We compared NetApp FAS Series and Dell PowerScale (Isilon) based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
In summary, the NetApp FAS Series is praised for its advanced data management and storage capabilities, seamless integration, exceptional customer service, positive ROI, but may need enhancements in performance and user interface. On the other hand, Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is lauded for its scalability, efficient storage management, exceptional customer service, positive ROI, but could benefit from improvements in interface, performance speed, scalability, compatibility, and technical support.
Features: NetApp FAS Series stands out for its efficient data management and storage, seamless integration with third-party software, advanced data protection and backup capabilities, as well as its high performance and reliability. In contrast, Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is praised for its exceptional data scalability, efficient storage management, and reliable performance.
Pricing and ROI: The setup cost for NetApp FAS Series is considered reasonable and affordable according to user feedback. Users appreciate the transparency and ease of understanding in terms of pricing, setup, and licensing. On the other hand, Dell PowerScale (Isilon) also offers a straightforward setup cost without any hidden charges or complexities. The pricing of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is seen as competitive in the market, and the licensing process is described as seamless and efficient., The NetApp FAS Series product has been highly praised for its cost-effectiveness, efficiency, performance, reliability, and seamless integration capabilities. Users have experienced increased productivity and reduced downtime. On the other hand, Dell PowerScale (Isilon) has been commended for its performance, scalability, efficiency, and ability to handle large data workloads. Users have also reported cost savings and improved productivity. Overall, both products have delivered significant value and proved to be worthwhile investments.
Room for Improvement: The differences between NetApp FAS Series and Dell PowerScale (Isilon) products lie in various areas. NetApp FAS Series would benefit from improvements in performance, networking capabilities, and user interface. On the other hand, Dell PowerScale (Isilon) requires enhancements in its interface, performance speed, scalability, compatibility with other systems, and technical support.
Deployment and customer support: The reviews comparing NetApp FAS Series and Dell PowerScale (Isilon) suggest that users reported varying timeframes for establishing the tech solutions. Some users mentioned spending three months on deployment for NetApp FAS Series, while others reported a week for setup for Dell PowerScale. It is important to consider these differences when evaluating the overall duration of implementation., The customer service for NetApp FAS Series is highly praised for its reliability, responsiveness, and efficiency. Users appreciate the prompt resolution of queries and professionalism exhibited by the support staff. On the other hand, Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is commended for its exceptional customer service, particularly in terms of promptness, effectiveness, and willingness to address issues. Users are impressed with the level of expertise and professionalism demonstrated by Dell's support team.
The summary above is based on 44 interviews we conducted recently with NetApp FAS Series and Dell PowerScale (Isilon) users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"It has allowed us to have more consistent quality controls. It has also allowed us to expand the number of servers in clients processing and accessing data, allowing us to get a lot bigger projects out the door."
"The fact that we were able to set it up, use it, and, for the most part, didn't have to worry about it after we had it set up has been valuable."
"The stability of the solution is good."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is all the capabilities together."
"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."
"Its most valuable feature is the DR capabilities replication."
"The tool's most valuable features are scalability and stability."
"Other products lose performance over time, but NetApp OS is speed-optimized."
"End-users like that they can rely on the Snapshot technology so they can do their restores themselves."
"We can manage our applications from a single dashboard."
"The most valuable feature for us is the combining of HA and SnapMirror."
"The input and output per second performance are satisfactory."
"It is very flexible. It integrates well with the public cloud and other components, so everything can be API driven. Therefore, it is very easy to automate it."
"It's a stable product. No issues there."
"This solution provides us with easy management and great vendor support."
"Because of the magic that it does 'under the hood,' it is very difficult to find out within the system where all your storage is going. That's a little bit of a ding that we have on it. It does so much magic in order to protect itself from drive failures or multiple drive failures, that it automatically handles the provisioning and storage of your data. But by doing that, finding out why a file of a certain size, or a directory of a certain size, is using more storage than is being reported in InsightIQ, is very difficult to discern."
"The product’s expansion capacity, pricing clarity, and ease of use need improvement."
"It would be nice to see tools like Superna Eyeglass built into PowerScale."
"The cost of Dell PowerScale is currently high and there is room for improvement."
"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."
"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."
"The only thing that I think PowerScale could do better is improving the HTTP data access protocol. At the present, you cannot protect access to data via HTTP or HTTPS the same way that you can secure data access through other protocols like NFS or SMB[...]the Unified Permission Model that would allow a user to authenticate before being able to access a private file, does not apply."
"The UID mapping and how to configure mapping-related things is a struggle."
"The adoption of flash by NetApp has also been lagging behind the trendsetters, like TMS, Nimble, and others."
"I would like to see less latency and higher IOPS."
"The WAFL is slow."
"We're supposed to have used NetApp FAS Series for replication, but then one of the nodes failed, and then it's taken us some time to bring it up."
"Needs to improve the adaptive storage quality of service."
"Replication should ideally be part of the ONTAP base bundle."
"The biggest issue we face is parts delivery. There's no local warehouse in Myanmar, so if a customer encounters a technical problem like an IMEI issue, they have to wait a long time for replacement parts."
"The NetApp FAS Series is not as high-performing and is not as fast. Its speed needs improvement, but this could only be done if it's an all-flash solution."
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is ranked 1st in NAS with 39 reviews while NetApp FAS Series is ranked 2nd in NAS with 98 reviews. Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is rated 9.0, while NetApp FAS Series is rated 8.8. 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". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp FAS Series writes "Offers good performance and ". Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is most compared with Dell ECS, Pure Storage FlashBlade, Qumulo, HPE StoreEasy and Red Hat Ceph Storage, whereas NetApp FAS Series is most compared with NetApp AFF, HPE StorageWorks MSA, Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain), IBM FlashSystem and HPE StoreEasy. See our Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. NetApp FAS Series report.
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Isilon is Scale-out storage, while NetApp is Active-Standby storage.
Regarding the performance issue based on the field engineer’s experience, Isilon is better than NetApp in case of a huge amount of io, while NetApp is better than Isilon in case of a medium amount of IO.
I think you need rewiew more than only performance or capacity, I have installed both machines, Netapp FASS have many options Hibrid or only objects, in Netapp Objects is StorageGrid where can obtain 720 TB in SG5760 but you can select SG6060 or SG5712 and Isilon is similar you have many options where could be ALL FLASH or SATA but Isilon is only NAS, and Isilon have many reference too, 8 reference F810 have 924 TB and up 250.000 I/Ops.
Actually I recommend one arquitecture where no focus only in one purpose, Scale up or Scale out all vendors have different alternatives and deppend the machine offer more I/O or Capacity, Midrange and High end, I don´t like Isilon because is only for NAS I dont like Hibrid or Unified Machines as FAS or VNX, I need to know which is the prupose for have a NAS because actually I can have a Storage for all protocols no only to CIFS and NFS and with prices cheaper than NAS, in conclusion I don´t like one Storage for NAS other for SAN other for Virtualization... Is better only one Storage where I can do it all, It reduce TCO.