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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
7.4
Number of Reviews
211
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
Dell PowerScale (Isilon)
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
NAS (2nd), 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 (23rd), File and Object Storage (28th)
 

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

"The most valuable feature is test performance. It helps us store large amounts of data along with providing us faster retrieval of data."
"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."
"Deduplication is an excellent feature. I also like the NAS and support."
"We're getting good performance, and the compression ratio is also very good in Pure Storage FlashArray."
"We tested our VDI environment on this array and it performed flawlessly and boosted the user experience."
"The most valuable features in Pure Storage FlashArray are deduplication and active cluster."
"It's just very easy for general block storage."
"This is a very good product at a very good price, with very good support."
"Dell PowerScale includes a wealth of features that are important from a security and recovery perspective."
"The recent introduction of inline deduplication and compression has drastically improved our efficiency ratios to make it an economical product. This solution has also had a positive impact on our employees' productivity because it reduces the amount of admin that our staff needs to handle."
"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."
"Certainly, we have seen return on investment and peace of mind, especially with our two clusters that are linked together, where one is a disaster recovery solution for the other."
"The solution's scalability is very good."
"The tool comes with cheap disks and works fast for video content."
"The tool's most valuable features are scalability and stability."
"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."
"This is a scalable solution that is available when we need it."
"It is a good product and I recommend it to other people and organizations who are exploring it as an option."
"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."
"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."
"One of the features offered and used by many clients is file-sharing."
 

Cons

"We haven't seen ROI."
"The way Pure Storage does the controller storage warranty or replacement has been an issue for some people who just replace the controllers every couple of years, and that's where some of the confusion with pricing and support has come in. They should be clear on the way the controller replacements happen, as it is important to know whether or not you can get a good return on them, because it can be a little confusing."
"The integration capabilities could be improved."
"I would like to see some improvements on the FlashBlade side around the CIFS space support."
"They are doing some stuff with containers and an object search. These could be improved, because containers is one of the main topics that we are talking with our customers about."
"The file functionality could be better."
"Price per terabyte is substantially higher than their competition. We would like to see it drop."
"The only time that we had problems with it was that there was a bug in the VVol implementation but, outside of that, it has been flawless."
"One downside of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is that it is really complicated to configure."
"The legacy file system for Epsilon didn't scale into the cloud and didn't have a separate OS. It would be key if this was made possible."
"The solution lacks a cloud version."
"It would be good to have synchronized mirroring between two clusters without using a third-party program."
"Dell PowerScale's deployment is not easy."
"The only thing that I think PowerScale could do better is improving the HTTP data access protocol. At the present, you cannot protect access to data via HTTP or HTTPS the same way that you can secure data access through other protocols like NFS or SMB[...]the Unified Permission Model that would allow a user to authenticate before being able to access a private file, does not apply."
"Because of the magic that it does 'under the hood,' it is very difficult to find out within the system where all your storage is going."
"I would want to see more AI features with Dell PowerScale (Isilon)."
"Technical support is not available locally for us."
"The biggest disadvantage to this product is the technical support and pricing."
"At present, the initial setup is slow."
"Our customers in Canada cannot use it because it has to be compliant in the same country."
"Our customers in Canada cannot use it because it has to be compliant in the same country."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Dell and Pure Storage offer competitive pricing, but Pure Storage might have a slight advantage."
"The cost was initially high, but once more people were using it, the costs came down. This was because the University was reselling it to other departments."
"We evaluated Oracle and Hitachi, but Pure Storage had the better pricing."
"The pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray is reasonable."
"The price is very reasonable when compared to other solutions."
"There is always room for negotiation."
"Pure Storage has not helped us to reduce our licensing costs."
"The price of the solution can be a bit expensive. There is an additional fee for support."
"Pricing for this solution is reasonable."
"The platform is not cheap. However, on the software side, you can choose what you want license. So, you can start your licensing with the features that you need, then after buying the platform add some other features."
"Dell PowerScale is expensive on the start-up side but we can recoup those costs quickly by not having to reapply the savings to other equipment."
"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."
"The solution's licensing cost varies based on capacity and performance requirements."
"The pricing is expensive, but I think it's a fair value because it does manage itself. It definitely is much simpler than any of the other scale-out storage platforms that we've looked at in the past."
"The general cost for a system like this is expensive. The total cost depends on your use case. You need to pay for every additional feature that you use."
"This solution is priced slightly higher than others on the market but does offer good quality. With this solution's data reduction and compression, we were able to purchase less. Costs have dropped because of the data rate of compression and deduplication."
"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."
"Pricing is middle of the road, but it seems that it should be less expensive."
"Licensing is based on a per terabyte basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Media Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business63
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise143
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise44
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?
I don't really know much about the pricing for Pure Storage FlashArray in terms of the absolute cost. Regarding Everg...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Despite liking Pure Storage FlashArray, there is room for improvement in automation. Pure Storage FlashArray needs to...
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 have experienced a RAM failure in some of the nodes of Dell PowerScale (Isilon), and that required hardware replace...
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: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.