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Dell PowerScale vs Huawei FusionStorage 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
7.2
Number of Reviews
233
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (2nd)
Dell PowerScale
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
NAS (1st), File and Object Storage (1st)
Huawei FusionStorage
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (16th), File and Object Storage (24th)
 

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.
Santosh Bharadwaj Rangavajjula - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
File sharing has supported collaboration and disaster recovery but security support still needs work
Dell PowerScale can improve specifically for AI workloads, particularly on the MCPs. I would add that we have not seen an official MCP from Dell PowerScale and are relying on open source. It would be valuable to have an MCP server that we can set up directly with them. Regarding Dell PowerScale's AI capabilities, I think its governance and security could be better. We have Superna that we buy along with Dell PowerScale, but we are seeing very big problems with integrating it. Superna is primarily for the security use case, as we want to prevent cybersecurity attacks and ransomware attacks. If Dell is providing this as a supplementary feature, it should provide better support. Regarding Dell PowerScale's AI capabilities, I do not see much accuracy and reliability of output. This is actually a security problem because Dell does not provide official MCP servers while most other vendors are providing it. This forces us to rely on open source, which is not secure. Dell PowerScale plays a role in my organization's AI initiatives as we want to use the Metadata IQ functionality from Dell PowerScale; however, there is not enough support and extensive documentation for us to be able to do this.
Wondwossen Abebe Kebede - PeerSpot reviewer
Program and performance manager at Ethio Telecom
Reliable platform that integrates well with different IT infrastructures and systems
The product integrates well with different IT infrastructures and systems in the telecom sector. Our partners manage services, including detailed integration and migration-related operations. The platform upholds the uptime and reliability of our business applications. We classify our systems into different tiers, ranging from machine-critical to business-critical, and FusionStorage helps us run all the services. It delivers a remarkable uptime of 99.9%. With our expectations for continuous service availability, we are operating 24/7. In cases where system interruptions occur, it enables rapid restoration, ensuring a prompt return to normal service levels. I rate it an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Pure gives us better compression, it's easier to manage, a lot less hands-on, and the biggest selling point for me was the replacement of the hardware, the controllers, without any major expense to the clinic."
"We have integrated the solution with VMware, and the process was seamless."
"The support has been very good from Pure Storage FlashArray."
"I like FlashArray's ActiveCluster as well as its snapshot and cloning capabilities."
"It comes with a large number of features out-of-the-box, which makes it easy for us to see problems and manage capacity."
"The solution has probably reduced my power use substantially."
"We chose Pure Storage because it had the best performance of all the products that we tested."
"The sales and executive support have been outstanding compared to the rest of the market... My upgrade paths have been simple on the Pure... It's a lot simpler to implement and a lot simpler to manage."
"The overall operational efficiency and ease of use of Dell PowerScale is commendable; it is very good storage with easy access via GUI, meaning we do not need to perform many complex maneuvers for storage management."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) definitely deserves ten out of ten for scalability."
"Regarding the simplification in scalability that I mentioned, it is simpler compared to other solutions on the market."
"It has saved me from having to hire one person over the last six months, and our IT team has gotten about 40 percent of its time back."
"Overall, Dell PowerScale (Isilon) has made the management of the data and networks easier."
"It assists with eliminating storage silos because it provides SMB and NFS protocols. PowerScale has also helped free up our employee's time to focus on other business priorities."
"Operational efficiency with Dell PowerScale is relatively easy to operate."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) helps improve the way the organization functions through massive scalability, high performance, a single file system, high availability and reliability, flexible protocols, support for NFS, SMB, HDFS, strong security, cloud integration, efficiency, data protection, snapshot, queue, and sync queue, optimized for unstructured data."
"This is a good solution and we haven't had any issues with it."
"The solution’s most valuable feature is its performance."
"Provides easy access to our data."
"It is a stable solution."
"The product has a very simple GUI-based management platform and it is very simple to use. There is a very easy step-by-step configuration procedure that guides you through, and you can configure it very easily."
"Huawei FusionStorage does well in its basic functions and offers broad utility."
"In cases where system interruptions occur, it enables rapid restoration, ensuring a prompt return to normal service levels."
 

Cons

"The solution could improve by having a multi-tenant feature."
"If I need to change or troubleshoot the dashboard, I cannot do it without calling support. If I want to move something critical, I cannot do it by myself. The dashboard blocks me from changing those critical things."
"The scalability of the solution is not as good as it probably could be."
"I would love for them to have a hyper-converged solution."
"We would like to see more development on their Copy Automation Tool (CAT) for Oracle, as well as better integration for our customers running Oracle VM."
"The difference in pricing could become a problem for Pure because the commoditization of the solutions could lead to a different price being a problem."
"In the next release, I would like to see file-level encryption."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve by being more secure."
"The solution is expensive. It's quite expensive for the amount of storage we have."
"Backward compatibility is something Dell PowerScale (Isilon) could work on."
"There is room for improvement in its handling of object storage."
"Sometimes, it takes too long to set up everything. That's something I would want them to improve."
"The management and monitoring tools comprise a disparate suite of products and the roadmap is very unclear. We've got four different products that look after the Isilon, management-wise, and it's a bit of a mess."
"I would like to see improvements in data deduplication. In our environment, the deduplication ratio is approximately 2 or 2.3 to 1, so I believe there can be enhancements in this area."
"In the past year, it hasn't been as great. They seem to just follow KBS."
"Dell PowerScale is strong overall, but a few areas such as OneFS, QA, and reporting could be more intuitive, especially when analyzing detailed performance and capacity information."
"The initial setup and installation is not that straightforward. It should be made easier and the time to install should be reduced."
"I hope for improvements in the product's processing ability and performance."
"I'd like to see better product maturity including their branding on the cloud environment. Their cloud services are not up to that of AWS, Azure or Oracle cloud platforms."
"The product needs improvement in terms of affordability."
"The solution’s support could be improved."
"The only thing I really know about the initial setup is that currently the installation is not that straightforward."
"Their cloud services could be improved."
"The problem with Huawei is that it generally oversells. As a principle, Huawei does not educate the partner or the end user enough to scale up their solution correctly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cost-effective because after buying a subscription, they provide a service to upgrade hardware for free. They are providing so many features. When you consider the features provided, it is cost-effective."
"No storage device is cheap, but Pure Storage is fairly priced and offers what you pay for. You get all the licenses in the future when you purchase a license."
"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."
"Pure Storage FlashArray is expensive."
"It is cheaper than NetApp."
"It was less expensive than some of the alternatives. It's not as though it was a premium price to get that kind of quality. It's a very competitive product from a price perspective..."
"It is a more expensive solution, but it is worth it. You are getting what you paid for."
"Pricing is moderate. It is neither cheap nor expensive."
"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."
"It is an expensive product with a high storage capacity suitable for large data requirements."
"The solution's licensing cost varies based on capacity and performance requirements."
"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."
"Pricing for this solution is reasonable."
"It's a high-cost offering amounting to three or four million Swedish kronor, or about $400,000 or euros, for approximately 480 terabytes of storage."
"We use the TNA approach which is a great opportunity for us to better manage the licenses based on how much consumption is available for the different customers so we can use that approach and scalability."
"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."
"If one is a cheap solution and ten means it is a very expensive product, I would rate the price as two or three."
"It is expensive but might be optimal based on the partnership."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business73
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise161
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise70
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
 

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?
When comparing cost, I find that the cost is either the same or slightly higher, but that is returned by the ease of ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
The only thing I think could be improved is price. The price is the main concern for our customers.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
I think the price is reasonable. We procured this during the time of COVID, around 2022, and the price was very compe...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
The disadvantage that I felt is not hardware-related. I feel that Dell needs to focus on the service aspects. Once th...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
Dell PowerScale is used for keeping our company data. Continental is an automotive company, and we keep recording fil...
What is your primary use case for Huawei FusionStorage?
Huawei FusionStorage provides a scalable, high-performance, and highly available distributed storage solution designe...
 

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,
China Merchants Bank, Liaoning, Zhejiang
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale vs. Huawei FusionStorage and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.