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Dell ECS vs NetApp StorageGRID 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
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (17th)
Dell ECS
Ranking in File and Object Storage
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp StorageGRID
Ranking in File and Object Storage
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 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 Dell ECS is 7.9%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp StorageGRID is 5.5%, up from 4.7% 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.
SamuelThomas - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing efficiently with user-friendly interfaces for monitoring and managing resources
We normally recommend Dell ECS to enterprise customers and government customers Dell ECS is very easy to handle, primarily because the web UI dashboard and everything is very easy to manage for every customer. They can monitor the DPS, access failures, bandwidth, failed requests, and latency.…
Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Object-based storage and offers intuitive management tools, making it easy to configure and maintain
The only thing missing is flexibility in configuration to cater to specific customer requirements. Another area of improvement is marketing. NetApp's marketing of StorageGRID isn't optimal. They should present it more effectively, especially in regions like Pakistan. Here, I haven't seen any marketing campaigns from NetApp for StorageGRID or the Solid State Platform (SSP). While StorageGRID is a globally recognized product, I haven't seen any marketing efforts from NetApp in Pakistan. Even competitors are promoting object storage solutions here, but NetApp seems less efficient in selling StorageGRID. There might be one or two customers, but even as a NetApp partner, I'm not aware of any major sales. I've been trained on StorageGRID, and it is a good product. I'm unsure why it hasn't gained traction in Pakistan compared to other countries. So, I just recommend improving the marketing campaigns in Pakistan. I'm pretty confident that if we have one example of successful StorageGRID implementation in Pakistan, other customers will follow suit.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."
"Speed and ease of use are the two most valuable features."
"The most valuable features of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."
"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."
"The main feature I have found to be product replication."
"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."
"We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."
"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."
"It's definitely good for unstructured data. In earlier days, we had Centera, so for the DR it's really good. It has load balancing facility, and we're using it with the Kemp Load Balancer."
"We face very few hardware failures."
"Dell's technical support team is good."
"The technology is very good, it performs well."
"I have been satisfied with the stability."
"The setup was straightforward."
"Competitive object storage platform that's stable and scalable."
"Dell ECS is a cost-effective solution that provides ease of use and availability."
"Right now, we have an older StorageGRID. I like that we can grow it."
"The speed of the disks removed the bottleneck from our storage."
"The feature of StorageGRID that I find most valuable for ensuring data durability and protection is its Information Lifecycle Management functionality."
"Duplication, interface and the manageability is good and simple."
"The most valuable feature is tiering."
"The implementation with NetApp went smoothly. It is a 'setup and forget' type of appliance."
"The backup features are valuable. I've heard from our backup and data protection people that our clients are very satisfied with the performance in junction with the backup, which they archive on this type of object storage."
"StorageGRID is designed for cloud-based, highly scalable storage. Think big names like service providers like Google who need massive storage volumes with scalability. It also offers cloud-enabled storage capabilities with cloud management functionality. So, if you prioritize scalability and cloud integration, StorageGRID is the way to go. Its object-based storage is built specifically for that purpose."
 

Cons

"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."
"The speed could be improved."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"From an improvement perspective, Dell ECS should aim to offer a better pricing plan to its users."
"However, hardware failures can impact the cluster, making it read-only."
"We have concerns about the write performance. We would also like it to be easier to scale out, to add more boxes to the system. And we want improved performance, to use a next-generation NFS service."
"Dell ECS is not fully compatible with S3, as it supports around ninety percent of S3 APIs, which can be improved. Additionally, sometimes there is an issue with memory where it hangs, and they can improve garbage collection, which takes up a lot of space during cleanup."
"Dell EMC ECS could improve by having Relational Database Services(RDS) to review progress. Additionally, if the training was provided it would be a benefit, it would be good for our engineers."
"The disaster recovery could be improved because there should be something in-built within the ECS. Search and recovery should be in-built. Right now, we have to use some external tools for performing the recovery itself. For example, we're using Atempo or deploying Golden Superna, so it has dependency on the external third party vendors."
"You should be able to calculate so that when it's full it's 100% full, not just 90%."
"Its security can be improved."
"There was a small amount of confusion when working with StorageGRID and Active Directory for access. We had to do things three to four times resulting in our engineer troubleshooting a couple of things. The location of the menu, along with what is inside the menu: configurations, settings, etc., is not straightforward to users. Most users are Windows-based. So, when make logical changes to the menu which are not similar to Windows, users and administrators get confused."
"It has its quirks here and there, but it is an older NetApp system."
"The redundancy and reliability are great, but I also see room for improvement there. I would like to see more efficiency in the storage and dedupe/compression solutions."
"The integration with more apps has room for improvement."
"The price is something that NetApp could improve, as with most companies. NetApp is known for not being the cheapest storage option, which is also valid for StorageGRID. There are other storage options on the market which we are aware of and have done proofs of concept for, but you cannot really compare the list prices because, as a big user of NetApp storages, we have totally different prices than some list prices. Still, the price information we got for other options are almost always less expensive than StorageGRID."
"The processes around installation and upgrade need improvement."
"Data retrieval speed could be better."
"The only real issue that we have run into is, when we are cloning, we cannot do a thin provision clone, it has to be a full clone."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."
"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."
"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."
"We used a reseller for the purchase."
"Our licensing is renewed annually."
"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."
"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."
"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."
"The solution could be cheaper."
"If I remember correctly, Dell ECS is an appliance, so if you buy Dell ECS, you also have to buy the hardware, while IBM is standalone software, so you can buy IBM as software only without needing to buy the hardware. On a scale of one to five, I'm rating the pricing for Dell ECS a four."
"It is an inexpensive product."
"We initially purchased all of the licenses at the same time."
"The price of Dell ECS should be reduced."
"The solution's cost is quite reasonable."
"It's a lease-based model, so it's capacity-based. We already negotiated the price a lot, but we're still doing that with Dell because somehow the product was not installed successfully, so there was a lot of struggle in the distributor territory between Dell and the environment itself. I would give the solution a 6 out of 10 for the pricing. There's a little room for improvement."
"The product is quite expensive."
"The price is attractive."
"We chose NetApp because of price and performance."
"While we have been able to save money on storage costs, it could be better."
"Buying the solution is expensive, but it saves you money down the line when you factor in the logistics of not having to buy tapes."
"Our licensing is in INR it was around 25 lakhs, which is roughly two million."
"The pricing is quite flexible and depends on the specific customer requirements. The initial cost is primarily based on the desired capacity, so it's not a fixed price."
"With respect to pricing, it is okay. This product is mid-range."
"Creating your own data stores, backups, or storage grids, helps eliminate all these costs of downloading all the data back after you downloaded to the cloud."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
37%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
20%
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC ECS?
The price is reasonable given the abundance of features, including managing, control, host resources, dockers, and co...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC ECS?
There is a need to improve the infrastructure, particularly for SUSE Linux experts. The deployment is not easy, and s...
What do you like most about NetApp StorageGRID?
The management portals have most significantly improved our data retrieval times. They've made it much easier to rest...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp StorageGRID?
I rate the product pricing around five out of ten—it's negotiable, depending on the circumstances.
What needs improvement with NetApp StorageGRID?
The product's continual innovation and enhancement in integration capabilities with other NetApp solutions could be b...
 

Also Known As

No data available
EMC ECS, Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage, EMC Elastic Cloud Storage
Storage GRID
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Atos
ASE, DARZ GmbH
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell ECS vs. NetApp StorageGRID and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.