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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
231
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
Dell PowerScale
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
97
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 (20th)
 

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.
SK
Solutions Architect at a university with 10,001+ employees
Operates seamlessly and minimizes downtime while meeting enterprise file share demands
The features of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) that I appreciate the most include the scale of architecture and the way it is designed. These features benefit my company by providing less downtime and less overhead. While I have not calculated an exact number regarding the reduction in downtime, we have always been using the product, so we have no baseline to compare it to. However, it is a very good product. Dell PowerScale (Isilon) scales very well with the growing needs of my company.
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

"Once we solved the data reduction and what Pure does we were hooked."
"The availability and ease of use are the big features."
"Our storage phones home. It is smart and intelligent in that aspect, which has been huge for us. We don't have to be storage administrators."
"It makes things ten times easier."
"Pure support is very proactive, they monitor our infrastructure in real-time, so they respond before we even open a ticket."
"Technical support is excellent. I've had very good responses from technical support. We had a couple of cases where we needed support. Some of the communications were purely over email and some has been an actual call to the service desk."
"It releases those to new teams within minutes at a very small storage cost amount."
"I like its speed. It has all the features that I need."
"Dell PowerScale includes a wealth of features that are important from a security and recovery perspective."
"This solution offers flexibility in supporting various data workloads and is very easy to work with, making it our go-to solution for all data storage."
"The features that I have mentioned improve my company through the reliability of the storage; it is always available, and it works, which is the important thing."
"The stability of the solution is good."
"Dell PowerScale is a scalable solution. It allows non-disruptive upgrades and maintenance of the system."
"Since it can scale so easily, as long as I have money to buy more nodes, I can grow it as big as I need to. That is important in our business. As sequencing technologies continue to evolve, and as those technologies evolve, the amount of data generation never gets smaller. It just always seems to get bigger. This is one of the absolute key aspects: We can grow on demand without having to forklift stuff."
"For maximizing storage utilization, PowerScale is great. When you write the data to it, it spreads it out to all the nodes, so you get all the performance from the entire pool."
"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."
"The solution’s most valuable feature is its performance."
"This is a good solution and we haven't had any issues with it."
"It is a stable solution."
"In cases where system interruptions occur, it enables rapid restoration, ensuring a prompt return to normal service levels."
"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."
"Provides easy access to our data."
 

Cons

"The higher education moves slowly. We are still looking forward to implementing the full list of existing features."
"We would like to integrate it more with our backup solutions."
"I had to contact customer support when a drive failed as I was doing a couple of OS upgrades."
"I would rate this solution an eight. To make it a ten it would have to be a little cheaper."
"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."
"On a couple of occasions, the waiting time for an upgrade has been pretty substantial."
"If we suddenly dump large amounts of data onto the storage system, it takes a while to process it."
"I think replication is one area that still needs improvement."
"The solution isn't suitable for small environments or small customers."
"The solution's rate structure or rate redundancy needs to be improved."
"The pricing could be reduced."
"Dell's customer service needs improvement. Specifically, hardware failures under warranty should be addressed within the promised timeline."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) could improve in terms of having some problems with using IPv6 and IPv4 on the same namespace at the same time, which is one of our biggest problems as you have to do some really bad workarounds to get that working."
"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."
"The previous versions do not support features like object storage; S3 and better cloud connectivity are things I would like to see."
"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."
"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."
"Their cloud services could be improved."
"The only thing I really know about the initial setup is that currently the installation is not that straightforward."
"The product needs improvement in terms of affordability."
"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."
"I hope for improvements in the product's processing ability and performance."
"The initial setup and installation is not that straightforward. It should be made easier and the time to install should be reduced."
"The solution’s support could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's priced higher than the market."
"Pure is typically more expensive than everyone else. You get what you pay for, but I have lost deals to similar solutions because of pricing. They include everything, and that's another positive about Pure Storage. They aren't trying to nickel and dime their customers for different features. It is all included in one price. The license is by capacity, and the price depends on the capacity and the discount we're getting from the vendor. You get the SKU of the physical appliance, support, and maintenance, and that's it. You're licensed for whatever feature they offer. It is all rolled up into the price of the appliance."
"We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership."
"We are finding the TCO of flash to be lower than SSD implementations."
"Pure Storage is expensive. It comes with features, so you get what you pay for. It is expensive compared to our old storage systems, but from the amount of human effort that you have to pay to babysit a storage system, it reduces that. I don't know if the TCO is reduced, but it's not a concern for us."
"Dell and Pure Storage offer competitive pricing, but Pure Storage might have a slight advantage."
"I would rate the pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray a five out of ten. It is expensive but not too much."
"Because of the SSD, it is cheaper because I am not purchasing so many disks."
"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"The pricing is excellent."
"It is an expensive solution."
"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 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."
"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
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
Construction Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise53
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?
I have knowledge about the licensing part, which we obtained for around 10 years from the time of deployment, but I d...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
When it comes to Everpure FlashArray ports shown in the GUI, it would be better if, when one of the Pure array ports ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Dell PowerScale has been expensive. Setup costs or provisio...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
For improvements, we can focus on enhancing performance, upgrading the nodes, and accessing data through Isilon for m...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
Dell PowerScale is our main NAS environment storage where we create CIFS and NFS file shares for users.When users req...
What needs improvement with Huawei FusionStorage?
The solution’s support could be improved.
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: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.