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Dell ECS vs VAST Data 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
VAST Data
Ranking in File and Object Storage
9th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (20th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (8th)
 

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 VAST Data is 4.2%, up from 2.8% 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.…
Alan Powers - PeerSpot reviewer
Stability-wise, a device that has been up and running for years
The failover capability and resiliency are some of the solution's valuable features. The big thing is resilience because it has richer coding in it, so multiple devices can't fail. Also, one can still access a number of CBoxes that can allow one to access their file system. Once a device fails, it fails the transparency of the end-user, and it just starts using another resource. The encryption capability, the snapshots, along with a whole bunch of features make the tool valuable. VAST Data keeps adding more and more features all the time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."
"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."
"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."
"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 tool's most valuable features are data warehousing, speedy recovery, and analytics. Its latest release is cost-effective."
"What I like best about Pure Storage FlashBlade is its object storage functionality, plus it has fast underlying hardware. Pure Storage FlashBlade is also very stable. I find its stability one of its valuable features."
"The product is scalable and easy to expand."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the rewrite speed and the nonstop services."
"Competitive object storage platform that's stable and scalable."
"It's my understanding that the initial setup is straightforward."
"I like that the solution is easy to scale and that's its stable."
"The performance and support from Dell EMC are very good."
"We face very few hardware failures."
"The performance is good."
"Dell ECS is a cost-effective solution that provides ease of use and availability."
"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."
"This has been one of the most reliable storage systems that I have ever used."
"The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations."
 

Cons

"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."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade should improve on more cloud integration."
"I would like to see better integration."
"I have not seen ROI."
"An area for improvement in Pure Storage FlashBlade is its price. It could be reduced. The technical support for Pure Storage FlashBlade also needs improvement. It used to be good, with more experienced engineers. Nowadays, it isn't, and it takes longer for support to solve problems."
"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."
"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."
"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 major weakness in the solution is that there is no cloud version for Dell ECS."
"The solution needs to provide better integration between this solution and all other kinds of systems."
"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."
"Its security can be improved."
"They need to ensure that the system will work if a site goes down."
"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."
"The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement."
"The write performance could be improved because it is less than half of the read performance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."
"The product is very expensive."
"We used a reseller for the purchase."
"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."
"The price could be cheaper."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Dell ECS is a cost-effective solution."
"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."
"It is an expensive solution. There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the product."
"We are not paying for the license at this stage."
"Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one."
"We acquired VAST Data as a one-time, capital purchase."
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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%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
University
6%
 

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 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 VAST Data?
The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VAST Data?
Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one.
What needs improvement with VAST Data?
The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Atos
Norwest Venture Partners, General Dynamics Information Technology, Ginkgo Bioworks
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell ECS vs. VAST Data and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.