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Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Dell PowerStore comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.6
Dell PowerScale offers scalable, cost-efficient storage enhancing data management, performance, and durability, benefiting business growth and resource optimization.
Sentiment score
5.6
Dell PowerStore users report positive ROI through cost efficiency, reduced infrastructure, enhanced performance, and improved business operations.
Despite being more expensive than Huawei, it is stable and most enterprises accept the price due to its stability.
Senior System Engineer at Atlas Security
In terms of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) specifically, we have seen a return on investment due to faster performance than our last few storage arrays, and the general usability is a lot better.
Storage & Data Protection Specialist at General Dynamics Land Systems
The second cluster of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) gives us flexibility for small things like code upgrades, all the way to scenarios where we have lost this data center or data, allowing us to check if data is still intact on the other side.
Senior System Engineer at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
If you purchase storage with 300 terabytes, you can easily achieve one petabyte of effective capacity.
Regional Sales Manager at New Horizon Computers
It's been trouble-free the entire time, with very high performance, as it has been designed and built properly.
Storage Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
We have seen a return on our investment in Dell PowerStore; definitely our cost per terabyte has been very good compared to some of the other vendors that we would have been using previously, and our performance benchmarks have exceeded what we were expecting.
Director of Global Platform at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Dell PowerScale's support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, though some suggest improvements in first-line response times.
Sentiment score
6.5
Dell PowerStore users generally praise support, citing quick responses but noting occasional issues with speed and staff experience.
Support online is definitely a ten out of ten.
Pre-Sale Engineer at Arab Operators
Dell provides support within four hours, and they always fulfill their promises.
Senior System Engineer at Atlas Security
They have managed previous issues well.
IT Manager at Regional Health Services
I would rate the technical support of Dell PowerStore between nine and ten out of ten.
Solution Architect at CDA
They're responsive, knowledgeable, and have a quick turnaround.
Systems Engineer at a government with 11-50 employees
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Dell support as a ten, focusing on that aspect alone, because it's what allows me to sleep at night.
Head of IT at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Dell PowerScale offers seamless scalability, efficient petabyte-level storage, and easy integration, with some initial complexity and node compatibility challenges.
Sentiment score
6.8
Dell PowerStore offers exceptional scalability, adapting easily to organizational growth with robust vertical and horizontal expansion capabilities.
We started on PowerScale with around about 300 terabytes and are now two and a half petabytes, still on the same file system.
Storage Architect at a educational organization with 10,001+ employees
That's really saved us in certain areas as we didn't have funding to expand Dell PowerScale (Isilon) until next year, which is why we utilized the cloud pools functionality to offload.
Senior Infrastructure Specialist at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
As an unstructured data storage solution, writing into it and accessing it from the other nodes is highly scalable with no issues.
Senior Technical Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The solution's scalability is a ten out of ten.
Pre-Sales Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
It scales up and scales out both ways, and as our data keeps growing, it is very easy to just keep attaching and keep growing.
Associate Director at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Scaling up can be done from a single enclosure that already has two controllers to a maximum of four storage units with up to eight controllers, and a massive amount of storage can be added.
Nutanix at Senior System Engineer
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) provides high stability, minimal downtime, with easy management and frequent upgrades ensuring nearly 100% uptime.
Sentiment score
7.6
Dell PowerStore is praised for stability and support, with minor issues usually resolved quickly and efficiently.
Since we have good protection levels, the data is secured and replicated across the disks.
Pre-Sale Engineer at Arab Operators
Even if a node goes down, other nodes can respond and provide data back to the user without issues.
Storage Platform Engineer at Expedia Group
I assess the stability and reliability of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) as perfect.
Storage & Data Protection Specialist at General Dynamics Land Systems
When I removed all the cables, it failed over within five minutes.
Consultant
It's quite stable and reliable in general.
Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
I have not experienced any downtime, bugs, or glitches, and it's much better than previous technologies.
Storage Backup Administrator at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Dell PowerScale needs cost reduction, better usability, improved cloud integration, enhanced security, and streamlined management and support features.
Users suggest improvements in Dell PowerStore's integration, stability, cost, support, cybersecurity, scalability, usability, and enterprise features.
Hardware failures under warranty should be addressed within the promised timeline.
Senior Engineer at Continental Tire
I would want to see more AI features with Dell PowerScale (Isilon).
Storage & Data Protection Specialist at General Dynamics Land Systems
If I could improve one thing on Dell PowerScale (Isilon), it would be better object storage as it recently breached into S3, and that capability could be broadened.
Senior System Engineer at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Something needs to be done with the caching to ensure that if some issue occurs, there needs to be an ability to disable caching during maintenance to make it static, safe, and good.
CISO Admin at a analyst firm with 51-200 employees
Pricing must also be considered, as Dell PowerStore is quite expensive compared to competitors in the market like HPE Alletra, Huawei Dorado, or Hitachi storage, for example.
Unit Head - Technology Services at Shahnawaz Ltd
The main reason why people move to Pure Storage is because it's simplified.
IT Director at a recreational facilities/services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Dell PowerScale's ease of management and flexibility justify its higher cost against competitors, offering a compelling total cost of ownership.
Dell PowerStore is competitively priced with comprehensive licensing, though expansion costs may lead to higher overall expenses.
It's quite expensive for the amount of storage we have.
Senior Infrastructure Specialist at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Cheaper nodes will cost less, while higher performance nodes will be pricier.
Storage Platform Engineer at Expedia Group
Costs align well with what it delivers, making it a fair price for a powerful tool that meets all our needs.
Tv Systems Technical Supervisor at a media company with 501-1,000 employees
Likely the cost is $400,000 whereas IBM may be $250,000.
Adv. Service Manager at ECC Solutions
Based on my experience, the cost of Dell PowerStore for around 500 GB of capacity is very competitive compared to any other platform in the market.
Deputy General Manager at HCLSoftware
I asked for a new quotation on a server, and it is quite expensive; it is really expensive.
Responsable Plateformes Et Cloud at a media company with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Dell PowerScale excels in scalability, flexibility, data management, and cost-effectiveness, offering seamless integration and efficiency for large-scale operations.
Dell PowerStore offers flexible deployment, high performance, efficient storage, scalability, and security, making it ideal for diverse storage needs.
Dell PowerScale offers high scalability and stability as well, making it a valuable solution for enterprises.
Senior System Engineer at Atlas Security
In our AI initiatives, Dell PowerScale (Isilon) plays a significant role in data analysis, data fusion; principally, it is involved in data analysis, data extraction, and statistical analysis.
Senior Technologist at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Single files are limited to four terabytes in our configuration, however, the system can support up to 16 terabytes, so we can scale based on that too.
Systems Engineer at Unisity LLC
This includes storage sharing, adding servers to the service, and the wireless host connection on the network side.
Senior System Administrator at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
Dell PowerStore offers good integration capabilities, especially since it helps with backup, which is an important aspect.
CISO at a construction company with 10,001+ employees
In terms of whether my company could reduce the power consumption with Dell PowerStore, I would say that my company had a use case with a customer around three weeks ago where their old Dell EMC VNX Storage System used to draw about 2500 watts compared to Dell PowerStore which drew about 800 watts, which is a really a big saving looking at the twenty-four hours and seven days of usage of the system.
Data Center Consultant at a retailer with 11-50 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)
Ranking in NAS
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (2nd)
Dell PowerStore
Ranking in NAS
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
164
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (4th), Enterprise SAN (1st), All-Flash Storage (1st), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the NAS category, the mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 15.1%, down from 17.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 10.4%, down from 12.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Dell PowerStore10.4%
Dell PowerScale (Isilon)15.1%
Other74.5%
NAS
 

Featured Reviews

BE
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.
reviewer2304864 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vmware Windows Senior Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Resilience has supported proactive management and secured audit readiness across multiple sites
The resilience in Dell PowerStore benefits my company from an auditing perspective because we know we have that resilience in place. I see Dell PowerStore playing a bigger role in the future because we are starting to use it more, and that is pushing it. The biggest return on investment for me when using Dell PowerStore is scalability. Scalability is key. I can amplify that scalability is the biggest return on investment because we have redundancy between two sites; if something goes down, we have to manage it, but we want to do it proactively.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise42
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business54
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise81
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
The solution provides massive performance, scalability, efficiency, and ease of management.
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 now, so we are basically on the renewal track all the time. We did not find it to ...
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 better CPU. I haven't used the NVIDIA yet, but a better Intel CPU would be benefi...
What do you think about Dell EMC PowerStore? Is it actually a new product?
PowerStore is flexible, scalable, simple, and performant with market-leading economics for a wide range of legacy and next-gen apps. It is only Flash and can support many workloads from today's app...
How does Dell's EMC PowerStore compare with its EMC Unity XT?
Dell EMC PowerStore is a unified storage platform that has the added benefit of being scalable. The automated management of resources feature provides a more simple administration. I found the flex...
What's the difference between DELL EMC Powerstore and Powermax NVMe?
Dell PowerStore is an all-solid-state midrange storage system. It has many internal elements taken from other Dell offerings and integrated into the PowerStoreOS. The installation and setup have a ...
 

Also Known As

PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
PowerStore
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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,
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Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Dell PowerStore and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
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