Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Red Hat Ceph Storage comparison

Dell Technologies and Red Hat are both solutions in the File and Object Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.7, while Red Hat is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.3. Dell Technologies holds a 7.1% mindshare in FaOS, compared to Red Hat’s 14.7% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 82% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Red Hat Ceph Storage and Dell PowerScale Isilon are key players in the enterprise storage solutions market. Dell PowerScale Isilon appears to have an edge due to its robust features, although it comes at a higher price point.

Features: Red Hat Ceph Storage offers significant scalability, seamless integration with cloud services, and high availability, ideal for flexible deployments across varied environments. Dell PowerScale Isilon is recognized for handling massive data workloads, providing straightforward data access and management, and offering comprehensive scalability and performance-enhancing features.

Room for Improvement: Red Hat Ceph Storage could benefit from easier initial deployment processes, enhanced user interfaces, and better support for non-standard network configurations. Dell PowerScale Isilon could improve in reducing dependency on hardware-specific features, optimizing costs for small to medium businesses, and integrating more fully with diverse cloud environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Red Hat Ceph Storage requires a greater depth of technical knowledge for setup but presents versatile deployment options. Dell PowerScale Isilon is acclaimed for its straightforward deployment process and extensive customer support, facilitating quicker onboarding and immediate operational efficiency.

Pricing and ROI: Red Hat Ceph Storage's lower setup costs offer a cost-effective solution suitable for smaller to medium-sized organizations with favorable ROI due to its economic scalability. Dell PowerScale Isilon, despite a higher initial investment, ensures strong ROI by efficiently managing large data volumes, making it valuable for large-scale enterprises demanding robust, scalable storage solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Red Hat Ceph Storage Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Red Hat Ceph Storage

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

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.5%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 7.1%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ceph Storage is 14.7%, down from 21.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

File and Object Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Red Hat Ceph Storage	14.7%
Dell PowerScale (Isilon)	7.1%
Pure Storage FlashBlade	5.5%
Other	72.7%

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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Rifat Rahman

Infrastructure Architect & CEO at Tirzok Private Limited

Offers reliable performance and availability for large deployments

I would like to see improvements in Red Hat Ceph Storage not because I necessarily think it needs improvement, but because I generally prefer to do things manually rather than following the containerization part. Current deployments are based on containers, but I deploy manually with my scripts and controls. If there are no Kubernetes-like requirements, I often prefer to deploy a whole manual process. I don't ask for improvements in the deployment model because Red Hat has its own philosophy about making things, but it's my personal choice that I prefer things manually. Some features are available only in the containerization part, so if those are also available in manual deployment, that will help.

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

"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."

"What I like best about Pure Storage FlashBlade is its object storage functionality, plus it has fast underlying hardware. Pure Storage FlashBlade is also very stable. I find its stability one of its valuable features."

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."

"Approximately 40% to 50% of my time is saved using Pure Storage FlashBlade compared to different products."

"It's very easy-to-use."

"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."

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

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The capacity and scalability are what I appreciate the most about it; that was huge for us. We saw its benefits immediately after we started using it."

"Based on the flexibility of the system itself, it was easy for us to manage the growth by buying individual nodes as needed."

"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 technical support has been excellent. I would give them a ten out of ten for support."

"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) helps improve the way the organization functions through massive scalability, high performance, a single file system, high availability and reliability, flexible protocols, support for NFS, SMB, HDFS, strong security, cloud integration, efficiency, data protection, snapshot, queue, and sync queue, optimized for unstructured data."

"This is the best platform that we could have for storage utilization. It is affordable and scalable. At the end of the day, it's something that we find very easy to use."

"Dell PowerScale includes a wealth of features that are important from a security and recovery perspective."

"The tool's most valuable features are scalability and stability."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pros

"I can compare Red Hat Ceph Storage with products from other vendors; I explored quite a few, but I still find that Red Hat Ceph Storage is making the most disruption."

"radosgw and librados provide a simple integration with clone, snapshots, and other functions that aid in data integrity."

"I really like that Red Hat Ceph Storage can be used as a total solution without any storage area network components."

"The high availability of the solution is important to us."

"Ceph was chosen to maintain exact performance and capacity characteristics for customer cloud."

"Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage."

"The solution is pretty stable."

"The scalability feature is used by all users and is critical for our operations."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pros

Cons

"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."

"In the realm of micro-services, I think that Pure Storage can do well if they start getting in there and making their arrays more micro-services ready."

"We haven't been able to use much of the cloud area of Pure Storage. We have a storage server and it would be better if it could integrate with other cloud features of this solution."

"It usually comes down to just what you hit and the value you're getting when you spend the money and license the products. I would always go, "If you want to make things better, lower your price and make your licensing simpler." There's always an opportunity around that."

"I would like to see more VM-Aware features in the next release of this solution."

"In my opinion, one way Pure Storage FlashBlade can be improved is by having more compatibility between the FlashArray and FlashBlade, allowing for synchronized data between both platforms."

"The Pure Storage Orchestrator is our biggest pain point at the moment. If we can have more say in future developments of feature sets that we will need to support for our use case, that would be pretty beneficial to us."

"It would be nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"The thing that they are working on now, and we are following closely is more native cloud integrations. The way that we envision workloads in the future is around moving compute to data instead of the other way around. So, we would like to have a single pane glass to manage storage across a variety of different platforms, including native cloud. That would be awesome."

"The management and monitoring tools comprise a disparate suite of products and the roadmap is very unclear. We've got four different products that look after the Isilon, management-wise, and it's a bit of a mess."

"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."

"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."

"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is a bit expensive compared to other products."

"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."

"The price always has room for improvement."

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

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) cons

"I would like to see better performance and stability when Ceph is in recovery."

"It would be nice to have a notification feature whenever an important action is completed."

"The licensing cost is excessively high. This is a significant issue from my perspective."

"The management features are pretty good, but they still have room for improvement."

"I've heard the integration with OpenShift is great, however, the licensing cost is excessively high."

"If you use for any other solution like other Kubernetes solutions, it's not very suitable."

"Rebalancing and recovery are a bit slow."

"We have encountered slight integration issues."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."

"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."

"The price is a little high."

"The price could be cheaper."

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"The product is very expensive."

"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."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"The platform is not cheap. However, on the software side, you can choose what you want license. So, you can start your licensing with the features that you need, then after buying the platform add some other features."

"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."

"The solution's licensing cost varies based on capacity and performance requirements."

"The price of the solution can fluctuate. The price can be competitive or other times not. The price of the solution could be better."

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

"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."

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

"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."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pricing and cost advice

"We never used the paid support."

"If you can afford a product like Red Hat Ceph Storage then go for it. If you cannot, then you need to test Ceph and get your hands dirty."

"Most of time, you can get Ceph with the OpenStack solution in a subscription as a bundle."

"The operational overhead is higher compared to Azure because we own the hardware."

"I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten."

"The price of Red Hat Ceph Storage is reasonable."

"The other big advantage is that Ceph is free software. Compared to traditional SAN based storage, it is very economical."

"The price of this product isn't high."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

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	17
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	44

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	15

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 Red Hat Ceph Storage?

The high availability of the solution is important to us.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Red Hat Ceph Storage?

Areas of Red Hat Ceph Storage that have room for improvement include more promotion. Many people do not know about th...

See all answers

Comparisons

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

Dell ObjectScale vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 6% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 4% of the time

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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 5% of the time

VAST Data vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 4% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 3% of the time

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MinIO vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 50% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 3% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 3% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 3% of the time

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 2% of the time

More Red Hat Ceph Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

February 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

February 2026

Download Dell PowerScale (Isilon) product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ceph Storage

February 2026

Download Red Hat Ceph Storage product report

Also Known As

No data available

PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon

Ceph

Overview

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

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

Red Hat Ceph Storage is an enterprise open source platform that provides unified software-defined storage on standard, economical servers and disks. With block, object, and file storage combined into one platform, Red Hat Ceph Storage efficiently and automatically manages all your data.

Red Hat

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,

Dell, DreamHost

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Red Hat Ceph Storage

February 2026

Free Report: Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Red Hat Ceph Storage

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Red Hat Ceph Storage and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

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