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Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs NetApp StorageGRID 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

Pure Storage FlashBlade
Sponsored
Ranking in File and Object Storage
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (17th)
Dell PowerScale (Isilon)
Ranking in File and Object Storage
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
NAS (1st)
NetApp StorageGRID
Ranking in File and Object Storage
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.8%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 8.8%, up from 8.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp StorageGRID is 5.5%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
File and Object Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Eric Black - PeerSpot reviewer
The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us
The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.
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.
Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Object-based storage and offers intuitive management tools, making it easy to configure and maintain
The only thing missing is flexibility in configuration to cater to specific customer requirements. Another area of improvement is marketing. NetApp's marketing of StorageGRID isn't optimal. They should present it more effectively, especially in regions like Pakistan. Here, I haven't seen any marketing campaigns from NetApp for StorageGRID or the Solid State Platform (SSP). While StorageGRID is a globally recognized product, I haven't seen any marketing efforts from NetApp in Pakistan. Even competitors are promoting object storage solutions here, but NetApp seems less efficient in selling StorageGRID. There might be one or two customers, but even as a NetApp partner, I'm not aware of any major sales. I've been trained on StorageGRID, and it is a good product. I'm unsure why it hasn't gained traction in Pakistan compared to other countries. So, I just recommend improving the marketing campaigns in Pakistan. I'm pretty confident that if we have one example of successful StorageGRID implementation in Pakistan, other customers will follow suit.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is user-friendly. It's replication feature is great because it has active replication and active DR. That's the beauty of the product. It's a perfect solution for block storage."
"The snapshots, replication, and the ability to have immutable blades are the most valuable features. You're putting data snapshots out in those blades, and they cannot be touched. Its performance is great."
"I would rate this solution an eight plus. It has has good flexibility and stability, it's easy to manage and the response time is good."
"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."
"Speed and ease of use are the two most valuable features."
"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 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 tool comes with cheap disks and works fast for video content."
"Since it can scale so easily, as long as I have money to buy more nodes, I can grow it as big as I need to. That is important in our business. As sequencing technologies continue to evolve, and as those technologies evolve, the amount of data generation never gets smaller. It just always seems to get bigger. This is one of the absolute key aspects: We can grow on demand without having to forklift stuff."
"PowerScale helped free up our employees' time to focus on other business priorities. There are now automated jobs such as backing up and replicating data, that reduce the footprint we have. Those types of tasks were previously done manually."
"The recent introduction of inline deduplication and compression has drastically improved our efficiency ratios to make it an economical product. This solution has also had a positive impact on our employees' productivity because it reduces the amount of admin that our staff needs to handle."
"The most valuable feature we started using, beyond the initial scope for the solution, is the multi-protocol system that allows you to access the same set of files using different network protocols like NFS or SMB. PowerScale’s Unified Permission Model ensures that data security and access permissions are honoured regardless of whether the client is a Windows desktop or a Linux server"
"The product's scalability feature is super easy to use."
"We use the solution internally to support our own managed servers and run our own support center."
"Our main goal is to do disaster recovery with whatever solution we use and Isilon makes it pretty simple to replicate those workloads over to our secondary data center."
"The technical support team is reliable and responsive."
"StorageGRID is designed for cloud-based, highly scalable storage. Think big names like service providers like Google who need massive storage volumes with scalability. It also offers cloud-enabled storage capabilities with cloud management functionality. So, if you prioritize scalability and cloud integration, StorageGRID is the way to go. Its object-based storage is built specifically for that purpose."
"It has awesome scalability. We consume it with storage appliance nodes, then we just plug and play as we need more."
"The technical support is good."
"Cost-effective and easy to deploy."
"Duplication, interface and the manageability is good and simple."
"It has improved our operational efficiency through time consumption and logistics by 40 to 50 percent. Everything that had to do with our legacy tape solution has been improved and is now more efficient."
"The speed of the disks removed the bottleneck from our storage."
 

Cons

"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."
"I would like to see more VM-Aware features in the next release of this solution."
"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."
"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."
"I would like to see more deduplication."
"I have not seen ROI."
"I want efficiency. FlashBlade doesn't have efficiency now."
"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."
"Dell's customer service needs improvement. Specifically, hardware failures under warranty should be addressed within the promised timeline."
"Dell PowerScale's deployment is not easy."
"Improvements could be made on the object storage side."
"Dell's customer service needs improvement."
"Its configuration needs to be more straightforward."
"The product’s expansion capacity, pricing clarity, and ease of use need improvement."
"Improvements could be made to reduce the costs and the high level of knowledge needed to maintain and use them."
"The tool's support team and the way the cases are handled by the product's technical support team are both areas of concern where improvements are required."
"Data retrieval speed could be better."
"The product's continual innovation and enhancement in integration capabilities with other NetApp solutions could be better."
"The processes around installation and upgrade need improvement."
"The redundancy and reliability are great, but I also see room for improvement there. I would like to see more efficiency in the storage and dedupe/compression solutions."
"The integration with more apps has room for improvement."
"We want to move towards Azure in the cloud. Right now, the system is all physical."
"The only real issue that we have run into is, when we are cloning, we cannot do a thin provision clone, it has to be a full clone."
"Improvements need to be made in the support area."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."
"The product is very expensive."
"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."
"The price is a little high."
"The price could be cheaper."
"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."
"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."
"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 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 priced slightly higher than others on the market but does offer good quality. With this solution's data reduction and compression, we were able to purchase less. Costs have dropped because of the data rate of compression and deduplication."
"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'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."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is an expensive solution."
"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 solution's licensing cost varies based on capacity and performance requirements."
"The price of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is reasonable."
"Buying the solution is expensive, but it saves you money down the line when you factor in the logistics of not having to buy tapes."
"The licensing that the S3 service provides them from a FabricPool standpoint is more attractive than the licensing from AWS or Azure."
"We pay for a license annually."
"Creating your own data stores, backups, or storage grids, helps eliminate all these costs of downloading all the data back after you downloaded to the cloud."
"With respect to pricing, it is okay. This product is mid-range."
"While we have been able to save money on storage costs, it could be better."
"I rate the product pricing around five out of ten—it's negotiable, depending on the circumstances."
"The pricing of StorageGRID falls within the typical range for enterprise-grade solutions and is comparable to other vendors such as Dell, NetApp, and Pure Storage."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
32%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
20%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Manufacturing Company
19%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?
The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.
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 y...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
Dell's customer service needs improvement. Specifically, hardware failures under warranty should be addressed within ...
What do you like most about NetApp StorageGRID?
The management portals have most significantly improved our data retrieval times. They've made it much easier to rest...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp StorageGRID?
I rate the product pricing around five out of ten—it's negotiable, depending on the circumstances.
What needs improvement with NetApp StorageGRID?
The product's continual innovation and enhancement in integration capabilities with other NetApp solutions could be b...
 

Also Known As

No data available
PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
Storage GRID
 

Overview

 

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,
ASE, DARZ GmbH
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. NetApp StorageGRID and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,396 professionals have used our research since 2012.