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Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Qumulo 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)
Qumulo
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
NAS (12th), File and Object Storage (21st)
 

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.
VinceVitro - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Storage Architect at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Useful data sharing, simple cluster scaling, and excellent support
One aspect of Qumulo that I hoped to see improved was its software upgrade process, which did see significant progress during my usage. Initially, upgrading the software resulted in several minutes of system downtime. However, by the time I departed last summer, the downtime had reduced to mere ten seconds. Although I am unsure if Qumulo has yet achieved a completely outage-free upgrade, I simply performed the upgrades early in the morning before the marketing department began its workday, so any downtime was inconsequential.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We find the ease of usability and setup valuable."
"Data deduplication features make it easier to manage storage and forecast growth."
"The top-tier support and reliable storage are the most valuable features of this solution."
"Having an intuitive user interface to get things running is great."
"We have tons of capacity on it."
"Has also helped simplify storage for us. The other person we put in there, took about a week to implement. And we had both arrays set up within around four hours with a thirty minute drive time between the two locations."
"It simplifies storage."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the support."
"The solution provides massive performance, scalability, efficiency, and ease of management."
"My experience with Dell as a vendor is pretty good; they are probably one of the best in the industry."
"The solution's most valuable features are scalability and flexibility."
"This has been a valuable solution for our business overall. It offers business continuity and replication features."
"It has allowed us to have more consistent quality controls. It has also allowed us to expand the number of servers in clients processing and accessing data, allowing us to get a lot bigger projects out the door."
"The most valuable feature for me is SyncIQ."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is a platform that is very easy for teams to work with."
"The solution is extremely easy to manage. This is its most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature of Qumulo is the ability to share files and reliability."
"The most valuable feature is real-time analytics."
"The most valuable features of Qumulo are its rolling updates and all-day availability."
"It is a very stable product. I never faced any issues."
"The feature that I like most is the analytics part of the file system."
"The data protection algorithm to protect the data between the nodes has been the most valuable feature. The integration with backup platforms such as Veeam and Veritas has also been valuable."
"The ratio of total operational cost to complexity versus feature set is very good."
"The most valuable features of Qumulo are the ease of management and special permissions that are quick to enable. The overall performance of the solution is good."
 

Cons

"I would like to see the NAS add-on component become more fault-tolerant than just a single virtual machine running inside the array. I'm unwilling to use it for that reason."
"We do have an issue with the vCenter integration. Pure Storage says it has a lot of free space, but vCenter says its completely full. This is because their dedupes are saved as space, but Vcenter still detects the disk as completely full. So, we do have an issue with that."
"I would like to have support available in Spanish."
"The scalability of the solution is not as good as it probably could be."
"I would like the ability to swap out the network adapters into it. So, without taking out the whole controller, I would like to be able to swap adapters. This would make things easier."
"The main disadvantage of Pure Storage FlashArray is the price."
"The price of this solution could be improved."
"I would like to have an easy way to determine the cost per VM so that I can present a solution to our customers."
"There aren't many templates still coming out for it. They need to provide templates so we can copy and paste what we've done in the past to future, new things."
"Pricing is an issue. It's quite expensive for the amount of storage we have."
"It would be nice to see tools like Superna Eyeglass built into PowerScale."
"They should add some new services that should be for on-premises, and more analytics should be there for the data, allowing for a deep dive from that analytics, which is currently missing."
"Since our Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is our own on-prem in-house built system, we don't have many up-to-date resources, and we're still a few years behind."
"Isilon has limitations on the number of files that can be generated."
"I would like to see increased reporting and statistics functionalities."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) could improve the load distribution capability. For example, in some cases, the system load is not distributed automatically on all the nodes but is concentrated only on one. You have a peak request on only one node and the others don't do anything."
"In the future, I would like to see non-disruptive updates."
"One aspect of Qumulo that I hoped to see improved was its software upgrade process, which did see significant progress during my usage. Initially, upgrading the software resulted in several minutes of system downtime. However, by the time I departed last summer, the downtime had reduced to mere ten seconds. Although I am unsure if Qumulo has yet achieved a completely outage-free upgrade, I simply performed the upgrades early in the morning before the marketing department began its workday, so any downtime was inconsequential."
"Some anti-theft permissions do not transfer well to Qumulo."
"The price of the software is a bit expensive, so a reduction in cost would make it more competitive."
"Qumulo should continue to expand automation and orchestration capabilities."
"In the next release, I would like to see the ability to have more control at a terminal level of the file system."
"The support for iMac and protocols should be improved, not all features are available."
"The solution could improve availability and improve data protection or data services such as compression of deduplication. In a future release, we'd like to have more cloud API integrations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Pure has been flexible with us on the pricing models."
"The price of the Pure Storage Flash Array is too high and there needs to be more contact clarity. We went with the Evergreen plan and I don't have clarity on what am I supposed to pay each year or every three years. There was not much contract clarity."
"My organization has a yearly license, but I believe that Pure Storage FlashArray has capacity-based licenses as well. I'm definitely happy with the pricing."
"You can pay extra for Evergreen support, which gives you free upgrades when new features are introduced."
"There is always room for negotiation."
"The best features come included without any additional cost."
"It is light years beyond anything else with the same price point."
"Our company finds the pricing high, but it decreases over time."
"Price was also a significant factor in our decision to go with PowerScale. The team at EMC, now Dell EMC, came through with a highly competitive offer that tipped the scales towards their solution. There was only one other solution around the same price point, but it could not match PowerScale on features. That other solution is no longer on the market."
"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 price of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is reasonable."
"It is an expensive product with a high storage capacity suitable for large data requirements."
"Dell PowerScale is an expensive solution compared to other products like Qumulo."
"The solution's licensing cost varies based on capacity and performance requirements."
"The price of the solution is high."
"The price of the solution is in the middle range compared to others. We look at the price per terabyte."
"The price of Qumulo is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

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
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
 

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...
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Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
No data available
 

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,
County of Riverside Sheriff Department, Hyundai Mobis Automotive North America, University of Arizona, UCSD - San Diego Supercomputer Center, Medical College of Wisconsin, Sinclair Oil, Royal Dutch Shell, Kaiser Permanente, Deluxe Creative, Vexcel Imaging, University of Florida, The Madison Square Garden Company, Arizona State University, Cinesite, San Diego Padres Baseball, Johns Hopkins University - School of Medicine, IHME, EllieMae, Washington State University.
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Qumulo and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.