DataCore Swarm vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon) comparison

DataCore and Dell Technologies are both solutions in the File and Object Storage category. DataCore is ranked #13 with an average rating of 10.0, while Dell Technologies is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.7. DataCore holds a 1.2% mindshare in FaOS, compared to Dell Technologies’s 7.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of DataCore users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Dell Technologies users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Dell PowerScale and DataCore Swarm are competing solutions in the storage sector. While Dell PowerScale is noted for scalability and performance, DataCore Swarm stands out with its data-centric architecture for high-volume throughput.

Features: Dell PowerScale provides high performance, linear scalability, and easy integration with current IT systems. It is ideal for large-scale environments that need reliable, seamless connectivity. DataCore Swarm, on the other hand, presents a flexible, content-aware storage system with strong data permanence and access controls, catered to enterprises emphasizing digital archiving needs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerScale offers easy deployment with documented procedures and a structured service network, facilitating quick setup. It focuses on tower deployments for convenience. DataCore Swarm employs a modular deployment model with node scalability, featuring personalized service and interaction for a customized client experience.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerScale presents a high initial investment but benefits from operational efficiency and minimal downtime, resulting in beneficial ROI. DataCore Swarm adopts a cost-effective model, emphasizing reduced licensing fees and long-term ROI for data management. The decision hinges on initial costs versus sustained operational advantages.

To learn more, read our detailed DataCore Swarm vs. Dell PowerScale (Isilon) Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DataCore Swarm vs. Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

December 2025

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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

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.5%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DataCore Swarm is 1.2%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 7.1%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

File and Object Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell PowerScale (Isilon)	7.1%
Pure Storage FlashBlade	5.5%
DataCore Swarm	1.2%
Other	86.2%

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.

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N Bravi

Sales Manager at MSDSYSTEMS S.R.L.

Has simplified data protection across two locations and reduced time spent on recovery efforts

The best features DataCore Swarm offers are its scalability and the ability to truly solve many problems related to data loss and recovery. It is important because if we want to add a new code, it sets itself up from scratch, and if we want to add, for example, a 72 terabytes or petabytes node, we just drop it in, which is very easy. DataCore Swarm has positively impacted my organization through the support for my dedicated salespersons.

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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

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Speed and ease of use are the two most valuable features."

"The most valuable features are the Metro clustering, and disaster recovery."

"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."

"It performs well and it is also very fast."

"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 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."

"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The first feature is compatibility with the S3 protocol. DataCore SWARM allows you to quickly have an on-premise, robust and scalable environment that is natively compatible with the S3 protocol. The functionalities used are therefore derived from the S3 protocol, notably versioning and therefore the possibility of configuring immutability in governance or compliance mode. The object metada can be enriched with the addition of tags to subsequently enable filtering and searching. Configuring and using DataCore SWARM is simple and flexible. It is very easy to create domains, tenants and buckets for different use cases with various authentications. The cluster architecture also allows replication between different clusters at different configured levels (Cluster / Domains / ...) A web interface for browsing the content of existing buckets allows simple and rapid manipulation of certain objects such as sharing via a link or cropping a video. Finally, the physical architecture of the solution is based on an x86 server and its scale-up or scale-out evolution is very simple by adding disks or servers."

"I find its flexibility valuable."

"With DataCore Swarm, we have transitioned from tape-based backups, which were long, to Swarm, making the process more rapid and efficient."

"DataCore Swarm is highly available."

"The best features DataCore Swarm offers are its scalability and the ability to truly solve many problems related to data loss and recovery."

"The ability for the solution to use any new hardware quickly and without administration is a great thing in the context of hosting."

"Dell PowerScale has the SmartConnect and SmartConnect Pro features. That's why I like the product."

"On a scale of one to ten, with one being worst and ten being best, I would rate Dell PowerScale (Isilon) a ten."

"Dell PowerScale's performance is good."

"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) helps improve the way the organization functions through massive scalability, high performance, a single file system, high availability and reliability, flexible protocols, support for NFS, SMB, HDFS, strong security, cloud integration, efficiency, data protection, snapshot, queue, and sync queue, optimized for unstructured data."

"My advice to other companies considering Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is that it takes a little time to understand the product, but once you have it set up and running, it will run stable for all its lifetime."

"It's easy to manage. The web UI is very intuitive, and there's CLI also that you can use to manage it."

"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) stability is solid as a rock."

"The reliability and stability of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is good, with no downtime."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pros

Cons

"Compared to, for example, Hitachi NAS, the solution is not mature at all. It's just in its infancy as far as technology goes."

"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."

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

"Commvault has mainly driven the Analytics, providing data and reports. However, the product has room for improvement, especially regarding storage analytics. Upgrading firmware has caused issues, requiring feature disabling to revert to traditional backups. The firmware upgrades sometimes affect Commvault backups."

"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."

"To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."

"I would like to see more deduplication."

"Its configuration should be easier."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"The main issue currently is the hard installation process."

"The product currently requires a significant number of servers to start. There are also network prerequisites to be met in order to guarantee good security of the architecture, which means that the product is only available to large customers. Besides, the license starts at 100TB. An Appliance version is being developed with an architecture based on containers which will make it possible to offer DataCore SWARM to everyone. The product has been evolving since the acquisition by DataCore, but maintaining and updating the product is not always easy and needs to be improved. For now, we only use DataCore SWARM for a few use cases and therefore a small part of the existing functionalities. With use we will perhaps have more criticism of the product but not for the moment!"

"The main issue currently is the hard installation process."

"The pricing can definitely be better."

"The solution needs simpler architecture."

"The deployment of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is not really complex but depends on the hardware deployment."

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

"My experience with customer service and technical support has been challenging. The reason is that it is difficult to find subject matter experts around the solution."

"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) could be improved, particularly the UI, which could use some polishing as far as ease of use for the customer."

"I think Dell PowerScale (Isilon) can be improved, as the cost models are quite expensive for administration."

"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 is expensive. It's quite expensive for the amount of storage we have."

"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."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."

"The price is a little high."

"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."

"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."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"The product is very expensive."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"The first installation brick is expensive but the upgrades are extremely simple and granular by adding disks or nodes."

"You pay for what you use. For example, if you use one terabyte, you just pay for that one terabyte. But the pricing could always be better"

"The pricing for this solution is reasonable."

"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."

"It is a really expensive solution."

"Pricing for this solution is reasonable."

"The pricing is excellent."

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

"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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Comms Service Provider

22%

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Legal Firm

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	21

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	43

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore Swarm?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was that in many cases, it was expensive, but my salesperson ga...

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What needs improvement with DataCore Swarm?

I believe DataCore Swarm cannot be improved in any way because for me, it is perfect.

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What is your primary use case for DataCore Swarm?

My main use case for DataCore Swarm is in a big company in Italy that has two problems: it has very big data to manag...

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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)?

One downside of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is that it is really complicated to configure. It is not something you can j...

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Comparisons

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 7% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 6% of the time

Dell ObjectScale vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 6% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs DataCore Swarm

Compared 19% of the time

MinIO vs DataCore Swarm

Compared 15% of the time

Qumulo vs DataCore Swarm

Compared 9% of the time

Dell ObjectScale vs DataCore Swarm

Compared 8% of the time

VAST Data vs DataCore Swarm

Compared 6% of the time

More DataCore Swarm Competitors

NetApp FAS Series vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 20% of the time

Qumulo vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 6% of the time

Dell ObjectScale vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 5% of the time

VAST Data vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 4% of the time

HPE StoreEasy vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 4% of the time

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

January 2026

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

File and Object Storage

January 2026

Download DataCore Swarm product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

February 2026

Download Dell PowerScale (Isilon) product report

Also Known As

No data available

Caringo Swarm

PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon

Overview

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

Swarm provides a platform for data protection, management, organization and search at massive scale. You no longer need to migrate data into disparate solutions for long-term preservation, delivery and analysis. Consolidate all files on Swarm, find the data you are looking for quickly, and reduce total cost of ownership by continuously evolving hardware and optimizing use of your resources.

DataCore

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

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

iQ Media, NEP, Texas Tech University, Telefónica, City of Austin, Massive Media, Data Deposit Box, Premier Physician Services, Truliant Federal Credit Union

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,

Buyer's Guide

DataCore Swarm vs. Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

December 2025

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