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Dell ECS vs Quantum ActiveScale 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
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)
Dell ECS
Ranking in File and Object Storage
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Quantum ActiveScale
Ranking in File and Object Storage
24th
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 Dell ECS is 7.7%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quantum ActiveScale is 0.5%, down from 0.5% 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.…
FL
Good performance and reliable but the setup is complex
We would like to see a self-sufficient installation. Nowadays it's open-source, but the installation is still tied to the vendor, which means it is unlikely that it is going to scale. I want them to tap into the broader community. It is really emerging, they have a year over year, 50% annual growth. With a 10-year-old company, it will certainly bring a lot of interest, and will certainly make it more successful, if they tap into that growing customer base. They have to make themselves relevant to the industry. The industry is totally geared to the Cloud, DevOps, and geared for agility. The software with the appliance in my set is already outdated, and it is not that it cannot sell, but it has to be tapping into the emerging and growing sectors to continue with the customers and businesses. This is what the requirement is, to improve their technology. Which means that they have to make themselves relevant to the industry.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."
"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."
"Using this solution has made our backups more reliable."
"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."
"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."
"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."
"The product is scalable and easy to expand."
"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 scalability is good."
"It's my understanding that the initial setup is straightforward."
"It is 100% stable. It is also scalable."
"I would rate scalability ten out of ten since you buy what you want."
"The stability is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"What I like best about Dell ECS is its stability. I also like that you can use it for large-scale data purposes. The solution works fine for me, and I haven't encountered any issues with it."
"I have been satisfied with the stability."
"It is a stable solution."
"The technology is stable which is good."
"Workflow is easy to manage and maintain."
 

Cons

"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."
"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."
"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."
"In terms of scalability, it doesn't expand out quite as robustly as some of the others, but it covers 90% of the market in what it does."
"There is some room for new features related to authentication and integration with Kubernetes, and other solution using S3 Bucket."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade should improve on more cloud integration."
"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."
"In Taiwan, they don't have professional technical support."
"Technical support needs to be improved."
"They could provide centralized reports."
"One area for product improvement would be the garbage collection process. It takes longer than expected, so speeding up that process would be beneficial."
"The initial setup is not so easy."
"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 should support segregation of duty, particularly for role-based access controls. Having a single pane of glass for smarter observation and better control mechanism would also make this solution better."
"There is room for improvement in the DPI reports, as they could be made more user-friendly."
"We would like to see a self-sufficient installation."
"Lacks some ability to integrate with different systems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The product is very expensive."
"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 pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."
"We used a reseller for the purchase."
"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."
"I feel that the price could always be lowered."
"We initially purchased all of the licenses at the same time."
"Dell EMC ECS is too expensive."
"It is an inexpensive product."
"The solution's cost is quite reasonable."
"The solution could be cheaper."
"Dell ECS is a cost-effective solution."
"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."
"Quantum ActiveScale is open-source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
13%
University
9%
Educational Organization
7%
 

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 Dell EMC ECS?
The pricing is moderate and at par with the market. As a service provider, we receive good margins, indicating a favo...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC ECS?
It's difficult for me to comment on improvements for Dell ECS because we typically do not engage in those areas. We h...
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Also Known As

No data available
EMC ECS, Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage, EMC Elastic Cloud Storage
ActiveScale, Quantum ActiveScale Object Storage, ActiveScale Object Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Atos
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell ECS vs. Quantum ActiveScale and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.