DDN Storage Fusion Architecture NVMe vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between DDN Storage Fusion Architecture NVMe and Dell PowerScale (Isilon) based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Hitachi Vantara and others in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays.
To learn more, read our detailed NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays Report (Updated: April 2024).
771,157 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Q&A Highlights
Question: How would you compare the performance of DDN Storage vs Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
Answer: DDN Storage and Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon) are high-performance storage solutions, but they have strengths and weaknesses, as shared below: DDN Storage Many describe DDN Storage as high-performing and scalable. Often, it may be used for demanding workloads such as High-Performance Computing (HPC), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML), and has many features, including support for multiple protocols, snapshots, and replication. Dell EMC PowerScale Several users describe Dell EMC PowerScale as easy to use and manageable. They may recommend it for businesses needing a reliable and scalable storage solution without specialized expertise. It also offers features, such as replications and snapshots, and it supports multiple protocols. Performance Comparison: Reportedly, DDN Storage performs better, offering higher throughput and lower latency than Dell EMC PowerScale. Some say DDN Storage is well-suited for demanding workloads like HPC, AI, and ML. It also provides support for NVMe drives and RDMA that could help improve performance for these workloads. Many consider both Dell EMC PowerScale and DDN Storage as scalable storage solutions. However, others find DDN Storage more scalable.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."
  • "We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
  • "With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
  • "Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
  • "As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
  • "They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."
  • "Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."
  • "The licensing is on a yearly basis."
  • More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Pricing and Cost Advice →

    Information Not Available
  • "The solution is expensive; it is not the cheapest solution out there. If you look at it from a total cost of ownership perspective, then it is a very compelling solution. However, if you're looking at just dollar per terabyte and not looking at the big picture, then you could be distracted by the price. It is not an amazing price, but it's pretty good. It is also very good when you consider the total cost of ownership and ease of management."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "We paid an additional fee to have Dell's ProDeploy Plus team implement it."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover… more »
    Top Answer:I would rate the solution as an eight out of ten in terms of costliness.
    Top Answer:There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class… more »
    Top Answer:DDN Storage and Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon) are high-performance storage solutions, but they have strengths and… more »
    Top Answer:The most valuable feature of the solution is its performance.
    Top Answer:The solution should improve its pricing and features.
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
    DDN SFA NVMe, DDN SFA200NVX, DDN SFA400NVX
    PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
    Learn More
    Overview

    Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

    DDN Storage Fusion Architecture® (SFA®) appliances are purpose-built to deliver scalable flash performance and capacity to flexibly meet your changing business demands. The SFA NVMe platforms deliver 100% NVMe storage with multiple high-speed connectivity options.

    Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon) storage solutions are designed to help manage data for enterprises of all types. Dell PowerScale systems are simple to install, manage, and scale to virtually any size and include a choice of all-flash, hybrid, or archive nodes. Dell PowerScale solutions stay flexible and reliable no matter how much storage capacity is added, how much performance is required, or how business needs change in the future.

    With Dell PowerScale, your data lake always stays simple to manage, simple to grow, simple to protect, and simple enough to handle the most demanding current and future workloads.

    Ideal for companies of any size, from small enterprises to multi-national ones, Dell PowerScale storage provides secure collaboration, modular scalability, flexible consumption models, and easy cloud integrations, all with management tools spanning multiple platforms.

    Key Benefits of Dell EMC PowerScale Storage

    • Centralized management: Manage your storage infrastructure from a single unified platform.

    • Data protection: Dell PowerScale offers security, data protection and replication tools. Back up and protect your data from cyber-attacks with an integrated ransomware defense system.

    • Artificial intelligence: PowerScale is the foundation for building an integrated and optimized IT infrastructure for AI projects, from concept to production.

    • Cloud support: Store and manage your data on the cloud and move data between your data center and the cloud. Dell PowerScale runs data-intensive cloud workloads with no outbound traffic costs.

    • Long-term storage: Dell PowerScale offers highly efficient and resilient active archive storage or long-term data retention for large-scale data archives. With the proven scalability architecture of PowerScale, you can meet your growing archiving demands. Dell PowerScale has a wide variety of enterprise-grade data protection and security options to keep your archived data safe.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Dell EMC PowerScale storage stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its scalability capabilities and its user-friendly centralized management system.

    Rachel B., a chief operations officer & acting CFO at Like a Photon, writes, "PowerScale allows us to manage storage without managing RAID groups or migrating volumes between controllers. It has really simplified things. We're not having to worry about the underlying infrastructure. That takes care of itself. We just worry about the data. It's really easy for deploying and managing storage at the petabyte scale."

    Keith B., the director of IT at NatureFresh Farms, writes, "The single pane of glass for both IT and for the end-user is a valuable feature. On the IT side, I can actually control where things are stored, whether something is stored on solid-state drives or spinning drives... The single pane of glass makes it very easy to use and very easy to understand. We started at 100 terabytes, and we moved to 250 and it still feels like the exact same system and we're able to move data as needed."

    Sample Customers
    Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
    PAWSEY, JCAHPC, Public Health England, Sanger Institute, The University of Queensland Australia
    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,
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company23%
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Manufacturing Company18%
    Comms Service Provider14%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Government7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Manufacturing Company13%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Construction Company8%
    REVIEWERS
    Government13%
    Media Company13%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Educational Organization10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization23%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise28%
    Large Enterprise34%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise60%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise67%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business30%
    Midsize Enterprise28%
    Large Enterprise42%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise29%
    Large Enterprise53%
    Buyer's Guide
    NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
    April 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Hitachi Vantara and others in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays. Updated: April 2024.
    771,157 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    DDN Storage Fusion Architecture NVMe is ranked 16th in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays while Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is ranked 1st in NAS with 39 reviews. DDN Storage Fusion Architecture NVMe is rated 0.0, while Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is rated 9.0. On the other hand, the top reviewer of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) writes "We can easily deploy, manage, and maintain systems without needing a huge amount of expertise to facilitate them". DDN Storage Fusion Architecture NVMe is most compared with VAST Data and Pure Storage FlashBlade, whereas Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is most compared with NetApp FAS Series, Dell ECS, Pure Storage FlashBlade, Qumulo and HPE StoreEasy.

    We monitor all NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.