user interface upgrades to address various performance issues.
Dell PowerStore needs improvements in replication, stability, VMware integration, NAS functionality, data reduction, support, pricing, cybersecurity, and user interface.
If a customer finds out SSD is not supported, they will look for another option.
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.
 

Setup Cost

Dell PowerScale is costly but offers fair value; negotiable pricing, modular licensing, and scalability appeal to enterprises.
Dell PowerStore offers competitive pricing with bundled features, appreciated for cost-effectiveness and scalability despite higher capacity costs.
The pricing of Dell solutions is higher than that of Huawei.
Likely the cost is $400,000 whereas IBM may be $250,000.
It is likely one of the most cost-effective options for organizations seeking a pure NVMe play in terms of pricing.
It's expensive, yet fits within our budget.
 

Valuable Features

Dell PowerScale offers scalable, efficient storage management with robust data protection and seamless integration across diverse enterprise environments.
Dell PowerStore provides flexible, high-performance storage with VMware integration, high IOPS, scalability, and efficient data management features.
Dell PowerScale offers high scalability and stability as well, making it a valuable solution for enterprises.
Eyeglass is used to monitor for malware, which is very useful for us.
One of the benefits of their continuous improvement approach is that each update comes with additional features, without any extra charges for previously missing functionalities.
This digital machine can be managed entirely remotely, with an automatic download available from Dell.
The solution's most valuable features are the quick data compression process and ease of scalability for all types of support contracts.
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)
Ranking in NAS
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
54
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
78
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (4th), Enterprise SAN (1st), All-Flash Storage (1st), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (1st)
 

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.
Hamed Mohamed - PeerSpot reviewer
Straightforward with great snapshots and no complicated configuration
The usage of the system is very straightforward. It is simple and easy to use. It has great snapshots. I can take a million snapshots and also schedule the timing. There is no complicated configuration for queries and calls. You just create a model and go. This generation of the product, overall, has been very nice. It is stable. The solution can scale.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
25%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
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)?
Improvements could be made to reduce the costs and the high level of knowledge needed to maintain and use them. We had old hard drives with moving parts in Dell PowerScale, and due to this, we must...
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,
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Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Dell PowerStore and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
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