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

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs HPE File Storage and Object Storage comparison

Sponsored
 

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 (17th)
Dell PowerScale (Isilon)
Ranking in File and Object Storage
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
NAS (1st)
HPE File Storage and Object...
Ranking in File and Object Storage
32nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (27th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 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 PowerScale (Isilon) is 8.8%, up from 8.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE File Storage and Object Storage is 0.2%. 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.
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.
LG
Has robust security features ensuring data protection, and clients benefits from fast access to integrated data
The best features of HPE Cloud Object Storage include easy management, scalability, and unified access to both object and block storage. Security measures are robust, ensuring data protection, and clients benefit from fast access to integrated data across different platforms like Cisco, Microsoft SQL, and Palantir in a unified view.

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."
"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."
"I like its size. It is smaller than the other competitors. We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte."
"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."
"Among its most appealing features are its ease of handling and minimal maintenance requirements."
"Using this solution has made our backups more reliable."
"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 most valuable feature is Safe Mode."
"Our main goal is to do disaster recovery with whatever solution we use and Isilon makes it pretty simple to replicate those workloads over to our secondary data center."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its performance."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the unlimited scalability. The tool has high availability and high storage capacity."
"The most valuable features of the solution are flexibility and ease of implementation."
"Dell PowerScale's performance is good."
"The solution's most valuable features are scalability and flexibility."
"Features like ransomware protection, file lock retention, and third-party integrations (e.g., Superna for ransomware protection) are significant benefits."
"For maximizing storage utilization, PowerScale is great. When you write the data to it, it spreads it out to all the nodes, so you get all the performance from the entire pool."
"This is a scalable solution that is available when we need it."
"The best features of HPE Cloud Object Storage include easy management, scalability, and unified access to both object and block storage. Security measures are robust, ensuring data protection, and clients benefit from fast access to integrated data across different platforms like Cisco, Microsoft SQL, and Palantir in a unified view."
"One of the features offered and used by many clients is file-sharing."
 

Cons

"To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."
"The technical support needs to improve. When we open a case, it is auto assigned to a support tech person. Nine out of ten times, we get an email right back saying that person is off until tomorrow. I cannot handle that. They just did this over the weekend to us, too. I had to call our rep and have them do something about it."
"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."
"I would also like to see better support for CIFS workloads."
"On our dedupe during our initial buy, we were expecting a number a little higher like 4x. However, we are getting about 3.6. While it is close enough, it doesn't quite hit the numbers. So, this has been a challenge."
"Its configuration should be easier."
"It would be beneficial if the layer could support the S3 protocol and be container ready in the next release."
"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."
"The product’s expansion capacity, pricing clarity, and ease of use need improvement."
"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 solution can be integrated with an automation system. Dell uses another framework developed in-house. They can integrate it with machines."
"The biggest weakness is small file handling. Small file compression options are not enabled out of the box. It would be good to have this enabled by default."
"PowerScale is not suitable for virtual environments."
"The product needs to improve CLI since commands are complex. The search option is also difficult since you must give the full path."
"Isilon has limitations on the number of files that can be generated."
"It would be good to have synchronized mirroring between two clusters without using a third-party program."
"At present, the initial setup is slow."
"Technical support is not available locally for us."
"Our customers in Canada cannot use it because it has to be compliant in the same country."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."
"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."
"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."
"Licensing fees are paid yearly."
"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."
"Our licensing is renewed annually."
"The price is a little high."
"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."
"The price of the solution is high."
"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."
"Pricing for this solution is reasonable."
"We paid an additional fee to have Dell's ProDeploy Plus team implement it."
"We use the TNA approach which is a great opportunity for us to better manage the licenses based on how much consumption is available for the different customers so we can use that approach and scalability."
"Dell PowerScale is an expensive solution compared to other products like Qumulo."
"The solution's licensing cost varies based on capacity and performance requirements."
"This solution is priced slightly higher than others on the market but does offer good quality. With this solution's data reduction and compression, we were able to purchase less. Costs have dropped because of the data rate of compression and deduplication."
"Pricing is middle of the road, but it seems that it should be less expensive."
"Licensing is based on a per terabyte basis."
"HPE Cloud Object Storage is competitively priced and offers a good value for its solution. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which File and Object Storage solutions are best for your needs.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
37%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
23%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 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 y...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
Dell's customer service needs improvement. Specifically, hardware failures under warranty should be addressed within ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Cloud Object Storage?
HPE Cloud Object Storage is competitively priced and offers a good value for its solution. There are no additional co...
What is your primary use case for HPE Cloud Object Storage?
Many companies use HPE Cloud Object Storage for analytics solutions in MongoDB to create business insights. In our da...
 

Also Known As

No data available
PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
HP Cloud Object Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
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,
China Merchants Bank, Hexaware, Snagajob
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. HPE File Storage and Object Storage and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.