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 6.7% mindshare in FaOS, compared to Red Hat’s 14.5% 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

Everpure FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashBlade is 5.6%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 6.7%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ceph Storage is 14.5%, down from 20.6% 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	14.5%
Dell PowerScale (Isilon)	6.7%
Pure Storage FlashBlade	5.6%
Other	73.2%

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

"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."

"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."

"It uses the same platform for connectivity so integration is seamless."

"The initial setup is pretty quick."

"The initial setup was straightforward. If you know how to plug in power and network you're pretty much qualified. They were on site to configure the network, the box to fit into our network architecture. Other than that, we self-managed from there."

"The most valuable features of this solution are the rewrite speed and the nonstop services."

"The performance of FlashBlade is excellent. It does not necessarily leverage the SOS API that some of the newer products leverage, but I found its speed pretty much on par and comparable. It is fast, and it does what it is supposed to do."

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

More Everpure FlashBlade pros

"What I like the most about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is that the storage capacity is very high."

"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 single pane of glass for both IT and for the end-user is a valuable feature. On the IT side, I can actually control where things are stored, whether something is stored on solid-state drives or spinning drives... The single pane of glass makes it very easy to use and very easy to understand. We started at 100 terabytes and we moved to 250 and it still feels like the exact same system and we're able to move data as needed."

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

"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 features of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) that I prefer the most include some of the newer technologies that are on it, which would include SmartSync and the ability for the data mover to continue to make incremental changes."

"Ability to scale the number of nodes without having to build additional clusters."

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

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pros

"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."

"Most of the features are beneficial and one does not stand out above the rest."

"Data redundancy is a key feature, since it can survive failures (disks/servers). We didn’t lose our data or have a service interruption during server/disk failures."

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

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

"The setup is very easy, deserving a ten out of ten."

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

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

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pros

Cons

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

"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."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade should improve on more cloud integration."

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

"We initially encountered challenges with the assembly process due to issues with the documentation required during setup, an area where Pure Storage needs improvement."

"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."

"Its configuration should be easier."

"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."

More Everpure FlashBlade cons

"I'd like to see more Iceland products in the cloud so that we can port our data into different environments if needed. I would also like to see a virtual appliance or software-defined Iceland product."

"Some improvements to the NFS support would be of interest to us."

"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 solution isn't suitable for small environments or small customers."

"Improvements could be made to reduce the costs and the high level of knowledge needed to maintain and use them. We had old hard drives with moving parts in Dell PowerScale, and due to this, we must switch to a more efficient environment with all-flash."

"It would be good to have synchronized mirroring between two clusters without using a third-party program."

"Dell PowerScale can improve on its multi-tenant part because as a service provider, we have bigger clusters in data centers where we can serve multiple customers and grant them dedicated management points and automation features that can be managed in a multi-tenant environment."

"If I could improve one thing on Dell PowerScale (Isilon), it would be better object storage as it recently breached into S3, and that capability could be broadened."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) cons

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

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

"I have not identified any drawbacks, however, the response to public platform inquiries could be faster."

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

"An area for improvement would be that it's pretty difficult to manage synchronous replication over multiple regions."

"I have encountered issues with stability when replication factor was not 3, which is the default and recommended value. Go below 3 and problems will arise."

"Routing around slow hardware."

"Rebalancing and recovery are a bit slow."

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."

"The product is very expensive."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

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

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

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."

More Everpure FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

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

"Pricing for this solution is reasonable."

"It is a really expensive solution."

"The price of the solution is high."

"Dell PowerScale is an expensive solution compared to other products like Qumulo."

"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."

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

"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."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pricing and cost advice

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

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

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

"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."

"There is no cost for software."

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

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

"We never used the paid support."

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

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	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...

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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...

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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)?

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

VAST Data vs Everpure FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

MinIO vs Everpure FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

Everpure FlashArray vs Everpure FlashBlade

Compared 7% of the time

Dell ObjectScale vs Everpure FlashBlade

Compared 6% of the time

Qumulo vs Everpure 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 4% 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

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 2% of the time

Scality RING vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Everpure FlashBlade

March 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

March 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

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

February 2026

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

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