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Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs HPE File Storage and Object Storage 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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
217
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
Dell PowerScale (Isilon)
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
NAS (1st), File and Object Storage (2nd)
HPE File Storage and Object...
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (20th), File and Object Storage (25th)
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
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.
LG
Owner at Lnetwork
Has robust security features ensuring data protection, and clients benefits from fast access to integrated data
The best features of HPE Cloud Object Storage include easy management, scalability, and unified access to both object and block storage. Security measures are robust, ensuring data protection, and clients benefit from fast access to integrated data across different platforms like Cisco, Microsoft SQL, and Palantir in a unified view.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For an organization, it can take storage from 40 terabytes down to five terabytes."
"The most valuable features I have experienced are the centralized management and redundancy under speed of the right disk."
"Their REST API is wonderful, well-documented, and easy to use."
"Firstly, dedupe is the most valuable feature, hands down, and simplifying storage is also a big win overall."
"It is an easy to use product for all of my team members."
"It does efficient work of storing data while still delivering the performance that you would normally expect from a higher priced solution."
"FlashArray has many valuable features. It's very user-friendly and it has high availability, so there is comparatively less downtime. During maintenance, there is no shutdown procedure, so you can directly power off the Array and manage the shutdown process without any data loss, which is a unique feature. Managing replication and data migration is also very easy."
"Pure support is very proactive, they monitor our infrastructure in real-time, so they respond before we even open a ticket."
"The solution has simplified management by consolidating our workloads, and rather than managing all the different workloads on different storage arrays and Windows Servers, we just have one place per data centre where we manage all their unstructured data, saving us time."
"The single pane of glass for both IT and for the end-user is a valuable feature. On the IT side, I can actually control where things are stored, whether something is stored on solid-state drives or spinning drives... The single pane of glass makes it very easy to use and very easy to understand. We started at 100 terabytes and we moved to 250 and it still feels like the exact same system and we're able to move data as needed."
"I don't have to rebuild the cluster to add a node."
"There are also the policies that you set up on replication and purging files, and policies for something called WORM. That's a "write once, read many," where you can't overwrite certain files or certain data. It puts them in a "protected mode" where it becomes very difficult for someone to accidentally delete. We use that for certain files or certain directories, because we're dealing with video and some video has to be protected for chain-of-custody purposes. The WORM feature works great."
"Its most valuable feature is the DR capabilities replication."
"Using this product has enabled us to maximize the business value of our data because now, we can store all of our data in one place."
"The major advantages include data protection, ransomware protection, and cloud capabilities, and the primary advantage is the ability to use the entire cluster in one unified file system, which is a feature I have not observed in other products."
"You plug in a new node and data starts migrating over to it, and IT spreads out the load. We've added multiple nodes to the system since deploying it. The process is pretty seamless, and we are able to do it with no downtime. It's a very easy process to do."
"This is a scalable solution that is available when we need it."
"The best features of HPE Cloud Object Storage include easy management, scalability, and unified access to both object and block storage. Security measures are robust, ensuring data protection, and clients benefit from fast access to integrated data across different platforms like Cisco, Microsoft SQL, and Palantir in a unified view."
"It is a good product and I recommend it to other people and organizations who are exploring it as an option."
"One of the features offered and used by many clients is file-sharing."
"The feedback from our clients is that it is very stable, they are very happy with it, and updates are completed on a regular basis and well documented."
 

Cons

"I’d love to view the average, minimum and maximum performance in the reports (Analysis tab - Performance) but it is only graphics and you need to export data in CSV to find this information."
"Its price needs improvement. Its price is almost double than any other flash storage solution."
"There could be better storage."
"I think replication is one area that still needs improvement."
"The backend of this solution utilizes an Active/Passive architecture, rather than an Active/Active architecture, which is a disadvantage, when compared to some of its competitors. Its storage capacity should be expanded in the next release."
"The initial setup was a little complex. We had some initial issues with the design and had to help correct some of the white papers for it, but it wasn't your standard use case."
"I would like to have an easy way to determine the cost per VM so that I can present a solution to our customers."
"The product could improve by providing the capability to support NAS storage – CIFS and NFS."
"There is room for improvement with the updates. It can take a significant amount of time to do a major OS update."
"It is a bit higher priced than some of the other systems."
"It would be good to have synchronized mirroring between two clusters without using a third-party program."
"The portal is really complicated to figure out features and functions, and it could be easier to navigate."
"A recent development is, that there's a key feature coming out in OneFS 9.3, however, when you then try to get to 9.3 or 9.4 of the OneFS, it's been pulled from the download of the Dell website and we're referring back to 9.2.1 as the target code."
"From the disadvantages perspective, if I need to replace a drive, I must shut down that node."
"Data storage performance needs to be improved."
"That said, for the other security features, it would be helpful if Tenable - and I know it's outside the scope of this question itself - had Isilon-specific plugins."
"Our customers in Canada cannot use it because it has to be compliant in the same country."
"At present, the initial setup is slow."
"Our customers in Canada cannot use it because it has to be compliant in the same country."
"Technical support is not available locally for us."
"The biggest disadvantage to this product is the technical support and pricing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not the cheapest one out there. We're paying yearly, but I'm not 100% sure."
"For us, as the customer, it reduced the price of the management."
"We feel that the pricing is fair and the licensing process was easy for both."
"All storage is expensive so any price improvement would help."
"The pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray is reasonable."
"The price, in general, is around $100,000, however, I know it costs more."
"The license for Pure Storage FlashArray includes the support and there are no additional payments that are needed. This is not an inexpensive solution, you need to understand the value of your data before you use a backup solution."
"We do not incur additional costs beyond the licensing fee."
"The price of the solution can fluctuate. The price can be competitive or other times not. The price of the solution could be better."
"The pricing is excellent."
"The only drawback for us is that it's a large upfront investment. This was a huge decision for a startup company to make. It took a bit for us to get over the line on it, but we have not regretted it."
"The solution is expensive; it is not the cheapest solution out there. If you look at it from a total cost of ownership perspective, then it is a very compelling solution. However, if you're looking at just dollar per terabyte and not looking at the big picture, then you could be distracted by the price. It is not an amazing price, but it's pretty good. It is also very good when you consider the total cost of ownership and ease of management."
"I always want things to be less expensive. However, I would say the pricing is fair. Their costs are in alignment with their competitors. It is a good value for the money."
"It is an expensive product with a high storage capacity suitable for large data requirements."
"The price of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is reasonable."
"The solution's licensing cost varies based on capacity and performance requirements."
"Licensing is based on a per terabyte basis."
"Pricing is middle of the road, but it seems that it should be less expensive."
"HPE Cloud Object Storage is competitively priced and offers a good value for its solution. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Media Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business65
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise152
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise46
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...
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 I mentioned before, we did not purchase Dell PowerScale (Isilon) directly. Since our organization is a government ...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
I think Dell PowerScale (Isilon) could improve some functions such as Apache S3 or containerized storage support, as ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Cloud Object Storage?
HPE Cloud Object Storage is competitively priced and offers a good value for its solution. There are no additional co...
What is your primary use case for HPE Cloud Object Storage?
Many companies use HPE Cloud Object Storage for analytics solutions in MongoDB to create business insights. In our da...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
HP Cloud Object Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
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,
China Merchants Bank, Hexaware, Snagajob
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. HPE File Storage and Object Storage and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.