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Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs FreeNAS 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:
 

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)
FreeNAS
Ranking in NAS
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the NAS category, the mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 17.6%, up from 17.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FreeNAS is 2.1%, down from 3.1% 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.
Vincenzo D'Aniello - PeerSpot reviewer
Open-source with great disk management and task synchronization
The system itself allows you to add any feature. The only bad thing is that this maybe depends on FreeBSD, and sometimes finding documentation is difficult. For example, we knew that previous versions automatically enabled the Linux kernel, yet with the recent version, this was no longer the case. Now, there was the possibility of being able to create Debian-based jails, and finding the documentation was not easy or fast. That said, in the end, we succeeded. If you find the documentation, it is always incomplete and fragmented.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Since it can scale so easily, as long as I have money to buy more nodes, I can grow it as big as I need to. That is important in our business. As sequencing technologies continue to evolve, and as those technologies evolve, the amount of data generation never gets smaller. It just always seems to get bigger. This is one of the absolute key aspects: We can grow on demand without having to forklift stuff."
"The most valuable feature is its single space of storage."
"PowerScale allows us to manage storage without managing RAID groups or migrating volumes between controllers. It has really simplified things. We're not having to worry about the underlying infrastructure. That takes care of itself. We just worry about the data. It's really easy for deploying and managing storage at the petabyte scale."
"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) integration with other solutions because of the standard file system protocol."
"The guaranteed performance, combined with the scalability through its scale-out capability, makes it an excellent choice."
"It has allowed us to have more consistent quality controls. It has also allowed us to expand the number of servers in clients processing and accessing data, allowing us to get a lot bigger projects out the door."
"The best thing is that it works. We don't have to maintain it too much; we usually upgrade once a year."
"This has been a valuable solution for our business overall. It offers business continuity and replication features."
"The ease of use of the 'jail', the management of backups, and copies to easily create test and pre-production scenarios have speeded up the development and distribution of business apps."
"It integrates well into either Windows or Linux environments."
"FreeNAS is much simpler and easier to use than other solutions, but we don't have the complete range of features that come with the full version."
"It has the best storage capacity."
"Its stability is the most valuable. It is reliable, and we don't have to worry too much about it."
"The solution has been very stable so far."
"What I like about it is that I can work on it from any computer or any device. The initial setup is very simple. The setup wizard is really helpful."
 

Cons

"I'd like to see more Iceland products in the cloud so that we can port our data into different environments if needed. I would also like to see a virtual appliance or software-defined Iceland product."
"There aren't many templates still coming out for it. They need to provide templates so we can copy and paste what we've done in the past to future, new things."
"Dell PowerScale needs to reduce its price."
"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 switch to a more efficient environment with all-flash."
"Always, there is room for improvement in terms of cybersecurity, as new challenges are continually emerging in the market."
"Improvements could be made on the object storage side."
"It is a bit higher priced than some of the other systems."
"Because of the magic that it does 'under the hood,' it is very difficult to find out within the system where all your storage is going. That's a little bit of a ding that we have on it. It does so much magic in order to protect itself from drive failures or multiple drive failures, that it automatically handles the provisioning and storage of your data. But by doing that, finding out why a file of a certain size, or a directory of a certain size, is using more storage than is being reported in InsightIQ, is very difficult to discern."
"The support for S3 needs to be improved."
"They can improve the integration with PSA systems. This functionality could be better."
"FreeNAS should be better prepared for clustering."
"The one thing that I find difficult to do which is very time-consuming is that I like to have a backup of the important files."
"They should include clustering for the solution."
"The latest version of the dashboard doesn't work as good as the previous version."
"If you find the documentation, it is always incomplete and fragmented."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is reasonable."
"I always want things to be less expensive. However, I would say the pricing is fair. Their costs are in alignment with their competitors. It is a good value for the money."
"Dealing with the product costs and licensing areas is getting easier since Dell is simplifying the licensing process and licensing packages offered to users."
"It is a really expensive solution."
"Dell PowerScale is expensive on the start-up side but we can recoup those costs quickly by not having to reapply the savings to other equipment."
"The price of the solution can fluctuate. The price can be competitive or other times not. The price of the solution could be better."
"Pricing for this solution is reasonable."
"The general cost for a system like this is expensive. The total cost depends on your use case. You need to pay for every additional feature that you use."
"Its price is okay. It suits our needs."
"We use the free version of the program."
"Its licensing cost is based on the hardware capacity."
"For our configuration, we pay a little bit less than €10,000 ($12,000 USD) per year."
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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
23%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
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 like most about FreeNAS?
The ease of use of the 'jail', the management of backups, and copies to easily create test and pre-production scenarios have speeded up the development and distribution of business apps.
What needs improvement with FreeNAS?
The system itself allows you to add any feature. The only bad thing is that this maybe depends on FreeBSD, and sometimes finding documentation is difficult. For example, we knew that previous versi...
 

Also Known As

PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
No data available
 

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,
Morroni Technologies Inc., Creative Integrations
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. FreeNAS and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.