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Buurst SoftNAS vs Dell PowerScale comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Buurst SoftNAS
Ranking in NAS
22nd
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell PowerScale
Ranking in NAS
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
97
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the NAS category, the mindshare of Buurst SoftNAS is 1.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerScale is 14.6%, down from 17.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerScale14.6%
Buurst SoftNAS1.5%
Other83.9%
NAS
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1822371 - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Architect at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Shared file access has improved collaboration but documentation and support still need work
Buurst SoftNAS can be improved regarding enterprise features, as those are not yet matured enough for enterprises. It covers most of the NAS requirements, but some of the advanced features available in premium storage platforms could be more mature. Organizations like ours, which are highly specialized for storage requirements, need additional validation before large-scale deployments. Regarding the needed improvements, I think the documentation and troubleshooting guides are not up to standard and could be improved. The best practices, architectures, and advanced configuration examples should be included in those documentations. Customer support for Buurst SoftNAS can be improved, as I have not seen major support.
SK
Solutions Architect at a university with 10,001+ employees
Operates seamlessly and minimizes downtime while meeting enterprise file share demands
The features of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) that I appreciate the most include the scale of architecture and the way it is designed. These features benefit my company by providing less downtime and less overhead. While I have not calculated an exact number regarding the reduction in downtime, we have always been using the product, so we have no baseline to compare it to. However, it is a very good product. Dell PowerScale (Isilon) scales very well with the growing needs of my company.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Buurst SoftNAS has impacted my organization positively through cost efficiency compared to other NAS platforms, offering a compelling value proposition."
"The tool's most valuable features are scalability and stability."
"The fact that the business saw a noticeable improvement in performance the day we switched over was a game-changer, not to mention the ability to seamlessly swap out the nodes to move from the older Isilon platform to Dell PowerScale, with no data migration, making everything seamless, done behind the scenes, and users only noticing the jump in performance."
"It's helpful that we're able to scale the number of nodes without having to build additional clusters."
"I buy Dell PowerScale (Isilon) because of the price, service, and technology, and the technology that is particularly good for my company is that I have two Dell PowerScale (Isilon) systems in two sites, and I use replication between them with Superna software, which is a third-party Dell technology."
"The maintenance is very good, and the deployment is straightforward as well."
"Regarding stability, I find no lagging, crashing, or downtime with Dell PowerScale (Isilon), and it is a highly scalable, stable, and reliable solution that I have experienced."
"The system is robust, has had a big impact on the efficiency of our organization, and serves as storage for our core application, which is a revenue-generating application that plays a key role in our business."
"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."
 

Cons

"Buurst SoftNAS can be improved regarding enterprise features, as those are not yet matured enough for enterprises."
"The replication could lend itself to some improvement around encryption in transit and managing the racing of large volumes of data. The process of file over and file back can be tedious. Hopefully, you never end up going into a DR. If you do go into a DR, you know the data is there on the remote site. However, in terms of the process of setting up the replicates and filing them back, that is just very tedious and could definitely do with some improvement."
"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."
"The product needs to improve CLI since commands are complex. The search option is also difficult since you must give the full path."
"The pricing could be reduced."
"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."
"We're struggling with the UID mapping and how to configure mapping-related things."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is a bit expensive compared to other products."
"Data storage performance needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"The price of the solution can fluctuate. The price can be competitive or other times not. The price of the solution could be better."
"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."
"Dell PowerScale is an expensive solution compared to other products like Qumulo."
"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."
"The general cost for a system like this is expensive. The total cost depends on your use case. You need to pay for every additional feature that you use."
"The pricing for this solution is reasonable."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise53
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Dell PowerScale has been expensive. Setup costs or provisioning experience has been pleasant. Typically you have kickoff meetings and there...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
For improvements, we can focus on enhancing performance, upgrading the nodes, and accessing data through Isilon for more efficiency. Additionally, improvements to interfaces and certain aspects of ...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
Dell PowerScale is our main NAS environment storage where we create CIFS and NFS file shares for users.When users request a CIFS file share, they specify the SMB share name and the SmartConnect zon...
 

Also Known As

SoftNAS Cloud Enterprise
PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Netflix, Boeing, Nike, Coca Cola, Hearst, Ndemand, Carbon Media Group, Atypon, The Street, MagHub, CenturyLink, InfoSys
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 Dell Technologies, NetApp, CTERA and others in NAS. Updated: May 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.