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

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Nasuni comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.0
Dell PowerScale enhances data management with cost-efficiency, improved performance, storage capacity, resource optimization, and workload automation benefits.
Sentiment score
7.5
Nasuni users enjoy cost savings, increased productivity, and efficiency from reduced labor, cloud scalability, and improved data management.
Despite being more expensive than Huawei, it is stable and most enterprises accept the price due to its stability.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.2
Dell PowerScale support is generally responsive, with some escalation needed; users appreciate assistance with complex technical issues.
Sentiment score
8.2
Nasuni's customer service is praised for responsiveness and professionalism, efficiently solving issues with reliable and knowledgeable support.
They have managed previous issues well.
Dell provides support within four hours, and they always fulfill their promises.
The service, particularly about hardware issues and support ticket handling, is an area that needs significant improvement.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) offers strong scalability, easy integration, and minimal overhead, supporting large data and numerous connections efficiently.
Sentiment score
7.3
Nasuni offers scalable, user-friendly data storage, efficiently meeting diverse organizational needs and supporting physical or virtual deployments.
Dell PowerScale is highly scalable, as evidenced by the reduced physical hardware and the efficient use of rack space.
Due to both cost and the knowledge required to maintain and use them, there are considerations about scalability.
I rated the scalability as seven because even though the solution can scale, load balancing must be done manually, as it's not automated.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) offers exceptional stability, minimal downtime, easy management, and resilience, maintaining outstanding performance even in challenging environments.
Sentiment score
8.2
Nasuni is praised for its stability, offering reliable performance, minimal maintenance, and flexibility with virtually no downtime issues.
 

Room For Improvement

Dell PowerScale is expensive, lacks cloud version, complicates operations, and needs improvements in encryption, interface, and object storage performance.
Nasuni struggles with cloud integration, performance, and user experience, needing improvements in data retention, security, and analytics.
Hardware failures under warranty should be addressed within the promised timeline.
I suggest Nasuni improve their syslog forwarders to support TCP protocol, as it's more secure than UDP, which is plain text and not protected at all.
 

Setup Cost

Dell PowerScale is costly initially but offers value through comprehensive features, ease of management, and flexibility long-term.
Nasuni offers competitive pricing with flexible cloud compatibility, licensing per terabyte, and cost-effective enterprise solutions.
The pricing of Dell solutions is higher than that of Huawei.
I prefer solutions with lower pricing.
 

Valuable Features

Dell PowerScale offers scalable management, reliable performance, data security, and efficient storage with minimal administrative effort and cost management.
Nasuni provides scalable cloud-based file management with global file locking, data security, and efficient disaster recovery features.
Dell PowerScale offers high scalability and stability as well, making it a valuable solution for enterprises.
Dell PowerScale helps in saving costs related to power and rack space, reducing physical hardware from over one hundred to twenty-nine chassis.
Eyeglass is used to monitor for malware, which is very useful for us.
The features I find most valuable in Nasuni are the unlimited snapshots, antivirus capabilities, auditing, and ransomware protection.
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)
Ranking in NAS
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (3rd)
Nasuni
Ranking in NAS
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (1st), Cloud Migration (4th), Cloud Storage (3rd), Cloud Backup (13th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (9th), Cloud Storage Gateways (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the NAS category, the mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 17.8%, up from 17.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nasuni is 5.5%, up from 5.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Richard McGregor - PeerSpot reviewer
Removes a lot of infrastructure, allows us to restore files instantly, and is simple to work with
I particularly like the restore process. Our financial teams make changes to spreadsheets and other files, and we've got teams using Photoshop files. They make mistakes and need to recover files, and we can do that instantly. We also have users who manage to delete folders, and we can bring them back instantly within a few seconds. Knowing that it's all protected from ransomware is also a very big advantage at the moment with the number of ransomware attacks that you see out there. Nasuni is being very protective of that, which is quite good to hear. There were times when we had to replace the filers we've had issues with, and because we know all our data is protected in AWS, we could just turn them off and spin them up. As quickly as in an hour or so, we were back working with zero downtime. That area of functionality is really good. In terms of ease of management, it's the easiest one you can use. It's very simple. It's very easy to set up, very easy to configure, and very easy to manage.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which NAS solutions are best for your needs.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 years of maintenance covered by Dell. It's a high-cost offering amounting to thre...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
Dell's customer service needs improvement. Specifically, hardware failures under warranty should be addressed within the promised timeline. I face difficulty in tracing and finding the right suppor...
Does Nasuni have a good pricing model?
Based on the experience of my organization, Nasuni is definitely worth the money, since it gives you an all-in-one solution where you'd usually need several programs. About the cost, there isn't a ...
Is it easy to restore files with Nasuni?
As someone who has used this feature of Nasuni I can tell you - yes, it's good for file recovery and you'll definitely benefit from very quick times. I can't tell you if it's the best one because I...
What features and services does Nasuni offer?
Hi, if you pick Nasuni, you'll be benefiting from many services for a good price. Well, it's a personalized price you get after an agreement with the company but in my organization's case, it is a ...
 

Also Known As

PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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,
American Standard, CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield, E*TRADE, Ithaca Energy, McLaren Construction, Morton Salt, Movado, Urban Outfitters, Western Digital
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Nasuni and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.