IBM FlashSystem and Dell PowerScale (Isilon) are both prominent in the storage solutions sector, each recognized for unique advantages. IBM FlashSystem appears to have the upper hand with high performance and reliability, while Dell PowerScale excels in scalability and integration.
Features: IBM FlashSystem offers high performance, low latency, and an intuitive interface, supporting high IOPS rates, ideal for rapid data transfer requirements. It integrates seamlessly with IBM’s infrastructure, enhancing reliability. On the other hand, Dell PowerScale is celebrated for its scalability, supporting large data environments with ease, and handles multiple protocols effectively. Its features like snapshots and deduplication improve system management.
Room for Improvement: IBM FlashSystem users have reported stability issues during upgrades and desire better cloud integration, in addition to concerns over cost and licensing for additional features. Dell PowerScale faces challenges with pricing and seeks improvements in multi-tenant management and upgrade processes. Both products could enhance cloud integration and reduce feature complexity.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM FlashSystem is primarily used on-premises with some hybrid deployments, receiving mixed reviews for customer service depending on the region. Dell PowerScale also finds its niche on-premises, with customer service that varies in quality. Users highlight its user-friendly nature despite a complex initial setup.
Pricing and ROI: IBM FlashSystem’s pricing, while competitive, has increased following IBM’s acquisition, with recommendations to invest in comprehensive licensing early to manage costs. Dell PowerScale is often considered expensive, yet its scalability and performance justify the investment. Both solutions deliver strong ROI, marked by enhanced system performance and workload efficiency.
Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon) storage solutions are designed to help manage data for enterprises of all types. Dell PowerScale systems are simple to install, manage, and scale to virtually any size and include a choice of all-flash, hybrid, or archive nodes. Dell PowerScale solutions stay flexible and reliable no matter how much storage capacity is added, how much performance is required, or how business needs change in the future.
With Dell PowerScale, your data lake always stays simple to manage, simple to grow, simple to protect, and simple enough to handle the most demanding current and future workloads.
Ideal for companies of any size, from small enterprises to multi-national ones, Dell PowerScale storage provides secure collaboration, modular scalability, flexible consumption models, and easy cloud integrations, all with management tools spanning multiple platforms.
Key Benefits of Dell EMC PowerScale Storage
Reviews from Real Users
Dell EMC PowerScale storage stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its scalability capabilities and its user-friendly centralized management system.
Rachel B., a chief operations officer & acting CFO at Like a Photon, writes, "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."
Keith B., the director of IT at NatureFresh Farms, writes, "The single pane of glass for both IT and for the end-user is a valuable feature. On the IT side, I can actually control where things are stored, whether something is stored on solid-state drives or spinning drives... The single pane of glass makes it very easy to use and very easy to understand. We started at 100 terabytes, and we moved to 250 and it still feels like the exact same system and we're able to move data as needed."
IBM FlashSystem products are enterprise computer data storage systems that store data on flash memory chips. Unlike storage systems that use standard solid-state drives, IBM FlashSystem products incorporate custom hardware based on technology from the 2012 acquisition of Texas Memory Systems. This hardware provides performance, reliability, and efficiency benefits versus competitive offerings.
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