Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Qumulo comparison

Dell Technologies and Qumulo are both solutions in the NAS category. Dell Technologies is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.7, while Qumulo is ranked #12. Dell Technologies holds a 15.5% mindshare in N, compared to Qumulo’s 5.2% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Qumulo users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Read 80 Dell PowerScale (Isilon) reviews

11,424 Views
5,826 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Qumulo

Read 8 Qumulo reviews

3,217 Views
1,544 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Qumulo

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) and Qumulo compete in providing scalable storage solutions. Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is noted for its strong support and competitive pricing, while Qumulo is recognized for its superior innovative features.

Features: Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is praised for its robust scalability, seamless integration capabilities, and strong financial value. It is renowned for its reliable performance and ability to integrate with other solutions. Qumulo stands out with its enhanced data analytics, real-time visibility, and data-driven decision-making capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Dell PowerScale (Isilon) can enhance its ease of deployment and reduce technical resources needed for traditional processes. There's room to streamline its feature updates and documentation. Qumulo's pricing can be a hurdle, requiring cost reductions or more accessible pricing structures. It may benefit from improved failover capabilities and enhanced customer engagement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Qumulo is praised for its simplicity and efficiency in deployment, supported by expert customer service. Dell PowerScale (Isilon) follows a more traditional deployment process, offering comprehensive customer support that's well-regarded.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerScale (Isilon) offers competitive pricing with a satisfactory ROI due to its balanced feature set. In contrast, Qumulo's premium pricing reflects its advanced features, justifying a high return on investment for those leveraging its capabilities.

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

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Qumulo

March 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

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Ranking in NAS

2nd

Ranking in File and Object Storage

2nd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Qumulo

Ranking in NAS

12th

Ranking in File and Object Storage

21st

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the NAS category, the mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 15.5%, down from 17.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qumulo is 5.2%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NAS Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Dell PowerScale (Isilon)	15.5%
Qumulo	5.2%
Other	79.3%

NAS

Featured Reviews

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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VinceVitro

Senior Storage Architect at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Useful data sharing, simple cluster scaling, and excellent support

One aspect of Qumulo that I hoped to see improved was its software upgrade process, which did see significant progress during my usage. Initially, upgrading the software resulted in several minutes of system downtime. However, by the time I departed last summer, the downtime had reduced to mere ten seconds. Although I am unsure if Qumulo has yet achieved a completely outage-free upgrade, I simply performed the upgrades early in the morning before the marketing department began its workday, so any downtime was inconsequential.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The fact that we were able to set it up, use it, and, for the most part, didn't have to worry about it after we had it set up has been valuable."

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

"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) has powerful security, which makes it a very reliable storage solution for our content, and also the support and observability of our system; the call home feature is fantastic because when it presents an issue, Dell automatically opens a ticket regarding any warnings or alerts, allowing us to have a complete view of our system's health."

"The features that I have mentioned improve my company through the reliability of the storage; it is always available, and it works, which is the important thing."

"The solution allows me to use SSMDS to store data for end users and share it within different locations."

"It assists with eliminating storage silos because it provides SMB and NFS protocols. PowerScale has also helped free up our employee's time to focus on other business priorities."

"The features of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) that I appreciate the most include the scale of architecture and the way it is designed, which benefit my company by providing less downtime and less overhead."

"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"

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pros

"It is a very stable product. I never faced any issues."

"The most valuable feature is real-time analytics."

"The data protection algorithm to protect the data between the nodes has been the most valuable feature. The integration with backup platforms such as Veeam and Veritas has also been valuable."

"The most valuable features of Qumulo are its rolling updates and all-day availability."

"The most valuable feature of Qumulo is the ability to share files and reliability."

"The ratio of total operational cost to complexity versus feature set is very good."

"The feature that I like most is the analytics part of the file system."

"The most valuable features of Qumulo are the ease of management and special permissions that are quick to enable. The overall performance of the solution is good."

Cons

"The improvement should be in AI. Everything is going towards AI."

"The product’s expansion capacity, pricing clarity, and ease of use need improvement."

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

"The price always has room for improvement."

"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."

"Always, there is room for improvement in terms of cybersecurity, as new challenges are continually emerging in the market."

"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."

"Backward compatibility is something Dell PowerScale (Isilon) could work on."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) cons

"Qumulo should continue to expand automation and orchestration capabilities."

"In the future, I would like to see non-disruptive updates."

"The solution could improve availability and improve data protection or data services such as compression of deduplication. In a future release, we'd like to have more cloud API integrations."

"One aspect of Qumulo that I hoped to see improved was its software upgrade process, which did see significant progress during my usage. Initially, upgrading the software resulted in several minutes of system downtime. However, by the time I departed last summer, the downtime had reduced to mere ten seconds. Although I am unsure if Qumulo has yet achieved a completely outage-free upgrade, I simply performed the upgrades early in the morning before the marketing department began its workday, so any downtime was inconsequential."

"In the next release, I would like to see the ability to have more control at a terminal level of the file system."

"Some anti-theft permissions do not transfer well to Qumulo."

"The support for iMac and protocols should be improved, not all features are available."

"The price of the software is a bit expensive, so a reduction in cost would make it more competitive."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"Dell PowerScale is expensive on the start-up side but we can recoup those costs quickly by not having to reapply the savings to other equipment."

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

"The pricing is excellent."

"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."

"We paid an additional fee to have Dell's ProDeploy Plus team implement it."

"The pricing is expensive, but I think it's a fair value because it does manage itself. It definitely is much simpler than any of the other scale-out storage platforms that we've looked at in the past."

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

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pricing and cost advice

"The price of the solution is in the middle range compared to others. We look at the price per terabyte."

"The price of Qumulo is reasonable."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	44

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	2

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.

See all answers

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 entity, the country policy does not allow direct purchases; it goes through a fo...

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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 replacement. For large file replication from site to site, it takes a long time. This l...

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Comparisons

NetApp FAS Series vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 20% of the time

Everpure FlashBlade vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 11% 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 StoreEasy vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 4% of the time

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) Competitors

NetApp FAS Series vs Qumulo

Compared 11% of the time

VAST Data vs Qumulo

Compared 10% of the time

Everpure FlashBlade vs Qumulo

Compared 7% of the time

Nasuni vs Qumulo

Compared 6% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Qumulo

Compared 4% of the time

More Qumulo Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

March 2026

Download Dell PowerScale (Isilon) product report

Buyer's Guide

NAS

March 2026

Download Qumulo product report

Also Known As

PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon

No data available

Overview

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

Qumulo is a data storage and management platform that promotes object-based storage for users, backup archives, and surveillance. Its primary use case is to provide a cost-effective and feature-rich solution for managing large data.

Qumulo's data protection algorithm ensures the safety of node data, while its integration with backup platforms like Veeam and Veritas makes it easy to manage backups. The platform offers a good balance between operational cost and complexity versus feature set, making it an attractive option for businesses of all sizes.

Qumulo

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,

County of Riverside Sheriff Department, Hyundai Mobis Automotive North America, University of Arizona, UCSD - San Diego Supercomputer Center, Medical College of Wisconsin, Sinclair Oil, Royal Dutch Shell, Kaiser Permanente, Deluxe Creative, Vexcel Imaging, University of Florida, The Madison Square Garden Company, Arizona State University, Cinesite, San Diego Padres Baseball, Johns Hopkins University - School of Medicine, IHME, EllieMae, Washington State University.

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Qumulo

March 2026

Free Report: Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Qumulo

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