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 6.7% mindshare in FaOS, compared to MinIO’s 15.2% mindshare. Additionally, 97% 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: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. MinIO

February 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 March 2026, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashBlade is 5.6%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 6.7%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MinIO is 15.2%, down from 20.7% 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)	6.7%
MinIO	15.2%
Pure Storage FlashBlade	5.6%
Other	72.5%

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

"Using this solution has made our backups more reliable."

"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."

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

"It has also helped to simplify storage for us in the way that it's easy to manage. Their automatic monitoring really helps when things break or are about to break. They see a problem coming and alert us even before our own system does."

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

"The main feature I have found to be product replication."

"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."

More Everpure FlashBlade pros

"It's easy to manage. The web UI is very intuitive, and there's CLI also that you can use to manage it."

"Isilon is flexible in supporting various data workloads while keeping them protected. Dell continues to release updates and patches which enhance the use of this solution. This includes offering ransomware protection."

"Certainly, we have seen return on investment and peace of mind, especially with our two clusters that are linked together, where one is a disaster recovery solution for the other."

"There are also the policies that you set up on replication and purging files, and policies for something called WORM. That's a "write once, read many," where you can't overwrite certain files or certain data. It puts them in a "protected mode" where it becomes very difficult for someone to accidentally delete. We use that for certain files or certain directories, because we're dealing with video and some video has to be protected for chain-of-custody purposes. The WORM feature works great."

"Dell PowerScale is a scalable solution. It allows non-disruptive upgrades and maintenance of the system."

"My experience with Dell as a vendor is pretty good; they are probably one of the best in the industry."

"I assess the stability and reliability of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) as perfect, as we haven't had any hiccups with it so far."

"Its scalability has been huge for us."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pros

"The ability to spawn a MinIO Tenant on demand and shut it down right after is most valuable."

"It performs efficiently compared to other solutions."

"Very good at object retrieval."

"The initial setup was very easy - one click, and it was installed."

"Saves a lot of time in generating and managing documents."

"MinIO is easy to install and use, especially for standalone installations."

"For starters, MinIO has a good user interface. You can access it through the browser and perform operations like creating the object."

"Good interface and a good approach to development and testing environments."

More MinIO pros

Cons

"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."

"Commvault has mainly driven the Analytics, providing data and reports. However, the product has room for improvement, especially regarding storage analytics. Upgrading firmware has caused issues, requiring feature disabling to revert to traditional backups. The firmware upgrades sometimes affect Commvault backups."

"The feature that we're waiting on is better integration with the cell services."

"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."

"It would be beneficial if the layer could support the S3 protocol and be container ready in the next release."

"The solution is expensive."

"Recently, while upgrading the version code, one of the controllers failed. Replacing the controller took between 14 to 20 days."

"I want efficiency. FlashBlade doesn't have efficiency now."

More Everpure FlashBlade cons

"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."

"If I could improve one thing on Dell PowerScale (Isilon), it would be better object storage as it recently breached into S3, and that capability could be broadened."

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

"Isilon has limitations on the number of files that can be generated."

"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."

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

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

"The legacy file system for Epsilon didn't scale into the cloud and didn't have a separate OS. It would be key if this was made possible."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) cons

"The solution lacks documentation."

"Limited storage provided in the free version."

"The solution should have high availability. Also, support should be quick."

"Documentation could be improved."

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

"The documentation of the solution should improve."

"Lacks documentation for non-Kubernetes users."

"There is a lack of good addons to integrate without having to use third-party applications."

More MinIO cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."

"The product is very expensive."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"The price could be cheaper."

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

More Everpure FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

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

"It is an expensive product with a high storage capacity suitable for large data requirements."

"It is a really 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."

"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."

"It's a high-cost offering amounting to three or four million Swedish kronor, or about $400,000 or euros, for approximately 480 terabytes of storage."

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

"The pricing for this solution is reasonable."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pricing and cost advice

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

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

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

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

"MinIO is a free open-source solution."

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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

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

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	44

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)?

Regarding pricing, Isilon can be cost-efficient; if you are using more capacity nodes without needing more performanc...

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What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?

When it comes to Dell PowerScale (Isilon), I think that because it differs when you have a normal customer and a deve...

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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 do you like most about MinIO?

I like that if you have a problem, you can buy the home server. It is stable and robust.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MinIO?

We use the solution's open-source version.

See all answers

Comparisons

VAST Data vs Everpure FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

Everpure FlashArray vs Everpure FlashBlade

Compared 7% of the time

Dell ObjectScale vs Everpure FlashBlade

Compared 6% 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 20% of the time

Qumulo vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 7% of the time

Dell ObjectScale vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 4% of the time

VAST Data vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 4% of the time

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 3% of the time

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs MinIO

Compared 62% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs MinIO

Compared 5% of the time

VAST Data vs MinIO

Compared 4% of the time

Cloudian HyperStore vs MinIO

Compared 3% of the time

Dell ObjectScale vs MinIO

Compared 2% of the time

More MinIO Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Everpure FlashBlade

March 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

March 2026

Download Dell PowerScale (Isilon) product report

Buyer's Guide

MinIO

February 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 is an open-source object storage system. It is designed to efficiently store and retrieve unstructured data, such as photos, videos, and backups. MinIO can be used as a standalone object storage server or as part of a larger system, such as a data lake or a private cloud, and can be deployed on-premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid environment, making it a flexible storage solution for a variety of use cases.

MinIO’s features include erasure coding, bitrot protection, and checksum validation, which help ensure data integrity and reliability. The solution’s multi-tenancy support makes it ideal for multi-user environments. MinIO’s edge computing tools enable data storage and processing closer to users' locations, reducing latency and improving performance. MinIO can easily scale to accommodate storage and power demands, making it ideal for use in large-scale, data-intensive environments.

MinIO Benefits and Features:

MinIO offers several key benefits and features for organizations looking for a scalable and high-performing object storage solution:

Scalability: Horizontally scale to increase storage space and processing power as your needs grow.

High performance: MinIO’s edge computing and low latency provide fast data access.

Seamless integrations: MinIO is compatible with the Amazon S3 API, which enables integration with third-party systems and tools.

Data integrity: Security features, such as erasure coding, bitrot protection, and checksum validation, ensure data integrity and reliability.

Reduced costs: MinIO is an open-source solution, making it a cost-effective option for organizations looking for a scalable object storage solution.

Support: MinIO’s large open-source community of developers and users provides a wide range of resources and an active support network

Multi-tenancy: Multi-tenancy support makes MinIO suitable for use in multi-user environments.

Easy deployment: MinIO is easy to deploy and can run on a variety of platforms, including on-premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid environment.

Access control: Role-based access control, enabling you to control access to data based on users permissions.

Event notifications: Automate workflows based on changes to objects in your storage.

Cross-region replication: Duplicate data between different regions for disaster recovery and data backup.

Intuitive interface: MinIO’s user-friendly dashboard can be accessed via any browser and can be used to perform multiple object operations including object creation and management.

Reviews from Real Users

MinIO stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its flexibility, integration options, and performance.

Süleyman Fazıl Y., a senior software engineer at a tech services company, writes, “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.”

Rebecca S., CTO at NIASE, says, “MinIO is much improved over the prior solution, updates are simple to apply, and we anticipate that future capacity requirements will be easier to meet. Our customers are using this solution to retrieve tens of thousands of objects (documents and files) per hour, and MinIO seems to be able to keep up with it.”

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

February 2026

Free Report: Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. MinIO

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