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Amazon FSx vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon) 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
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (15th), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (8th)
Amazon FSx
Ranking in File and Object Storage
15th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (5th), Cloud Storage (14th)
Dell PowerScale (Isilon)
Ranking in File and Object Storage
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
NAS (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 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 Amazon FSx is 0.8%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 8.8%, up from 8.2% 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.
MuhammadAzhar Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Shared storage capabilities provide enterprise value with good reliability
Amazon FSx is more costly compared to other storage solutions like EBS or EFS. The auto-scaling feature should be improved, as it currently includes downtime. I need to manually increase the storage, which is not ideal. Integrating FSx with Windows Server is challenging; it's a long process involving Active Directory (AD) setup and synchronization.
Scott Taylor - PeerSpot reviewer
Manages large data sets efficiently with hybrid cloud integration
My organization is quite large, with about 30,000 employees. The growth has been substantial in areas such as radiology and genomics. One of the best features we've utilized recently is offload to cloud pools due to capacity constraints on-premise. We didn't want to expand Dell PowerScale (Isilon) straight away, so we utilized cloud pools to offload some data to Azure. That's really saved us in certain areas as we didn't have funding to expand Dell PowerScale (Isilon) until next year, which is why we utilized the cloud pools functionality to offload.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."
"I like its size. It is smaller than the other competitors. We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte."
"The most valuable features of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."
"It's very easy-to-use."
"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."
"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."
"Speed and ease of use are the two most valuable features."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the rewrite speed and the nonstop services."
"I rate the stability of Amazon FSx ten out of ten."
"The shared storage capability is highly valuable."
"On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Amazon FSx a ten."
"FSx operates as an independent service, not tied to any server, which eliminates dependencies between applications for storage."
"We used it for disaster recovery perspective behind a number of resources, like batch services and RDS."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is a platform that is very easy for teams to work with."
"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."
"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."
"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"
"This has been a valuable solution for our business overall. It offers business continuity and replication features."
"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 best thing is that it works. We don't have to maintain it too much; we usually upgrade once a year."
"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."
 

Cons

"Recently, while upgrading the version code, one of the controllers failed. Replacing the controller took between 14 to 20 days."
"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's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."
"Its configuration should be easier."
"In terms of technical support, the experience has been mixed. The support is done through email and is not that great, making it a very problematic area I've been dealing with for over four years."
"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."
"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."
"The technical support needs to improve. When we open a case, it is auto assigned to a support tech person. Nine out of ten times, we get an email right back saying that person is off until tomorrow. I cannot handle that. They just did this over the weekend to us, too. I had to call our rep and have them do something about it."
"Amazon FSx is more costly compared to other storage solutions like EBS or EFS."
"Amazon FSx is more costly compared to other storage solutions like EBS or EFS."
"A direct FTP feature would be beneficial instead of relying on transmission services."
"From my experience, there are areas in Amazon FSx where more performance is needed, as they will be looking for higher IOPS."
"I've been facing a challenge when doing a failover from FSx side. AWS console does not refresh within a half hour."
"Since our Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is our own on-prem in-house built system, we don't have many up-to-date resources, and we're still a few years behind."
"I would like to see increased reporting and statistics functionalities."
"The solution’s interface and pricing could be improved."
"We lost our technical sales reps about two years ago. We haven't gotten one assigned to us and we'd love to have one."
"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."
"Its configuration needs to be more straightforward."
"There is room for improvement with the updates. It can take a significant amount of time to do a major OS update. However, even though it takes multiple reboots, the cluster stays up. If we want to apply a newer version of the OS, we have to roll back some of the patches so that we can upgrade. It requires a few reboots just to do that. The cluster doesn't come down, everything is still running, but it's time-consuming, at times."
"I would make Dell PowerScale (Isilon) better by improving SmartSync in the graphical user interface. Currently, everything has to be done through the command line, and I prefer having a graphical interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is a little high."
"The product is very expensive."
"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."
"I feel that the price could always be lowered."
"Our licensing is renewed annually."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."
"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."
"Support is a separate line item. Support is a different cost, but whatever your support is now, that's what you're going to pay forever. If your support's $100 today, six years from now it's $100. It doesn't fluctuate unless you upgrade it, or change it, etc."
"The lowest price I have paid is $370 or $380 per month, while the highest can exceed $3,000 per month."
"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."
"Pricing for this solution is reasonable."
"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 price of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is reasonable."
"The price of the solution is high."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is an expensive solution."
"It is a really expensive solution."
"The pricing for this solution is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Retailer
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...
What needs improvement with Amazon FSx?
From my experience, there are areas in Amazon FSx where more performance is needed, as they will be looking for highe...
What is your primary use case for Amazon FSx?
Our customers mainly use Amazon FSx for high-performance computing. Our customers are mainly in the Life Science and ...
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon FSx?
There is an ongoing project where my customers are exploring the FSx solution, but not yet for AI-driven projects; th...
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)?
It's considered between mid and high-end regarding. Dell usually knows how to position each model. If the customer wa...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
With every iteration of the OneFS system, new features are being added, and the UI is being updated here and there. S...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Amazon FSx for Windows File Server, Amazon FSx for Lustre
PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Neiman Marcus, T Mobile, Docxellent, Matrix, Lyell
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,
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon FSx vs. Dell PowerScale (Isilon) and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.