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Dell PowerScale vs MinIO comparison

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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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
222
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
Dell PowerScale
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
NAS (1st), File and Object Storage (2nd)
MinIO
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (4th)
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
BE
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.
Abdelrahim-Ahmad - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like the speed, and I like the API and how programmable it is."
"There is no comparison performance-wise."
"The solution helps to simplify storage."
"Once it's set up, it just runs on its own and only requires the occasional checkup."
"If you need faster storage and a good product, this is the one you should go ahead with."
"As soon as we introduced our first Pure Storage FlashArray, the first benefit was at least twice the performance increase. Our production databases simply ran twice as fast with no other change."
"This solution has improved the way our organization functions through its reliability and consistent platform for storage and has helped us to simplify storage because the management tools make everything a lot easier."
"What I like most about this solution, is the speed, resiliency and scalability."
"The features of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) that I prefer the most include some of the newer technologies that are on it, which would include SmartSync and the ability for the data mover to continue to make incremental changes."
"The best thing is that it works. We don't have to maintain it too much; we usually upgrade once a year."
"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is all the capabilities together."
"The solution's most valuable features are scalability and flexibility."
"Dell PowerScale includes a wealth of features that are important from a security and recovery perspective."
"Dell PowerScale is a scalable solution. It allows non-disruptive upgrades and maintenance of the system."
"Its most valuable feature is the DR capabilities replication."
"I appreciate the high-availability data storage feature of Dell PowerScale the most, as it has benefited my organization by improving storage and collapsing technologies, making it easier for the users and aligning with our digital transformation initiatives by collapsing a large environment to a small footprint."
"MinIO is easy to install and use, especially for standalone installations."
"We use MinIO for enterprise file storage."
"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 initial setup was very easy - one click, and it was installed."
"In the current market, when you have so many options for object storage, MinIO is completely open source and an all inclusive package offering you both stability and scalability and its most attractive feature is the S3 plugin which is very similar to AWS."
"The most valuable features are that MinIO is open, it works on-premise, and is compatible with the Amazon industry which is great for finding compatible libraries in many languages which is very good for developers."
"The stability of MinIO is good."
"Saves a lot of time in generating and managing documents."
 

Cons

"I wish they could collaborate more with the other vendors internally, instead of us opening cases with Cisco, HPE, VMware, etc."
"In the configuration, which we brought in or tested it in, it has a very limited config as far as the array goes. That said, it still did more than our anticipation."
"It goes at about 95 percent, so we have had some performance issues. It is hard to clear them."
"I think the pricing for Pure Storage FlashArray is the major issue because all the great things come with the price, and a lot of customers simply are not willing to accept it."
"I would like to have support available in Spanish."
"I would like to see a Nagios monitoring plugin which watches the health and performance of the system. The only one available just checks volume capacity."
"They are doing some stuff with containers and an object search. These could be improved, because containers is one of the main topics that we are talking with our customers about."
"The price could be better."
"The portal is really complicated to figure out features and functions, and it could be easier to navigate."
"An improvement of that technology when it comes to DR implementations is something that I would look to see in the future. It is there, but it is not 100% in a way that is easy to implement."
"The cost of Dell PowerScale is currently high and there is room for improvement."
"The initial setup for this solution is complex."
"The solution lacks a cloud version."
"There are some missing features in the product, especially when our company needs to do some tape backup, and we see that the tool doesn't have integration capabilities."
"I would like to see Dell PowerScale (Isilon) improved by enhancing the user interface, OneFS, to make advanced conversation and troubleshooting more specific, upgrade and batch management, providing deeper built-in analytics for performance and capacity planning."
"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."
"The monitoring capability is really bad and needs to be improved."
"There should be the ability to expand the size after it has already been deployed. Currently, you cannot do that. It doesn't support an increase in size. Each time we spawn a new MinIO, we need to track the particular MinIO instance or tenant that has the file. Therefore, we had to create a multi-tenant solution that tracks the MinIO that has our artifacts. It isn't in one single instance. It should have better multi-tenancy support."
"An area that could be improved is the limited storage provided in the free version of this tool."
"Limited storage provided in the free version."
"MinIO could use a time patch on it. It could also use better documentation for some languages like Python."
"The solution should have high availability. Also, support should be quick."
"Its reverse proxy features could be better."
"I feel there is a lack of good addons to integrate without having to use third-party applications."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price is about the only thing that's wrong with it. A little bit better pricing would be great."
"In the beginning, we saw that the price is not very good. When we made some compilations about the deduplication and the compression and what the equipment does, including the differentiation of upper management of the storage, the price was not so bad. However, in the beginning, the price was very difficult to justify."
"Pure Storage has not helped us to reduce our licensing costs."
"The solution could be cheaper."
"It's expensive, but you get what you pay for."
"We feel that the pricing is fair and the licensing process was easy for both."
"The price was slightly higher than others, but competitive, if you consider all the other features that you get from it."
"There are no licensing fees or other costs."
"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."
"It is an expensive product with a high storage capacity suitable for large data requirements."
"The pricing is excellent."
"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."
"Price was also a significant factor in our decision to go with PowerScale. The team at EMC, now Dell EMC, came through with a highly competitive offer that tipped the scales towards their solution. There was only one other solution around the same price point, but it could not match PowerScale on features. That other solution is no longer on the market."
"We paid an additional fee to have Dell's ProDeploy Plus team implement it."
"The price of the solution can fluctuate. The price can be competitive or other times not. The price of the solution could be better."
"This solution is open source so it is free."
"MinIO is a free open-source solution."
"My company hasn't tried the version of the solution where we need to pay to use it."
"We use the solution's open-source version."
"This is an open-source solution but I am using the licensed version."
"We use the solution's open-source version."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business67
Midsize Enterprise37
Large Enterprise156
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise48
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...
What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
The solution provides massive performance, scalability, efficiency, and ease of management.
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
I think Dell PowerScale (Isilon) could improve some functions such as Apache S3 or containerized storage support, as ...
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 ...
What needs improvement with MinIO?
* Rolling upgrades, vs. upgrading and restarting all daemons at the same time, which is risky and impactful. * Remov...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale vs. MinIO and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
895,151 professionals have used our research since 2012.