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Dell PowerScale vs IBM Storage Fusion 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:
 

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
99
Ranking in other categories
NAS (1st), File and Object Storage (1st)
IBM Storage Fusion
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (31st)
 

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.
RahulSharma8 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Platform Engineer at Expedia Group
Unified file sharing has simplified multi-tenant access and has delivered seamless data replication
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) includes its replication features; when we decommissioned our old Isilon cluster, we migrated all of the data to a new cluster, and it was pretty seamless. All you have to do is create the certificates and make those certificates available to the target cluster, then initiate a few jobs. The inter-cluster replication feature, called SyncIQ, allows you to set up all of the jobs and move your data entirely, either timely or all at once. Another suitable feature is the ability to back up your directories; you can take snapshots for all of your directories, and in fact, I believe you can take around a thousand snapshots for a single directory. The inter-replication, geo-replication is one feature. Dell provides a variety class of hardware suitable for your workloads, meaning if your data is just lab and not critical, you don't have to spend much on the hardware; conversely, if your data is mission-critical, you can buy a high-performance node from Dell. Additionally, you can span Dell PowerScale (Isilon) cluster to a large number of nodes, and code upgrades are pretty smooth because all protocols will be upgraded under a single piece of code. Since it provides a single file system that spans across the nodes, you don't have to worry about that directory structure being separately created on individual nodes, making it a fitting solution for a data lake solution because you can access the same data from multiple protocols.
Branko Cirovic - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Engineer at Comtrade Group
Enables seamless file distribution while benefiting from scalability but could use simplified implementation
IBM Storage Fusion is used in telecoms. It is a file center that receives and shares files. It is also used for writing the CDR zone on the storage, since it offers a cost-effective solution for large-scale storage needs in a telecom setup The deployment of Storage Fusion has been new for us in…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Both the ease of setup and the reliability of the array makes it quite simple to manage for the customer."
"Performance is the most valuable feature."
"Data reduction and compression. Sub millisecond latency."
"Technical support has been amazing."
"It has been quite satisfactory in performance and scalability."
"Compared to Unity, these arrays offer significant advantages, such as NVMe technology and higher IOPS."
"It makes things ten times easier."
"Everpure FlashArray is very good with AI development and is very suitable for low downtime and critical mission storage, so customers who need critical mission storage and those chasing performance should consider this solution."
"The initial setup was easy because we received support from their partners, which enabled us to install it without difficulty."
"Our main goal is to do disaster recovery with whatever solution we use and Isilon makes it pretty simple to replicate those workloads over to our secondary data center."
"Isilon is flexible in supporting various data workloads while keeping them protected. Dell continues to release updates and patches which enhance the use of this solution. This includes offering ransomware protection."
"The inter-cluster replication feature, called SyncIQ, allows you to set up all of the jobs and move your data entirely, either timely or all at once."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is scalable, it is easy to expand capacity, and the solution is suitable for companies with a lot of data."
"Dell PowerScale overall is easy to use."
"The tool comes with cheap disks and works fast for video content."
"The technical support has been excellent. I would give them a ten out of ten for support."
"Fusion provides the ability to install the secret server and distribute files; it serves as a black box where tickets are opened only if issues arise, reducing frequent upgrade problems."
 

Cons

"Historical analytics would be useful. At the moment, they don't have any type of application built for historical analytics."
"The overall scalability for this product could be improved as well as having a single console to management multiple arrays."
"Pure Storage's logs could provide more visibility to the end-user. The logging algorithms are different from those of other vendors. For example, Cisco's logs provide extensive troubleshooting data, whereas Pure Storage logs offer limited information. We have to contact support to get more information."
"What it needs to do is work a little closer with solutions, like VMware, so it understands the particular workloads that are on it. Today, it does not understand the applications which are running against it."
"The pricing needs to be improved as they offer very high budgeting prices. Searching is a big challenge in Pure Storage FlashArrays, especially when trying to restore a VM."
"It can go down from time to time, but it's been pretty solid so far."
"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."
"Pure Storage FlashArray has not helped to decrease the total cost of ownership, and I believe our total cost has probably gone up, but that's balanced by our increased amount of data and number of use cases."
"Dell's customer service needs improvement."
"The solution can be integrated with an automation system. Dell uses another framework developed in-house. They can integrate it with machines."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) could be improved, particularly the UI, which could use some polishing as far as ease of use for the customer."
"I have escalated questions to the technical support team of Dell, and I find the support center to be very poor compared to what it was during EMC's time."
"I'd like to see more Iceland products in the cloud so that we can port our data into different environments if needed. I would also like to see a virtual appliance or software-defined Iceland product."
"My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Dell PowerScale has been expensive."
"I am uncertain if Dell PowerScale meets the growing needs of my organization."
"Dell PowerScale can improve on its multi-tenant part because as a service provider, we have bigger clusters in data centers where we can serve multiple customers and grant them dedicated management points and automation features that can be managed in a multi-tenant environment."
"The implementation is complex, especially when using custom servers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray is reasonable."
"The price was slightly higher than others, but competitive, if you consider all the other features that you get from it."
"The solution could be cheaper."
"While more expensive than NetApp, Pure Storage FlashArray offers superior performance that often justifies the higher cost and adds value overall."
"Because the price is a bit higher than other products, the data reduction equalizes the price with amount of the data reduction."
"Dell and Pure Storage offer competitive pricing, but Pure Storage might have a slight advantage."
"There are no licensing fees aside from the support."
"We are finding the TCO of flash to be lower than SSD implementations."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is an expensive solution."
"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."
"We paid an additional fee to have Dell's ProDeploy Plus team implement it."
"It is a really expensive solution."
"I always want things to be less expensive. However, I would say the pricing is fair. Their costs are in alignment with their competitors. It is a good value for the money."
"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."
"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."
"Dealing with the product costs and licensing areas is getting easier since Dell is simplifying the licensing process and licensing packages offered to users."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
17%
University
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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 Business29
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise55
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 find the pricing of Everpure FlashArray to be quite high compared to other storage solutions; however, the reliabil...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I believe we have covered the most important features; the architecture of Pure Storage is essential, and features su...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Storage Fusion?
Compared to other options, purchasing IBM Storage Fusion, along with necessary hardware and maintenance, comes with a...
What needs improvement with IBM Storage Fusion?
The implementation is complex, especially when using custom servers. Simplification or better support for this aspect...
What is your primary use case for IBM Storage Fusion?
IBM Storage Fusion is used in telecoms. It is a file center that receives and shares files. It is also used for writi...
 

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,
1. Accenture 2. Aetna 3. AIG 4. Airbus 5. Allstate 6. Amazon 7. American Express 8. ATT 9. Bank of America 10. Barclays 11. BASF 12. Bayer 13. Bechtel 14. Boeing 15. BNP Paribas 16. Cisco 17. Coca-Cola 18. Comcast 19. Dell 20. Deutsche Bank 21. Eni 22. ExxonMobil 23. Ford 24. GE 25. Google 26. Hitachi 27. Honeywell 28. IBM 29. Intel 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. Lockheed Martin
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Red Hat, Nutanix and others in File and Object Storage. Updated: July 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.