We primarily use Dell PowerScale for storage in our data management operations.
Manager Broadcast IT Europe at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Single storage space with enhanced data management operations and an easy setup
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is its single space of storage."
- "The analytics could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
Dell PowerScale has provided us with a single space of storage, which is beneficial for our needs.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is its single space of storage.
What needs improvement?
The analytics could be improved.
Buyer's Guide
Dell PowerScale
June 2026
Learn what your peers think about Dell PowerScale. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have about fifteen years of experience with this solution under different names.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of Dell PowerScale is very good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of this solution is good. I would rate it ten on a scale from one to ten.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is excellent. I would rate it ten on a scale from one to ten.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used Quantum before switching to Dell. Quantum was not as reliable as we wanted, and it was more difficult to use.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was easy. I would rate it ten on a scale from one to ten.
What about the implementation team?
Our deployment was done in-house.
What was our ROI?
There has been no massive ROI in the storage. That said, it met our expectations.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing of Dell PowerScale is reasonable. However, it is on the pricier side. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees.
What other advice do I have?
Check out what's on the market and make sure it's right for you. I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Head of Infrastructure and Network Services at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Helps reduce data silos, improves performance, and flexibility
Pros and Cons
- "Dell PowerScale includes a wealth of features that are important from a security and recovery perspective."
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
Dell PowerScale helps us manage a variety of unstructured data for healthcare and manufacturing clients. This allows the data to be stored and accessed by different types of systems like system-to-system access and user-to-system access. Dell PowerScale helps the data make sense in environments where we are also managing the data engine portion for our customers. We are able to use different Dell technologies for moving and saving data. Dell PowerScale is the best option for cost based on the environment.
We initially deployed PowerScale on-prem and then started to take advantage of the cloud but the cost became a factor. The customers feel more confident with the on-prem deployment.
How has it helped my organization?
Our customers have seen improvement in performance, space, and flexibility for growth and management of data protection through snapshots and other systems.
The AI models are something we are looking forward to trying but are not there yet. The algorithms are specific to each company and their industry. One of the most important things is the data localization. Many scenarios require the project data traffic to be close to where it is generated and read. A lot of interaction is between users and systems. So data localization is one of the most important things in terms of using the data algorithm.
We don't need to manage our PowerScale and run its storage from any location yet but it is something that is coming for sure because several customers have centralized data in main data centers. But in different locations across the globe. So this is going to be a topic. I think that through the different functionalities that the Dell platform can grant, it will be a great player.
When it comes to the flexibility for supporting various data workloads while protecting them, the combination of PowerScale and PPDM and all the other components of the data protection solution right now is key. So the automatic integration between the products is one of the killer features of the solution itself.
PowerScale helped us to reduce data silos. This has simplified the management of large data environments in terms of scalability and management instead of having a different solution for the right reports to see how the data evolves and how to better manage them. PowerScale can do that in combination with the other components of the ecosystem.
In terms of risk reduction, We need to mention the data management and the recovery part, So of course, the integration with the data domain is key. The fact that we can rely on these functions, and the fact that we also manage different customers, and possess the recovery plans and tests that can prove the solution is working.
What is most valuable?
Dell PowerScale includes a wealth of features that are important from a security and recovery perspective.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Dell PowerScale for a few years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Dell PowerScale is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability depends on the policy and data retention plan that is in place. The fact that we can easily upgrade the platform by moving to different versions is key.
How are customer service and support?
One of the key points for our partnership with Dell is the great support and human interaction. Not only for the setup but also the visibility into the vulnerabilities, new features, and the ease of access to data and information about how the platform is evolving.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We use multi-vendor storage but Dell is one of our key partners. The pros are the fact that all the different technologies in the Dell ecosystem are integrated using themselves, and the fact that we can have the server resiliency integrated, the CAB solution that is integrated, and that, of course, is working very well in terms of performance. The other vendors propose similar solutions but in terms of integration and liability, they are not the same as Dell. We have different solutions because there are different needs of different customers, and we consider that they may have previously purchased different hardware.
PowerScale falls behind some of the competition in terms of automation. There are new players like VAST Data who started a company with an API-first approach which facilitates better automation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
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. Overall, the experience is good, and this is why we are progressing in our partnership.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Dell PowerScale nine out of ten.
We manage 40 petabytes of data in different customer environments.
Just like with AI, we are adopting containerized solutions, the fact that we are a managed service provider, of course. This is a different scenario from other customers because there are customers who are not yet into containerized applications. they are slowly transforming their platform and their support. Of course, containers are coming and in those scenarios, PowerFlex is a better option.
I believe in a hybrid approach, mainly because we've seen several customers that have workloads where data flows to user protection centers. So the data needs to be analyzed on proximity infrastructure. This is the reason why I strongly believe that hybrid will progress. For some companies, a full cloud approach may work but not for all of them.
The key factors for driving our decision-making process when it comes to selecting a cloud, on-prem, or hybrid environment for our enterprise applications are, where the data needs to be accessed, and scalability to adapt to different demands we may have. It depends on the different types of industries that we are serving. We will have our own data centers. But we will have to scale using the hyperscaler in order to be flexible in terms of data movement and also flexible in terms of preparation of the infrastructure. The speed we can achieve on hyperscalers is different than the speed we can achieve on-premises.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
Dell PowerScale
June 2026
Learn what your peers think about Dell PowerScale. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.
IT & Broadcast Engineer at TV2 Media Group Ltd.
Performs well, meets our demands and easy to setup
Pros and Cons
- "The best thing is that it works. We don't have to maintain it too much; we usually upgrade once a year."
- "We had some issues with level 1 support. We had to fight with them on repeated issues. There is room for improvement in level 1 support."
How has it helped my organization?
We had to move metadata from standard disks to SSDs because we had issues with how the cluster handled metadata operations. With a lot of IO, the data lookup wasn't fast enough, causing performance problems. This setup resolved those issues.
We no longer had the performance issues with Dell PowerScale.
What is most valuable?
The platform performs really well. We're a media company with 14 TV stations. This solution is very capable of meeting our demands well. We use the SMB protocol for storage access, and it performs really well.
The best thing is that it works. We don't have to maintain it too much; we usually upgrade once a year.
We can get more than gigabit throughput from it.
What needs improvement?
The disk failure handling could be better. We had a few issues because one disk failed, which slightly impacted the whole node, but overall, the performance is stable.
We had to expand and increase the storage capacity, but it turned out we needed a totally new cluster because we couldn't expand the current one due to software incompatibilities. We think the backend network should be upgraded from InfiniBand to Ethernet networking, and we had to buy a new cluster. Dell has significantly increased the prices of new nodes, by a lot. As a result, we're considering new vendors because if prices increase by 300%, then the clients will look elsewhere.
The disc server handling is not the best. Maybe the tiering logic could be improved. It's based on our age or some other logic but not on disk usage. If you have a tier one, you don’t want to load it completely; it deserves some free space for new data, and you can’t manage that with the current tiering logic. That’s where this software or this solution could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it for six years.
PowerScale, which used to be known as Isilon, was developed by EMC before EMC became part of Dell.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability a six out of ten because the new nodes are not compatible with the overall brand. So, we don’t have the option to scale an old cluster. This is a limitation because I could increase the node numbers with the same version, and then it works seamlessly. However, maintaining different versions is not the best solution.
How are customer service and support?
We had some issues with level 1 support. We had to fight with them on repeated issues.
We asked them if they could escalate the support to a higher level. There is room for improvement in level 1 support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I used an IBM storage solution with an IBM GPFS file system and Samba.
We switched to Dell because of performance issues we had with this setup, which were caused primarily by the Samba NAS solution. IBM now offers licensing for commercial SMB protocol implementation, and they are capable of providing a good solution for us.
How was the initial setup?
I would rate my experience with the initial setup an eight out of ten, with ten being easy to set up.
The deployment process took a couple of days. It’s an on-premise solution.
We had to integrate it with our Active Directory system, and we had to implement some additional schemas, but apart from that, it was a standard process.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is a really expensive solution. I would rate the pricing a nine out of ten, with one being low price and ten being high price.
What other advice do I have?
From a technical point of view, I would rate it an eight out of ten.
I would recommend using it. However, it's important to consider the high price point. Evaluate if you can get the same feature set from other vendors at a lower cost.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Division of Administration at a government with 11-50 employees
Helps reduce costs, protect data, and scale seamlessly
Pros and Cons
- "Dell PowerScale overall is easy to use."
- "The price always has room for improvement."
What is our primary use case?
We are migrating all of the state agencies' data into one environment, onto Dell PowerScale, and doing the cluster environment to have redundancy with backups to restore and move data faster. Some of the agencies were using old equipment and since the change, they have seen a huge uplift in performance related to retrieving data, security, and locking data down.
How has it helped my organization?
Dell PowerScale has helped reduce our costs. Most state agencies were using old equipment that cost a lot of money. With Dell PowerScale they can migrate their data and pay per gig pennies on the dollar compared to their old systems. Dell PowerScale has saved the state money.
PowerScale allows us to get granular with users' access and protection of their data. I have not gone through all the features but everything is protected as far as the permission we give through the PowerScale app that enhances the internal audit features that we need for compliance with the state.
PowerScale has helped reduce our overall risk. I review the audit reports annually and since we have been using PowerScale, the reports come back almost clean because PowerScale passes all the vulnerability and security tests.
What is most valuable?
Scaling up with Dell PowerScale is easy. We can add more nodes when needed. Dell PowerScale overall is easy to use.
What needs improvement?
The price always has room for improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Dell PowerScale for two years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We replaced the Dell PowerScale H500 with the F900 almost seamlessly. We brought a new rack and migrated the data to the new cluster. I was amazed at how fast it was completed. We migrated 12 agencies over from the old cluster in under 15 hours. With the older platforms, it would take us days to migrate that volume of data.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is good. I had a few minor difficulties understanding some of the advice being offered because of the support person's accent but my concerns were addressed immediately. They are responsive. When we submit an SR, we get a callback or email immediately.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What was our ROI?
Some of our agencies used old equipment and saw a great upside to migrating to PowerScale. It saved them money.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
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.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Dell PowerScale nine out of ten for its ease of use.
We only have one cluster in one location but our users are all over the state.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
General Manager at Bilgipark Görüntü ve İletişim San. Tic. A.S.
A scalable and easy-to-implement solution suited for those who want performance and have a budget
Pros and Cons
- "The solution's scalability is very good."
- "The solution's rate structure or rate redundancy needs to be improved."
What is most valuable?
The solution's scalability is very good.
What needs improvement?
The solution's rate structure or rate redundancy needs to be improved. If you have a lot of nodes, for example, 15 nodes, and when you say you lost one node on the paper, the performance is not affected. However, if you have so much file count and fifteen nodes, losing one node really affects the performance. One of our customers had this issue.
Also, when you lose a couple of drives, it's a different structure, then you can lose data. It is clearer on the NetApp side, and you can create a rate group and a pool. So you will have more redundancy on the drives. For example, in a rate set for around 100 drives, you can lose around 20 drives, which depends on the configuration.
In NetApp, we will not lose data, but if you lose 20 drives in EMC, you will also lose data. Small systems like Dell PowerScale (Isilon) work perfectly with five, six, or ten nodes. Based on my experience, if you have 15 nodes in Dell PowerScale (Isilon) and lose one node, it creates some problems.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Dell PowerScale (Isilon) for more than ten years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate Dell PowerScale (Isilon) a seven out of ten for stability. The solution's stability should be improved, especially for more than ten nodes.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
If the customer doesn't need more performance, you should be able to adjust the solution to expand just the capacity and not the performance.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We recommend Dell PowerScale (Isilon) to customers who request low capacity but high performance. Each node in Dell PowerScale (Isilon) has limited capacity, and we need to add more nodes, but we can get more performance. Adding more controllers to NetApp to expand the system and scale up reduces its price and performance.
For example, if the customer needs 200 terabytes of capacity with high performance and high throughput, we use Dell PowerScale (Isilon). If they need performance and capacity, then NetApp's price and performance are really good compared to Dell PowerScale (Isilon).
How was the initial setup?
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is easy to implement.
What about the implementation team?
NetApp's implementation, configuration, and integrations are easier than Dell PowerScale (Isilon). For Dell PowerScale (Isilon), you need to use the command prompt for some configurations and integrations; you cannot configure everything on the user interface.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is an expensive solution.
What other advice do I have?
Users who want performance and have a budget can prefer Dell PowerScale (Isilon).
Overall, I rate Dell PowerScale (Isilon) a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Data Center Admin at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Provides features to deal with reporting issues and offers extra ransomware protection features
Pros and Cons
- "The product's scalability feature is super easy to use."
- "There are some missing features in the product, especially when our company needs to do some tape backup, and we see that the tool doesn't have integration capabilities."
What is our primary use case?
I use the solution in my company for unstructured data storage.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of the solution are Isilon InsightIQ for reporting issues and the extra ransomware protection features.
In my company, we have lots of huge amounts of data, around several petabytes, so we needed a way to have some responsive clusters with failover. In our company, we also have to give some reports to get some upgrades for the clusters recently as it is easier for us if we can give a look out to the management about how much research is done by us and how much space is required to do research. Our company has several tech people in our research facilities in Germany at the moment, and we have lost a lot of data to ransomware. One of the key features my company expects from the product is that it reduces ransomware attacks.
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) offers a sense of resilience, cyber resiliency, and security to my organization, especially with the third-party add-ons.
In terms of the benefits we experienced from the use of the product, I would say that our organization has different researchers. In our company, we have every operating system in use for different workloads. I can imagine that when our company deals with file-sharing features, the tool is way easier to use, and we can perform the procedure smoothly. The tool is also easy to deploy.
In terms of my experience with Dell PowerScale (Isilon) and its licensing part, cost of implementation, and costs of ownership, I don't have much information because our company has only been using the tool for over a year. The documentation is easy, and the management is easy and fast, so my company has had a really good experience with the tool.
The cost of ownership of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is good because our company is able to save a lot of energy, especially in terms of manpower and electricity. My company has managed to get down from four racks to half a rack.
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) has helped reduce and eliminate data silos, and it has helped our company shut down several single data storages. In our company, we had an old Dell PowerVault MD Storage, and through the PowerScale OneFS cluster, we could shut down a lot of network-attached storage devices. My company wants to consolidate everything into a central data storage and be able to manage our small team.
Based on the assessment of the tool's flexibility for supporting various data workloads while keeping them protected, I would say that we are in the process of migration. My company is in the process of migrating some video data and so on, but as of now, we use the product's services in the backend for containerization.
The product has helped reduce overall risk in my company since we just have one cluster to manage. Primarily, it is easier to have an overview and keep the clusters up to date.
When envisioning the future of our containerized solutions in terms of cloud integration, I see that in Germany considering a fully cloud-based approach can be hard. Mostly, Germans don't like to put any data on the cloud. I believe that users may opt for a private cloud or a hybrid strategy.
Based on a few key factors and the decision-making process, I would say that my company would choose an environment that offers the most amount of security features for our containerized applications since we have research data while sometimes, we also have data that is used for thesis, so there are areas where we can't afford anyone to get access to our data.
What needs improvement?
There are some missing features in the product, especially when our company needs to do some tape backup, and we see that the tool doesn't have integration capabilities. Our company has to buy another third-party software deal with tape backup.
It is a little hard to implement Dell PowerScale CloudPools. In our company, we would like to have another storage tier for data access, but it is getting too expensive when it comes to the licensing part of the product.
Sometimes, it can be bothersome to get through from the first level of support to the second one and from the second level to the third level of support. To deal with a set of similar errors, it would be great if Dell could allow users to skip some support stages. The reason a user may be forced to go through different levels of support can be because there is no automated support available to be offered.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Dell PowerScale (Isilon) for over a year. My company is a customer of the tool.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
My company has never had any issues with the stability of the product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The product's scalability feature is super easy to use.
How are customer service and support?
My company has used the technical support of the tool. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
My company deals with big companies that offer storage solutions. My company does not have similar products from different vendors, so we deal with different vendors and provide different solutions for different scenarios.
How was the initial setup?
The product's initial setup phase was really easy because our company had technicians coming over. I feel the technicians could do better, and so now my company has a new support partner who installs the hardware. At the time our company purchased Dell PowerScale (Isilon), we had a third-party company install the product in our company. Our organization called in a third-party company to introduce us to how to install Dell PowerScale (Isilon). There were some issues after the tool's setup phase that had to be fixed, and so it got quite a little messy because of the aforementioned problems.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We received several good recommendations from partners of our organization in Germany, after which we dived into Dell PowerScale (Isilon), considering that my company is in the commercial research area, where we have to deal with contracts. My company believes that if we have contracts with Dell, then it would be easier for us to process data. The last time our company upgraded our compute, we entered into another contract with another vendor, which was not good. My company is looking into entering into more contracts with Dell.
What other advice do I have?
Considering the product still needs to add a few features, I rate the overall tool a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Senior Systems Engineer at a media company with 51-200 employees
A stable solution that can be used for SMB-based storage and NFS-based storage
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of the solution is its performance."
- "The solution’s interface and pricing could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
We use Dell PowerScale for SMB-based storage and NFS-based storage.
How has it helped my organization?
Dell PowerScale allows us to consolidate multiple storage units into a single storage unit.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of the solution is its performance.
What needs improvement?
The solution’s interface and pricing could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Dell PowerScale (Isilon) for six months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate Dell PowerScale a nine out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate Dell PowerScale an eight out of ten for scalability.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used NetApp. We switched to Dell PowerScale because NetApp's support was expensive, and we were looking for something more powerful and flexible. Dell PowerScale is the solution that meets our needs.
How was the initial setup?
The solution’s initial setup is straightforward.
What was our ROI?
The solution's performance allowed us to shrink our workflow by about two times. We are a media and payment business. A lot of our workflows are video-based, and we store backups to a second system. With Dell PowerScale, we already see performance increases by almost twofold.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Dell PowerScale is an expensive solution compared to other products like Qumulo.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing Dell PowerScale, we evaluated Qumulo and a new version of NetApp.
What other advice do I have?
I suggest users talk to someone who has actually used Dell PowerScale and has experience with it. Dell PowerScale has a more integrated interface. Compared to the interfaces of the newer generations of storage like Qumulo, Dell PowerScale has a comparatively older-looking interface. Apart from that, the solution is fine.
Overall, I rate Dell PowerScale an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Great for handling big data, offers scalability, and ensures data security
Pros and Cons
- "The guaranteed performance, combined with the scalability through its scale-out capability, makes it an excellent choice."
- "There is room for improvement in its handling of object storage."
What is our primary use case?
I rely on Dell PowerScale to manage and store manufacturing data from NES systems. It is great for handling big data, offers scalability, and ensures data security, simplifying the storage and retrieval of manufacturing information.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of Dell PowerScale for its reliable performance and stability. The guaranteed performance, combined with the scalability through its scale-out capability, makes it an excellent choice. It is a top pick for my customers due to these qualities.
What needs improvement?
There is room for improvement in its handling of object storage. While it excels in managing file systems, enhancing features for more efficient handling of objects could make it even better, ensuring faster and smoother operations.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Dell PowerScale for ten years.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is very good. They are quite helpful.
How was the initial setup?
The installation is quite simple and the deployment takes only a few hours. In my organization, we have a total of 26 system engineers, and among them, 11 are trained to handle Dell PowerScale. These engineers are responsible for installing, maintaining, and providing support for the product. We conduct maintenance regularly, typically with a focus on remote support, offering 24/7 assistance. For on-site support, our goal is to respond within four hours.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
While customers often perceive it as expensive, I find that considering its functions and performance, Dell PowerScale is reasonably priced. I would rate it as a five out of ten in terms of costliness. In addition to the standard licensing fee, there are extra costs for services and additional solutions with Dell PowerScale. Services like maintenance and support may incur charges. Sub-solutions such as CloudIQ are also additional and may be charged based on usage or quota.
What other advice do I have?
I would highly recommend Dell PowerScale to others. Overall, I would rate it as a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Technical Project Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Easy to expand, helps consolidate data storage, and offers great support
Pros and Cons
- "I don't have to rebuild the cluster to add a node."
- "Of all the components in our IT system, it's probably the least troublesome."
- "That said, for the other security features, it would be helpful if Tenable - and I know it's outside the scope of this question itself - had Isilon-specific plugins."
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
It was a good fit for the system that we put in, as far as the amount of secondary data that was going to be generated on our system. Not only did it have the capacity for everything, but it also had the scale-up and scale-out features. We needed expansion without having to reimage the system. The larger we scaled it out, the better IOP and the bandwidth. It checked all of the boxes in terms of what we really wanted to hit for a tier-two storage system.
What is most valuable?
I just heard my SME today say OneFS is the best feature of the whole solution. The continuum improvements that OneFS has kept within the industry and kept up with standards, the ease at which it can be deployed, and the ease at which it can be upgraded, all are key features of this system.
A key feature that I love is scalability. I don't have to rebuild the cluster to add a node. It can be scaled up and out without taking my system down.
PowerScale helps consolidate data storage and multiple applications into a single platform for easier manageability. As an example, I’d probably use the scenario of when I ingest data from a partner, and then I use the capabilities within Isilon to distribute the data across the other clusters in my enterprise. While we like to think that we're running an enterprise environment, their definition of enterprise and my definition of an enterprise are not the same. The idea here is, that I'm able to take in data from one organization at one cluster, and then use the smart features and the other features of Isilon, one of the best-operating systems, to redistribute that data to any other cluster that needs it.
The impact PowerScale had on our company's storage efficiency has been really good. I just recently saw a report on this a few weeks ago. We're actually doing really well as far as compression and deduplication go. We've over-bought compared to capacity based on the deduplication and compression that we're getting out of the system right now.
We really overbought on capacity. We have sites that are only 20% used. Then again, that goes back to the de-duplication and compression we're getting out of Isilon. They should be at 45% to 50% consumption at this point. The deduplication and compression, however, are working well. We're only using 20% of the capacity. I'll have a hard time when I go on a life cycle lease and I will have a very hard time convincing leadership that I still need the capacity. When they start reading and seeing these reports, it'll create a problem for me as I’ll have to justify it. However, to be clear, it's a good problem to have.
PowerScale has helped free up our employees' time to focus on other business priorities. We were able to do things like due diligence and research on InsightIQ and DataIQ and were able to do product comparisons while not having to worry about Isilon. It's freed up the cycles on those guys really well. I've got them to a point now where I'm cross-training them into Avamar.
PowerScale has helped reduce our overall risk in that it's dependable. The data is always going to be there. I don't have to worry about my end users. It has reduced risk across the entire enterprise.
What needs improvement?
In terms of PowerScale's cybersecurity, including its ransomware protection, considering the environment that we're in, I don't have to really worry about ransomware. That said, for the other security features, it would be helpful if Tenable had Isilon-specific plugins. That's what I'm looking for. If Tenable had specific Isilon plugins, when they do compliance scans, that would be ideal. Right now, the only plugins being used are the BSD plugins. When they scan across Isilon, they come back with all kinds of security findings which are false positives that my team then has to go and chase down. As far as Isilon security is concerned, it’s lovely. As far as being able to prove it, it’s not so lovely. I don't know if there's a partnership between Tenable and Dell that maybe we can bridge the gap on that one.
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. The feature I'm looking for is in 9.3. If it's not going to be available to download, they should stop telling me about it.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've used the solution for six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is awesome. There are a few drives every now and again, however, with the product itself, we haven't had any issues with it.
How are customer service and support?
Dell's support for PowerScale is awesome. It's probably, one of the best SEs that I've had in recent history is my PowerScale SE. If there's something I need or information that I'm looking for, I know exactly who to go to. They're really responsive. It's really cool.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
This was a greenfield build. Isilon and PowerScale are what we put in from the very beginning.
How was the initial setup?
I was not involved in the initial setup or deployment of this solution. My understanding is that it was pretty straightforward. We had a little bit of a rough spot when we went to do a OneFS upgrade, however, that's due to putting in hardening. When we had to back it off to do the upgrade, the hardening didn't back out as easily as it went in. That created some snafu and we ended up undoing all of the hardenings across the board. We created our own scripts to do it and it was much easier to manage.
When we deployed just PowerScale. Every PowerScale installment went with a complete stack, that included the switching, the server-side, the VMware, and everything that went along with building a stack. Isilon only occupied about three or four days' worth of a six-week installment period. It was pretty easy on a per-installation basis.
What was our ROI?
We've seen ROI in terms of time. We're also implementing the new version of vROps in which we can see the cost of our different applications, and how they use the different features.
From a time perspective, I have seen a return on investment in just the fact that I can take people now and redirect them to other products. I'm not going to reduce staff, however, I am going to redirect to other product lines. I have one guy that went from being our storage SME to probably one of my top guys, as far as VMware is concerned as well. It's worked out nicely.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing is great. I'm not aware of the price point. As I was just telling my crew today that our job is to come up with solutions, not worry about the price. That's the management's problem to worry about the cost. If they don't like the cost, they'll come back and tell us to find another solution. Up to this point, I'd say the price point is okay.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did evaluate other options. I couldn't say exactly which ones. I wasn't necessarily on the program when they did the evaluation, and therefore, I don't know what products were evaluated. That said, there was an evaluation period done.
What other advice do I have?
In terms of versions, we have a mix of X410 and H500.
I’m not sure of the solution's flexibility for supporting various data workflows while keeping them protected. I would have to refer to my SME on that one. I don't really have feedback on that.
Speaking from a point where I don't know how much money we have invested, from productivity, stability, and ease of management perspective, I would absolutely 100% back it up every time. It's never provided a hiccup. Of all the components in our IT system, it's probably the least troublesome. It has been a workhorse and solid since the day we put it in.
I'd rate it eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Senior Storage Engineer at Proact
Easy to implement and provides good flexibility
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features of the solution are flexibility and ease of implementation."
- "It would be good to have synchronized mirroring between two clusters without using a third-party program."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution to store camera video surveillance and hospital X-rays.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of the solution are flexibility and ease of implementation.
What needs improvement?
It would be good to have synchronized mirroring between two clusters without using a third-party program.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Dell PowerScale (Isilon) for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution's stability is really good, and I haven't had a crash for two years. The solution works just fine even if a node goes down.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution's scalability is very good, and you can easily scale it.
How are customer service and support?
Sometimes, the support team throws me around before I talk to the right person. However, the situation has been much better for the past year.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Our customers previously used NetApp. They switched to Dell PowerScale because it was easy to use. In my opinion, Dell PowerScale is better than NetApp because it's faster and more hybrid.
How was the initial setup?
The solution's initial setup is easy for me because it's been the same implementation from the beginning. However, it's not so easy when the customers do it themselves.
What was our ROI?
The solution reduces our customers' power consumption by around 30% and saves them rack space.
What other advice do I have?
The solution's ability to interface with AI models and algorithms is very good.
The solution has been really good for helping our organization manage and run our storage from any location.
The solution has helped to reduce or eliminate data silos, which has enabled our customers to add new nodes by themselves.
The solution's flexibility for supporting various data workloads while keeping them protected has been really good.
I've deployed Dell PowerScale for 300 terabytes to about 800 terabytes sized environments.
Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
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Updated: June 2026
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