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 6.5% mindshare in FaOS, compared to Red Hat’s 13.2% 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: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Red Hat Ceph Storage

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

Everpure FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashBlade is 5.7%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 6.5%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ceph Storage is 13.2%, down from 20.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

File and Object Storage Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Red Hat Ceph Storage	13.2%
Dell PowerScale (Isilon)	6.5%
Everpure FlashBlade	5.7%
Other	74.6%

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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

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

"The product is fantastic."

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

"The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power outages when we need to quickly move data between different data centers. It ensures efficient replication and helps maintain our data centers' uptime."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is stable, strong, fast, and modern, and it's an enterprise-class object storage product."

"We haven't had any issues with it, it's easy to use, and the speed is incredible."

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

"Pure Storage FlashBlade's scalability is one of the most valuable features, and importantly, it always works, allowing for seamless upgrades."

"The tool's most valuable features are data warehousing, speedy recovery, and analytics. Its latest release is cost-effective."

More Everpure FlashBlade pros

"The performance, overall, is quite impressive."

"PowerScale has made it extremely easy to scale file data across our organization. We have two implementations of Isilon. One is a replica of the other. When scaling, we add nodes to each location and expand the cluster. The process is straightforward."

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

"PowerScale allows us to manage storage without managing RAID groups or migrating volumes between controllers. It has really simplified things. We're not having to worry about the underlying infrastructure. That takes care of itself. We just worry about the data. It's really easy for deploying and managing storage at the petabyte scale."

"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."

"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 stability of the solution is good."

"It has allowed us to have more consistent quality controls. It has also allowed us to expand the number of servers in clients processing and accessing data, allowing us to get a lot bigger projects out the door."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pros

"The product spawned a new vision of storage deployment, as well as a strong interest in reusing equipment and increasing ROI."

"High reliability with commodity hardware There is no cost for software"

"Red Hat Ceph Storage is working exactly as it should be; it's running in the background, it's working, and it doesn't bother me."

"The configuration of the solution and the user interface are both quite good."

"Replicated and erasure coded pools have allowed for multiple copies to be kept, easy scale-out of additional nodes, and easy replacement of failed hard drives. The solution continues working even when there are errors."

"Stratus allows more reliability than all the other types of computers available."

"Ceph’s ability to adapt to varying types of commodity hardware affords us substantial flexibility and future-proofing."

"It's possible that we should have used the solution a long time ago as it appears to cost the business less money to run some of our data systems using it."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pros

Cons

"The Pure Storage Orchestrator is our biggest pain point at the moment."

"In terms of scalability, it doesn't expand out quite as robustly as some of the others, but it covers 90% of the market in what it does."

"The speed could be improved."

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

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

"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."

"File storage needs a lot of improvement. Mainframe connectivity also needs improvement because it requires additional components to be integrated with Pure Storage FlashBlade. If you want to keep your backup data, then this becomes an even more expensive solution because Pure Storage FlashBlade will not be able to meet your backup needs."

"In terms of scalability, it doesn't expand out quite as robustly as some of the others, but it covers 90% of the market in what it does."

More Everpure FlashBlade cons

"If they integrated some functions, as they have on Data Domain with a cyber recovery vault, it would be ideal."

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

"Dell PowerScale needs to reduce its price."

"Additional metadata reporting would be great. We have to use a separate tool to report on that. We would like to view the age of data and how long it has been since someone has accessed a file."

"Version upgrades and patches take a long time to complete."

"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) could improve in terms of having some problems with using IPv6 and IPv4 on the same namespace at the same time, which is one of our biggest problems as you have to do some really bad workarounds to get that working."

"We're still fairly new with it. It's been a pretty positive experience thus far. However, they could improve implementation, as we had to rack and stack it ourselves."

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

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) cons

"Routing around slow hardware."

"In the deployment step, we need to create some config files to add Ceph functions in OpenStack modules (Nova, Cinder, Glance). It would be useful to have a tool that validates the format of the data in those files, before generating a deploy with failures."

"Rebalancing and recovery are a bit slow."

"Ceph is not a mature product at this time. Guides are misleading and incomplete. You will meet all kind of bugs and errors trying to install the system for the first time. It requires very experienced personnel to support and keep the system in working condition, and install all necessary packets."

"We have encountered slight integration issues."

"Some documentation is very hard to find."

"If troubleshooting is needed, the response should be faster."

"Areas of Red Hat Ceph Storage that have room for improvement include more promotion. Many people do not know about the Stratus case, which is one of the most reliable systems available in the world, but they are not aware that a system can keep working even if there is a hardware failure."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage 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."

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"The product is very expensive."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."

"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."

"The price could be cheaper."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

More Everpure FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"It is a really expensive solution."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"The only drawback for us is that it's a large upfront investment. This was a huge decision for a startup company to make. It took a bit for us to get over the line on it, but we have not regretted it."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pricing and cost advice

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

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

"We never used the paid support."

"There is no cost for software."

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

"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."

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

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

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

13%

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	19
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...

See all answers

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.

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 ...

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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 replace...

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

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Compared 8% of the time

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Dell ObjectScale vs Everpure FlashBlade

Compared 5% of the time

Qumulo vs Everpure FlashBlade

Compared 3% 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 6% 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

Dell PowerStore vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 3% of the time

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MinIO vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 46% 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

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 2% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Everpure FlashBlade

April 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

April 2026

Download Dell PowerScale (Isilon) product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ceph Storage

March 2026

Download Red Hat Ceph Storage product report

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashBlade

PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon

Ceph

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

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

March 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: March 2026.

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