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Cohesity SmartFiles vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon) comparison

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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

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)
Cohesity SmartFiles
Ranking in File and Object Storage
17th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 Cohesity SmartFiles is 0.5%, 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.
SM
Enables effective data management with reliable backup and recovery
Cohesity SmartFiles aids in data management with features like full-text search through indexed documents. The architecture supports backup, ransomware awareness, and data management on a converged platform, offering triple-protocol access (NFS, CIFS, and S3) while facilitating gradual improvements in access rights management. It allows for redundant setups, with automated backup and recovery options in a cloud environment.
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

"It's very easy-to-use."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the rewrite speed and the nonstop services."
"The tool's most valuable features are data warehousing, speedy recovery, and analytics. Its latest release is cost-effective."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is performance."
"Speed and ease of use are the two most valuable features."
"Approximately 40% to 50% of my time is saved using Pure Storage FlashBlade compared to different products."
"The ease of deployment and management has helped us simplify our storage. We also do not have to worry about capacity management as much. A lot of these things are native to Pure Storage."
"We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."
"Cohesity SmartFiles aids in data management with features like full-text search through indexed documents."
"Eyeglass is used to monitor for malware, which is very useful for us."
"The stability of the solution is good."
"Dell PowerScale is a scalable solution. It allows non-disruptive upgrades and maintenance of the system."
"The best thing is that it works. We don't have to maintain it too much; we usually upgrade once a year."
"The product's scalability feature is super easy to use."
"The solution is stable."
"I don't have to rebuild the cluster to add a node."
"The solution's scalability is very good."
 

Cons

"To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."
"Compared to, for example, Hitachi NAS, the solution is not mature at all. It's just in its infancy as far as technology goes."
"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."
"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."
"Recently, while upgrading the version code, one of the controllers failed. Replacing the controller took between 14 to 20 days."
"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."
"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."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade should improve on more cloud integration."
"Users must remember that running DataProtect and files on the same cluster could threaten access if there is a platform failure. It's not suitable for applications needing high I/O or low latency."
"Its configuration needs to be more straightforward."
"They could improve implementation, as we had to rack and stack it ourselves."
"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."
"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."
"Dell PowerScale needs to reduce its price."
"Improvements could be made on the object storage side."
"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."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is a bit expensive compared to other products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."
"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."
"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."
"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 product is very expensive."
"Licensing fees are paid yearly."
Information not available
"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."
"Dell PowerScale is an expensive solution compared to other products like Qumulo."
"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 price of the solution is high."
"The pricing is excellent."
"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."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is an expensive solution."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
No data available
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cohesity SmartFiles?
SmartFiles is an economical solution, priced per terabyte on the backend. Initial setup and licensing costs align wit...
What needs improvement with Cohesity SmartFiles?
Users must remember that running DataProtect and files on the same cluster could threaten access if there is a platfo...
What is your primary use case for Cohesity SmartFiles?
Our customers use Cohesity SmartFiles ( /products/cohesity-smartfiles-reviews ) in conjunction with Cohesity SpanFS (...
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
No data available
PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
1. Acer 2. Adobe 3. AIG 4. Airbus 5. Allstate 6. Amazon 7. American Express 8. Aon 9. Apple 10. ATT 11. Autodesk 12. Bank of America 13. Barclay's 14. Bayer 15. BlackRock 16. Boeing 17. BNP Paribas 18. Cisco 19. Coca-Cola 20. Comcast 21. Dell 22. Deutsche Bank 23. Equinix 24. ExxonMobil 25. Ford 26. GE 27. Google 28. HP 29. IBM 30. Intel 31. JPMorgan Chase 32. Kroger
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 Red Hat, Dell Technologies, Nutanix and others in File and Object Storage. Updated: August 2025.
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