Dell ECS vs Scality RING comparison

Dell Technologies and Scality are both solutions in the File and Object Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.2, while Scality is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.0. Dell Technologies holds a 7.8% mindshare in FaOS, compared to Scality’s 4.1% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Scality users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Scality RING and Dell ECS compete in the object storage market. Scality RING has the upper hand in scalability and support, making it ideal for organizations requiring significant assistance and growth potential, while Dell ECS excels with its advanced features, garnering preference despite higher costs.

Features: Scality RING's prominent features include strong scalability, flexibility, and efficient management of mixed workloads. It smoothly integrates with various platforms. Dell ECS distinguishes itself with advanced security features, comprehensive analytics capabilities, and seamless integration with cloud environments, providing an enriched experience for complex organizational needs.

Room for Improvement: Scality RING could improve by enhancing its user interface for increased ease of use, expanding its out-of-the-box analytic tools, and providing more detailed documentation for self-service deployment. Dell ECS can work on simplifying its deployment process, offering more competitive pricing models for mid-sized companies, and continuously improving its customer support response times.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Scality RING is praised for its straightforward deployment process, backed by an efficient customer service team ready to offer fast and reliable support. Dell ECS deployment, slightly more complex, benefits from thorough documentation and professional services, appealing to enterprises seeking comprehensive installation assistance.

Pricing and ROI: Scality RING offers competitive pricing structures focusing on minimizing upfront costs to ensure a quicker ROI. Dell ECS, despite higher initial expenses, provides significant long-term value with its advanced features, making it a strategic choice for companies valuing feature depth over initial expenditure.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell ECS vs. Scality RING Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell ECS vs. Scality RING

April 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 May 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 7.8%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Scality RING is 4.1%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

File and Object Storage

Featured Reviews

Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

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.

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SamuelThomas

Consultant at Key Information Technology L.L.C.

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.…

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Sebastien Foucou

Infrastructure architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Leverages seamless data access with efficient storage management

I would improve Scality RING by bundling the Operating System with RING and modernizing the graphical interfaces. As for areas for improvement—if I had to summarize—a technical aspect would be the Operating System part, which today isn't really covered by Scality RING, whereas it is with Artesca. It would be a real advantage for customers to have a bundle that includes both the Operating System and Scality RING, with an install and maintenance model handled by Scality. Secondly, perhaps a more cosmetic point—the graphical interfaces could be modernized a bit. There's been work done on Artesca; maybe it should be extended more to RING. I believe that should come with version 10, so I'm not too concerned. I find RING's cyber resilience against ransomware threats somewhat complicated to assess. The product itself offers sufficient protection, and the features provided via S3 allow you to protect against this kind of attack—provided you implement these features, such as object lock with retention and everything that goes with it. If I had to identify an area for improvement, it would be the OS part—but that doesn't necessarily concern RING, unlike Artesca, which comes bundled with an OS. There's been real work done by the Scality teams to secure the system layer in Artesca. It didn't influence us. We know the product and what needs to be implemented to protect data, and it's part of the best practices we also pass on to our clients.

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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

"Among its most appealing features are its ease of handling and minimal maintenance requirements."

"The initial setup was straightforward. If you know how to plug in power and network you're pretty much qualified. They were on site to configure the network, the box to fit into our network architecture. Other than that, we self-managed from there."

"It has absolutely simplified our storage because the dashboards on the consoles show a clear understanding of where you are, and it is also very easy to provision. This been a big help for our teams."

"The most valuable features include the ease of implementation, ease of use and the speed that you can do backup and recovery on."

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

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is user-friendly. It's replication feature is great because it has active replication and active DR. That's the beauty of the product. It's a perfect solution for block storage."

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

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The performance is good."

"The technology is very good, it performs well."

"I would rate scalability ten out of ten since you buy what you want."

"I like that the solution is easy to scale and that's its stable."

"This product is very competitive."

"The scalability is good."

"The tool is easy to use."

"Dell ECS is a very stable solution and most of the S3 APIs are supported."

More Dell ECS pros

"I would give customer service and technical support a 10 on a scale from 1 to 10 based solely on my own experience."

"The most valuable feature of Scality RING8 is its performance and good interface."

"I think it's the economic factor. This solution has the lowest cost for storage systems."

"Scality RING is more stable and performs better than before; we don't experience issues from mechanical failures, only from human intervention."

"The best features of Scality RING are its object storage solution, scalability, and durability."

"Another feature I like is the life cycle management that helps me with data storage efficiency."

Cons

"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."

"We initially encountered challenges with the assembly process due to issues with the documentation required during setup, an area where Pure Storage needs improvement."

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

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

"I would like to see more deduplication."

"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."

"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 speed could be improved."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"One area for product improvement would be the garbage collection process. It takes longer than expected, so speeding up that process would be beneficial."

"There is room for improvement in the DPI reports, as they could be made more user-friendly."

"You should be able to calculate so that when it's full it's 100% full, not just 90%."

"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."

"Its security can be improved."

"The graphical user interface should offer more options, and the documentation with respect to administration could be improved, as it is quite weak in this product."

"The troubleshooting feature of this solution needs to be improved, to allow organizations to fix issues without having to contact the support team."

"Technical support needs to be improved."

More Dell ECS cons

"Scality RING8 could improve by having more features. We have to use two automation tools to meet our needs. We would prefer to use only one."

"Scality RING is not easy to learn for someone new. It is a little bit difficult. There are a lot of components to it, and you also need to understand them to work with it effectively."

"When we used this solution in 2015, it was not scalable at all. I don't know if they have improved on that, but at the time, scalability was just horrible."

"I would like to see more possibilities in the UI for managing aspects of the RING as indicated in the roadmap for the next version of their product. Apart from the UI improvements, I would like to see more features implemented with S3 since not all features are implemented in Scality RING, particularly features such as the S3 select in AWS and the possibility to manage all RINGs with one portal."

"I evaluate the simplicity of managing large volumes of data via Scality RING's user interface as limited because the user interface is mainly used for administration or monitoring purposes."

"I would like to see more possibilities in the UI for managing aspects of the RING as indicated in the roadmap for the next version of their product."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is a little high."

"The product is very expensive."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"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."

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

"The price could be cheaper."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"The solution's cost is quite reasonable."

"Dell EMC ECS is too expensive."

"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."

"The charges for this solution are made in blocks of models, which are purchased depending on what features an organization requires."

"It is an inexpensive product."

"The product is quite expensive."

"Dell ECS is a cost-effective solution."

"We are not paying for the license at this stage."

More Dell ECS pricing and cost advice

"The cost of Scality RING8 could be less expensive. It is difficult for smaller businesses to afford it."

"The initial cost (CAPEX) to set up the infrastructure is expensive due to the specific hardware required."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

27%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

21%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

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...

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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...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell EMC ECS?

The tool is easy to use.

See all answers

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...

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What needs improvement with Dell EMC ECS?

Dell ECS is not fully compatible with S3 ( /products/amazon-s3-reviews ), as it supports around ninety percent of S3 ...

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What do you like most about Scality RING8?

Another feature I like is the life cycle management that helps me with data storage efficiency.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Scality RING8?

It's a very good product, but for large-scale usage, it has limitations. Scality RING's lack of extensive testing and...

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What is your primary use case for Scality RING8?

I work with Scality RING for storage, and we have a concrete strategy to offer it to business customers. Many custome...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 21% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 2% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Dell ECS

Compared 19% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Dell ECS

Compared 14% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Dell ECS

Compared 13% of the time

MinIO vs Dell ECS

Compared 11% of the time

Hitachi Content Platform vs Dell ECS

Compared 3% of the time

More Dell ECS Competitors

MinIO vs Scality RING

Compared 16% of the time

Cloudian HyperStore vs Scality RING

Compared 15% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Scality RING

Compared 14% of the time

Qumulo vs Scality RING

Compared 11% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Scality RING

Compared 3% of the time

More Scality RING Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

May 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell ECS

May 2025

Download Dell ECS product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

April 2025

Download Scality RING product report

Also Known As

No data available

EMC ECS, Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage, EMC Elastic Cloud Storage

Scality RING, RING8

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

Enterprise-ready. Future-proof. Data-first.

Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS) is a file and object storage solution from Dell EMC. ECS has been created to support both traditional and next-generation ecosystems equally. ECS boasts unrivaled economics, manageability, resilience, and scalability to satisfy the demands of today's next-gen, robust business enterprise ecosystems. ECS can easily be deployed in a software-defined model or as a turn-key appliance. ECS is software-defined and multi-layered for unlimited scalability. Every layer is abstracted and scalable with no single point of failure.

Data service layer: Provides S3 access along with access to SWIFT, CAZ, NFS, HDFS.
Storage service layer: Stores, retrieves and protects data.
Fabric layer: Provides clustering, configuration management, health monitoring.

Everything is done within the software, which is containerized, using docker.

ECS is currently deployed using basic commodity hardware, which can easily be federated across as many as eight different locations and managed as a single resource. Additionally, ECS can also protect data at the site level, locally, disk, node, and rack levels. The federation enables a single global namespace with everywhere access to content. Applications can quickly rewrite in an active/active or everywhere active manner.

ECS is also able to be used as secondary storage or archival storage. This will free up valuable primary storage of data that is stale, redundant, or used infrequently, and the data will remain easily accessible. ECS uses policy-based tiering such as Data Domain, Cloud tiering, Isilon using cloud polls, and Geodrive, which give Windows systems direct access to ECS. Windows users can still use server message block (SMB) while leveraging the more expansive ECS storage.

ECS is enterprise-grade and offers valuable features such as retention, multi-tenancy, metering, monitoring, quotas, and more. ECS builds in robust security from the ground up and encrypts data. ECS is compliant with STIG guidelines and adheres to SEC rule 17A-4F.

ECS is an enterprise-ready solution that allows organizations to easily simplify object storage management and visualize information in intuitive new ways, and empowers your business to do even more with data. With ECS, enterprise organizations can deliver cloud-scale economics in-house that will lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and scale, creating greater levels of productivity and profitability.

Reviews from Real Users

One user, who is a deputy director at a tech service company, says ECS offers “good performance, reliability, and technical support”.

Dell EMC ECS is “a stable solution which is easy to scale, install and manage”, relates another user, who is a senior buyer at a tech service company.

"What I like best about this product is that it is a complete solution, both hardware, and software, by the same vendor," summarizes a system engineer at a tech services company.

Dell Technologies

Scality RING object storage enables enterprises and cloud service providers to run petabyte-scale, data-rich services like web applications, VOD, active archives, compliance archives, and private storage clouds. The RING is software, so you can deploy it on standard x86 servers of your choice, taking advantage of server and media innovation over time. Acting as a single, distributed system, the RING can scale linearly across thousands of servers, multiple sites, and an unlimited number of objects. Data is protected with policy-based replication, erasure coding, and geo-distribution, achieving up to 14 9s of durability and 100% availability.

Scality

Sample Customers

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

Atos

Comcast, TimeWarner Cable, EuroSport, Orange, Deluxe, DailtMotion, SFR, RTL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Telstra

Buyer's Guide

Dell ECS vs. Scality RING

April 2025

Free Report: Dell ECS vs. Scality RING

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