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Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs HPE GreenLake for File Storage comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
8.5
Pure Storage FlashBlade boosts ROI by reducing costs, enhancing efficiencies, increasing VM density, and saving 20%-85% in time.
Sentiment score
7.3
Dell PowerScale scales efficiently, consolidates workloads, and optimizes costs, enhancing data management and storage reliability across sectors.
Sentiment score
6.2
HPE GreenLake improves storage scalability and efficiency, offering cost savings and reducing workload with integrated cloud and on-premises.
It does not require much management once you set up correctly, so it saves time, allowing an admin to focus on other work.
Despite being more expensive than Huawei, it is stable and most enterprises accept the price due to its stability.
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.
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.
Since they operate 24 by seven, the necessary tasks are completed continuously, which is quicker than if my team handled them only between nine to five.
We had HPE hardware on Hyper-V previously, and HPE GreenLake gave us dHCI with VMware and a lot more stability.
I have seen a return on investment with HPE GreenLake for File Storage.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Pure Storage FlashBlade support is praised for responsiveness and knowledge but criticized for slower responses and occasional language barriers.
Sentiment score
8.4
Dell PowerScale support is helpful yet inconsistent; higher-tier engineers excel, but COVID-19 strains first-line support response.
Sentiment score
7.7
HPE GreenLake for File Storage receives high praise for its excellent, reliable support, with 24/7 assistance and knowledgeable staff.
I would rate them an eight out of ten.
The support is done through email and is not that great, making it a very problematic area I've been dealing with for over four years.
Dell provides support within four hours, and they always fulfill their promises.
They have managed previous issues well.
I would evaluate the customer service and technical support for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) as great.
The reason for this rating is that there is no downtime.
On a scale from one being the worst and ten being the best, I rate my customer service and technical support for the HPE GreenLake for File Storage as a ten.
The support with GreenLake is good because we always have an engineer who helps the customer.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.8
Pure Storage FlashBlade is praised for scalability, ease of expansion, and support, despite some areas needing improvement.
Sentiment score
7.8
Dell PowerScale excels in scalability and integration, managing large workloads efficiently while offering flexible storage solutions for enterprises.
Sentiment score
7.1
HPE GreenLake for File Storage provides scalable, flexible deployment, supporting diverse environments with seamless scaling but faces pricing fluctuation challenges.
Pure Storage FlashBlade is scalable.
We started on PowerScale with around about 300 terabytes and are now two and a half petabytes, still on the same file system.
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.
Dell PowerScale is highly scalable, as evidenced by the reduced physical hardware and the efficient use of rack space.
It's suitable for startup growth as well as large enterprises, and the modular, disaggregated nature provides the flexibility needed for efficient application scaling.
You can connect around 2 million storage servers to the same architecture, so scaling is not a problem.
The customer is asking us why we are now giving them a higher price than the initial project, which is the problem when we want to add capacity; the price may change, and the customer has another expectation.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.8
Pure Storage FlashBlade is praised for its impressive stability and reliability, with minimal disruptions and consistent uptime even during upgrades.
Sentiment score
8.3
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) offers reliable, stable performance with minimal downtime and resilience against unexpected issues, despite minor setup challenges.
Sentiment score
6.2
HPE GreenLake for File Storage is praised for its stability, efficiency, and reliability, with minimal performance or integration issues.
In case there is any issue with any blade, the data is moved to another.
I assess the stability and reliability of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) as perfect.
I find the product to be resilient and stable. There's no downtime and no crashes.
I find Dell PowerScale (Isilon) to be very stable and reliable.
The file system is very stable and it rarely goes down.
Since we've been on HPE GreenLake for File Storage, I have not experienced any downtime, crashes, or performance issues.
Since we had a site backup, we performed a disaster recovery to the other site and the system was up again.
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek better cloud integration, enhanced deduplication, improved support, protocol enhancements, simpler configuration, and a more intuitive interface.
Dell PowerScale could improve with better cloud integration, simpler configuration, enhanced data management, security, and performance, especially for small files.
HPE GreenLake for File Storage needs enhanced cloud compatibility, AI integration, user interface clarity, cost efficiency, and improved support.
Technical support definitely needs significant improvement.
Its configuration should be easier.
Hardware failures under warranty should be addressed within the promised timeline.
I would want to see more AI features with Dell PowerScale (Isilon).
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.
HP has already deployed AI in GreenLake's cloud features, but they should also integrate them into the flash array.
It provides a fast head start, but when dealing with complex situations, it doesn't lead you effectively.
If they could provide me with a troubleshooting document for the issue I was experiencing with connecting to Aruba Central, that would be great.
 

Setup Cost

Pure Storage FlashBlade offers high performance and features, justifying its cost with no extra software fees and fixed support costs.
Dell PowerScale is pricey but offers value in total cost, scalability, and performance, making it a worthwhile investment.
HPE GreenLake for File Storage offers competitive pricing, aligning with budgets and featuring OPEX model flexibility without upfront costs.
The pricing of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the past, but one benefit is that they have built-in ransomware protection.
It's quite expensive for the amount of storage we have.
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) shows it's a premium platform, so it's a big amount of money.
The pricing is excellent.
It provides excellent pricing for massive enterprise customers wishing to remain on-premises while achieving competitive prices to cloud providers without requiring migration.
In summary, it's a predictable cost, but the VMware aspect is a problem.
HPE GreenLake for File Storage is relatively cheaper than Cisco, so that's a big plus.
 

Valuable Features

Pure Storage FlashBlade offers fast, scalable, and user-friendly storage with efficient integration, analytics, and versatility for diverse needs.
Dell PowerScale offers easy management, scalability, strong data protection, integration, and supports diverse workloads with high reliability.
HPE GreenLake for File Storage offers automatic storage policies, excellent performance, cost savings, robust security, and flexible management with predictable pricing.
We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte.
The best features of Pure Storage FlashBlade include better throughput and better performance.
Dell PowerScale offers high scalability and stability as well, making it a valuable solution for enterprises.
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.
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.
This provides the flexibility of a pay-per-consumption model, allowing me to choose resources without investing in the entire platform.
It's important for my business that the solution has independent scaling of performance and capacity while our storage system is online.
I evaluate the solution's performance for eliminating front-end caching and data movement between media as fast; we don't notice any latency.
 

Categories and Ranking

Pure Storage FlashBlade
Sponsored
Ranking in File and Object Storage
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (16th), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (8th)
Dell PowerScale (Isilon)
Ranking in File and Object Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
NAS (2nd)
HPE GreenLake for File Storage
Ranking in File and Object Storage
7th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.8%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 8.8%, up from 8.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE GreenLake for File Storage is 0.4%, up from 0.2% 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.
Scott Taylor - PeerSpot reviewer
Manages large data sets efficiently with hybrid cloud integration
My organization is quite large, with about 30,000 employees. The growth has been substantial in areas such as radiology and genomics. One of the best features we've utilized recently is offload to cloud pools due to capacity constraints on-premise. We didn't want to expand Dell PowerScale (Isilon) straight away, so we utilized cloud pools to offload some data to Azure. 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.
NemiGeorge - PeerSpot reviewer
Exceptional service and hands-off infrastructure management enhance data handling and AI workloads
The features of HPE GreenLake for File Storage that I value the most include compute, storage, and managed service, and monitoring managed service. I appreciate the fact that my team doesn't have to manage all the infrastructure every day, handle patches, security updates, and similar tasks. Time saving is an example of how these features have benefited my organization. My team can focus on supporting our core businesses and not worry about infrastructure management. Also, expertise plays a role; we're a first-time HPE GreenLake customer, so having them manage that gives my team the opportunity to upskill without breaking anything.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
No data available
 

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...
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 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)?
We have to go through a certified reseller for Dell PowerScale (Isilon). From a value standpoint, it performs very well.
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
I would make Dell PowerScale (Isilon) better by improving SmartSync in the graphical user interface. Currently, every...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE GreenLake for File Storage?
Pricing for HPE GreenLake for File Storage is competitive with market standards. It provides excellent pricing for ma...
What needs improvement with HPE GreenLake for File Storage?
From my standpoint, the single user interface could definitely be improved. It provides a fast head start, but when d...
What is your primary use case for HPE GreenLake for File Storage?
We use HPE GreenLake for File Storage for running our application workloads and data workloads.
 

Also Known As

No data available
PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
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. HPE GreenLake for File Storage and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.