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 1.1% 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 January 2026, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.3%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DataCore Swarm is 1.1%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 7.1%, down from 8.4% 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	5.3%
DataCore Swarm	1.1%
Other	86.5%

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution provides many controllers."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade's scalability is one of the most valuable features, and importantly, it always works, allowing for seamless upgrades."

"The initial setup is pretty quick."

"I would rate this solution an eight plus. It has has good flexibility and stability, it's easy to manage and the response time is good."

"The most valuable features of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."

"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."

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

"Using this solution has made our backups more reliable."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"I find its flexibility valuable."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"The most valuable feature of the solution is the unlimited scalability. The tool has high availability and high storage capacity."

"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."

"I rate Dell PowerScale (Isilon) a ten out of ten, and we continue to keep buying it."

"Dell PowerScale helps in saving costs related to power and rack space, reducing physical hardware from over one hundred to twenty-nine chassis."

"The most valuable features of the solution are flexibility and ease of implementation."

"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) has powerful security, which makes it a very reliable storage solution for our content, and also the support and observability of our system; the call home feature is fantastic because when it presents an issue, Dell automatically opens a ticket regarding any warnings or alerts, allowing us to have a complete view of our system's health."

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

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

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pros

Cons

"There is some room for new features related to authentication and integration with Kubernetes, and other solution using S3 Bucket."

"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."

"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."

"I would like to see better integration."

"The feature that we're waiting on is better integration with the cell services."

"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."

"Its configuration should be easier."

"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."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"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 pricing can definitely be better."

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

"The solution needs simpler architecture."

"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is a little bit pricey, and its pricing could be improved."

"PowerScale is not suitable for virtual environments."

"I would like to see increased reporting and statistics functionalities."

"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."

"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."

"They could improve implementation, as we had to rack and stack it ourselves."

"The downside of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is that if we are replacing a drive, sometimes in the worst-case scenarios, some of the other drives will also go to the SmartFail state."

"The solution can be integrated with an automation system. Dell uses another framework developed in-house. They can integrate it with machines."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."

"The price is a little high."

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

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

"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."

"The product is very expensive."

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"

"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."

"The price of the solution is high."

"It is a really expensive solution."

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

"It is an expensive product with a high storage capacity suitable for large data requirements."

"The solution's licensing cost varies based on capacity and performance requirements."

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

Computer Software Company

23%

Comms Service Provider

18%

Manufacturing Company

Legal Firm

Computer Software Company

12%

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	19
Large Enterprise	42

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 DataCore Swarm?

The first feature is compatibility with the S3 protocol. DataCore SWARM allows you to quickly have an on-premise, rob...

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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.

See all answers

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)?

As for my experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing, we have had Dell PowerScale (Isilon) for a while no...

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What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?

I think Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is very good right now. Perhaps improvements could be made on the CPU level with a b...

See all answers

Comparisons

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% 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 26% of the time

MinIO vs DataCore Swarm

Compared 20% of the time

Dell ObjectScale vs DataCore Swarm

Compared 11% of the time

Qumulo vs DataCore Swarm

Compared 11% of the time

Scality RING vs DataCore Swarm

Compared 7% of the time

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NetApp FAS Series vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 18% of the time

Qumulo vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 7% of the time

Dell ObjectScale vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 5% of the time

HPE StoreEasy vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 4% of the time

VAST Data 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

December 2025

Download DataCore Swarm product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

January 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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