Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs MinIO comparison

Dell Technologies and MinIO are both solutions in the File and Object Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.7, while MinIO is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.0. Dell Technologies holds a 6.5% mindshare in FaOS, compared to MinIO’s 13.6% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of MinIO users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Dell PowerScale and MinIO compete in the large-scale storage solutions category. Dell PowerScale seems to have the upper hand in scalability and enterprise-level features, while MinIO excels in simplicity and cost-effectiveness for specific object storage needs.

Features: Dell PowerScale is renowned for scalability at a petabyte level, S3 protocol support, and advanced cybersecurity measures. It also offers efficient storage utilization and flexible tiering options. MinIO is appreciated for its high throughput, AWS S3 compatibility, and open-source availability. It provides strong support for object storage and is known for its ease of use.

Room for Improvement: Dell PowerScale could enhance its pricing structure, smaller environment deployment, and cloud integration. Users seek improvements in load distribution, the InsightIQ interface, and small file handling. MinIO could improve its monitoring capabilities, enterprise environment deployment processes, and performance for extensive data operations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerScale often deploys on-premises, offering dedicated infrastructure and structured customer support, though with mixed feedback on response times. MinIO provides flexible deployment across on-premises and cloud environments, emphasizing community support, which may lack in dedicated enterprise support.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerScale's extensive features and scalability justify its high cost, offering a strong return on investment through management ease. Its pricing includes potential extra charges for extended features. MinIO stands out with a free open-source version, allowing significant cost savings and aligning with cost-effective strategies, especially in smaller implementations.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. MinIO Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. MinIO

April 2026

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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

Everpure FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashBlade is 5.7%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 6.5%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MinIO is 13.6%, down from 20.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

File and Object Storage Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Dell PowerScale (Isilon)	6.5%
MinIO	13.6%
Everpure FlashBlade	5.7%
Other	74.2%

File and Object Storage

Featured Reviews

MikaelHellström

IT Manager at Regin Dalarna

Has handled backup storage needs reliably and supports seamless upgrades

In environments requiring high throughput and low latency, Pure Storage FlashBlade provides high throughput and normal latency, but we do not have any application that requires low latency right now, so the latency of three to five milliseconds is considered kind of high. Pure Storage FlashBlade's ability to integrate with enterprise applications is not important for us, as we only want to present an S3 bucket for our backup, which we have done, and it works very fast. We use the Purity software's data reduction techniques; we have a backup software that compresses everything before sending it to the S3 bucket, achieving a data reduction of 1.1 to one. I would recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade to other companies because it's a very fast and scalable solution for anyone who needs it. On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution an 8.

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Bill Engelmeyer

Systems Engineer at Unisity LLC

Flexibility and reliability have supported seamless data growth

I cannot think of anything to improve about Dell PowerScale (Isilon). The hardest challenge we have is due to how we've bought things over time. The way that we moved to the PowerEdge platform for the newer systems creates a scale problem as I still buy the older style systems, which are more dense storage. They're different chassis, so the problem we run into in the data center is the depth of the actual equipment. The newer equipment, if we buy an FX910 or a 900, it's a lot shorter in scale than if I buy an 83,000, which is much bigger. This makes it more complicated for deployment.

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Abdelrahim-Ahmad

Data Scientist at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees

Provides good object storage functionalities

MinIO should provide an easier subscription model for companies that don't have a huge amount of data. Our company has a maximum of 100 terabytes of data. The solution should provide more bugging tools in the open-source version to encourage people to buy the support services. It's not an easy decision. If I go to the management and tell them that I need to buy a service, there should be an easier subscription model for companies that don't have huge amounts of data. For me, getting a subscription for 15,000 a year for a system already in production might be a bit hard. I think MinIO supports a minimum of one petabyte or 100 terabytes of data. Since we don't have such huge amounts of data, buying a subscription for the solution is a bit difficult. Hence, we're only using the open-source version for now. If MinIO becomes really crucial for our business, we could ask the management to get a subscription.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."

"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."

"The most valuable features include the ease of implementation, ease of use and the speed that you can do backup and recovery on."

"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."

"It has good flexibility and stability, it's easy to manage and the response time is good."

"It's very easy-to-use."

"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."

"When compared with Pure Storage FlashBlade, I would recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade; it's easier to set up, easy to expand capacity, and very easy to upgrade."

More Everpure FlashBlade pros

"The maintenance is very good, and the deployment is straightforward as well."

"The technical support has been excellent. I would give them a ten out of ten for support."

"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 solution in general has allowed us to move off of multiple Windows boxes where they had huge data stores, and we migrated it to the Isilon, making it easier and more cost-effective with just one point of contact."

"The solution has simplified management by consolidating our workloads, and rather than managing all the different workloads on different storage arrays and Windows Servers, we just have one place per data centre where we manage all their unstructured data, saving us time."

"PowerScale is one of those things that will grow in your environment; once you start it with one thing, you'll learn that it can do much more, very quickly."

"I can certainly recommend PowerScale for mission-critical workloads, it is a powerful but simple platform with little administration overhead."

"The performance, overall, is quite impressive."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pros

"The container installation features are good. The S3 feature provisions the storage buckets making it easy. It allows me to spin up the public buckets with open-source technology."

"The stability of MinIO is good."

"MinIO can work with attributes and folders, and it has the ability to use a stream approach for files. I have moments that should work exclusively. It also has some management features you can use, like exclusive locks that you can perform on one record or a collection."

"I recommend the solution, it's quite simple to implement and is very powerful because if you need to run the storage in your computer it's as simple as having a container of MinIO."

"The solution has good compatibility with different kinds of storage."

"Nice web interface, easy to use, with a low memory footprint."

"The product does save time for our company."

"MinIO's most valuable feature is that we can send a lot of detail in the bottom of the core of the end-point, in a way that is easy and interactive."

More MinIO pros

Cons

"It usually comes down to just what you hit and the value you're getting when you spend the money and license the products."

"It would be nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."

"Compared to, for example, Hitachi NAS, the solution is not mature at all; it's just in its infancy as far as technology goes."

"The technical support needs to improve. When we open a case, it is auto assigned to a support tech person, and nine out of ten times, we get an email right back saying that person is off until tomorrow."

"I would like to see more VM-Aware features in the next release of this solution."

"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."

"The solution is expensive."

"We have one system at a customer's site that has had a lot of problems over the last year — I think maintenance was required over seven times before everything was corrected."

More Everpure FlashBlade cons

"The only thing that I think PowerScale could do better is improving the HTTP data access protocol."

"My experience with customer service and technical support has been challenging. The reason is that it is difficult to find subject matter experts around the solution."

"I would want to see more AI features with Dell PowerScale (Isilon)."

"Additional metadata reporting would be great. We have to use a separate tool to report on that. We would like to view the age of data and how long it has been since someone has accessed a file."

"Since our Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is our own on-prem in-house built system, we don't have many up-to-date resources, and we're still a few years behind."

"I think Dell PowerScale (Isilon) can be improved, as the cost models are quite expensive for administration."

"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is a bit expensive compared to other products."

"The initial setup for this solution is complex."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) cons

"On Kubernetes, it wasn't as stable as we wanted it to be."

"The MinIO dashboard is minimal as there are only a couple of features inside the dashboard for a basic user."

"MinIO can sometimes crash because of the dependency in underlying OS software layers."

"The product's initial setup phase is complex."

"With problems, visibility is hard because everything is in containers. Difficult to get to the logs in order to figure out what the problem was."

"MinIO has behaved strangely in the past. For instance, the application dropped connection to MinIO. It's not too significant, but it loses connection. We're trying to understand exactly what is happening when this happens."

"The main issue we face with MinIO is performance."

"While using some of the advance features of MinIO we encountered the minor bugs but they generally get fixed in version upgrades."

More MinIO cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."

"The price could be cheaper."

"The product is very expensive."

"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

More Everpure FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"Our company finds the pricing high, but it decreases over time."

"The platform is not cheap. However, on the software side, you can choose what you want license. So, you can start your licensing with the features that you need, then after buying the platform add some other features."

"The price of the solution can fluctuate. The price can be competitive or other times not. The price of the solution could be better."

"It is an expensive solution."

"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is an expensive solution."

"The solution is expensive; it is not the cheapest solution out there. If you look at it from a total cost of ownership perspective, then it is a very compelling solution. However, if you're looking at just dollar per terabyte and not looking at the big picture, then you could be distracted by the price. It is not an amazing price, but it's pretty good. It is also very good when you consider the total cost of ownership and ease of management."

"Dealing with the product costs and licensing areas is getting easier since Dell is simplifying the licensing process and licensing packages offered to users."

"The price of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is reasonable."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pricing and cost advice

"This solution is open source so it is free."

"We use the solution's open-source version."

"MinIO is a free open-source solution."

"We use the solution's open-source version."

"This is an open-source solution but I am using the licensed version."

"My company hasn't tried the version of the solution where we need to pay to use it."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	21

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	46

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	9

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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Regarding pricing, it is okay; we needed exactly this in size, and the price was a lot lower than competitors, making...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

In my opinion, one way Pure Storage FlashBlade can be improved is by having more compatibility between the FlashArray...

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What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?

The solution provides massive performance, scalability, efficiency, and ease of management.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?

As I mentioned before, we did not purchase Dell PowerScale (Isilon) directly. Since our organization is a government ...

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What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?

I have experienced a RAM failure in some of the nodes of Dell PowerScale (Isilon), and that required hardware replace...

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How does Red Hat Ceph Storage compare with MiniO?

Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This ...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MinIO?

We use the solution's open-source version.

See all answers

What needs improvement with MinIO?

* Rolling upgrades, vs. upgrading and restarting all daemons at the same time, which is risky and impactful. * Remov...

See all answers

Comparisons

VAST Data vs Everpure FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

Everpure FlashArray vs Everpure FlashBlade

Compared 6% of the time

Dell ObjectScale vs Everpure FlashBlade

Compared 5% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Everpure FlashBlade

Compared 5% of the time

Qumulo vs Everpure FlashBlade

Compared 4% of the time

More Everpure FlashBlade Competitors

NetApp FAS Series vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 19% of the time

Qumulo vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 6% of the time

VAST Data vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 4% of the time

Dell ObjectScale vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 4% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 2% of the time

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs MinIO

Compared 59% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs MinIO

Compared 4% of the time

VAST Data vs MinIO

Compared 4% of the time

Dell ObjectScale vs MinIO

Compared 2% of the time

Cloudian HyperStore vs MinIO

Compared 2% of the time

More MinIO Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Everpure FlashBlade

April 2026

Download Everpure FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

April 2026

Download Dell PowerScale (Isilon) product report

Buyer's Guide

MinIO

April 2026

Download MinIO product report

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashBlade

PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon

No data available

Overview

Everpure Storage FlashBlade offers reliable and high-performance data management with ease of use, speed, and scalability. Its seamless integration ensures efficient data handling and management, addressing diverse industry needs.

Everpure Storage FlashBlade is designed to cater to demanding operational requirements, delivering high performance and low latency. Its simplicity in management, along with effective data replication, enhances usability. Predictive performance analytics, inline deduplication, and disaster recovery capabilities further enrich user experience. Despite its strengths, improvements are needed in public cloud integration, UI complexity, and documentation. Users suggest enhanced deduplication and hybrid solutions, better configurations, dashboard metrics, and S3 integration. Feedback also highlights the need for features like snapshots, expanded file storage, and performance upgrades.

What are the most important features of Everpure Storage FlashBlade?

Ease of Use: Simplifies data management with intuitive controls.
High Performance: Delivers exceptional speed for data-intensive tasks.
Scalability: Expands effortlessly to meet growing data demands.
Seamless Integration: Works well with existing systems for efficient operation.
Predictive Analytics: Provides insights to optimize performance proactively.
Inline Deduplication: Reduces storage footprint without compromising speed.
Disaster Recovery: Ensures data availability during disruptions.

What are the potential benefits or ROI in choosing Everpure Storage FlashBlade?

Cost-effectiveness: Provides exceptional performance at a competitive price point.
Minimal Maintenance: Reduces operational overhead with simple management.
Clear Dashboards: Enhances decision-making with accessible performance metrics.
Reliable Performance: Offers consistent output, critical for data-intensive industries.

In data center consolidation, media management, and PACS archiving, Everpure Storage FlashBlade meets specific industry needs. Companies in banking and healthcare leverage cost-effective performance and scalability for efficient data access, supporting AI training, big data analytics, and enterprise workloads with high IOPS requirements. Media and entertainment entities use it for video editing and storage management, benefiting from seamless NAS, file, and object storage.

Everpure (formerly Pure Storage)

Dell PowerScale leads in unstructured data management with unified file and object storage, massive scalability, security, and cloud adaptability, enhancing AI, analytics, and enterprise applications with exceptional performance and resilience.

Dell PowerScale Isilon provides a comprehensive platform for unstructured data, excelling in scalability, management, and performance. With features like single-pane management, SyncIQ, and SmartQuotas, it handles large datasets with flexibility and robust security. Its multi-protocol support and seamless expansion improve operational efficiency. While it offers strong data protection, enhancements in cloud integration, cybersecurity, and performance are sought. Users note potential for cost reductions and streamlined configurations and mention desired improvements in object storage handling and NFS support.

What are the key features of Dell PowerScale Isilon?

Single-pane management: Simplifies data control and monitoring through a unified interface.
SyncIQ: Ensures efficient data replication for business continuity.
SmartQuotas: Provides intelligent quota management for optimized storage allocation.
Multi-protocol support: Facilitates cross-platform data access and integration.
Seamless storage expansion: Allows effortless scaling to accommodate growing data needs.

What benefits should users consider when reviewing Dell PowerScale Isilon?

Operational efficiency: Reduces workload with easy management and automation.
Enhanced security: Offers comprehensive data protection and recovery options.
Scalability: Supports large-scale data storage with flexible growth capabilities.
Performance: Delivers high-speed data processing for demanding applications.
Integration flexibility: Adapts to on-prem and hybrid cloud environments for diverse deployment needs.

Organizations across industries utilize Dell PowerScale Isilon for large-scale unstructured storage, supporting applications like video archiving, genomic data storage, and high-resolution imaging. Educational institutions, research centers, and media enterprises rely on its scaled-out storage capabilities, providing centralized, secure storage for diverse applications in hybrid, cloud, and on-prem environments.

Dell Technologies

MinIO provides high retrieval performance, seamless management, and compatibility with Amazon SDK and S3 APIs, making it a favored choice for efficient data operations within cloud environments.

MinIO, known for its performance and simplicity, stands out with features such as coding bit rot protection, fast operations, and ease of deployment. Its compatibility with data science tools and integration with Kubernetes offers reliability in clustered deployments. While popular in handling document storage and machine learning model storage, improvements can be made in documentation and tuning guides, monitoring capabilities, and multi-tenancy support. Despite these areas for development, and challenges related to scaling and pricing, many benefit from MinIO's scalable and secure platform tailored for high-volume use.

What are MinIO's key features?

High Retrieval Performance: Rapid data access and operations.
Simple Management: Easy handling of data with minimal overhead.
Compatibility with Amazon SDK and S3 APIs: Broad integration capabilities.
Erasure Coding: Advanced data protection and reliability.
Workload Distribution: Optimized for balanced performance.
Open Source: Allows for comprehensive community support and adaptability.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Ease of Deployment: Quick and straightforward setup.
Reliable Security Features: Protect data with robust measures.
Fast Operations: Boosts productivity with less downtime.
Scalability: Grows with data storage needs efficiently.

MinIO is implemented extensively in industries like finance, manufacturing, and software development where storage of unstructured data, document management, and cloud storage are critical. Legal teams and data science teams leverage its capabilities for document retention and machine learning model storage, benefiting from its seamless integration with existing data infrastructures and enhanced performance.

MinIO

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,

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. MinIO

April 2026

Free Report: Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. MinIO

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. MinIO and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.

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