We performed a comparison between Dell PowerScale (Isilon), FreeNAS, and NetApp FAS Series based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Nasuni and others in NAS.
"The solution has simplified management by consolidating our workloads. Rather than managing all the different workloads on different storage arrays, Windows Servers, etc., we just have one place per data centre where we manage all their unstructured data, saving us time."
"Our users are able to easily roll back snapshots without going through IT."
"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."
"I don't have to rebuild the cluster to add a node."
"This has been a valuable solution for our business overall. It offers business continuity and replication features."
"PowerScale helped free up our employees' time to focus on other business priorities. There are now automated jobs such as backing up and replicating data, that reduce the footprint we have. Those types of tasks were previously done manually."
"The tool's most valuable features are scalability and stability."
"The most valuable feature we started using, beyond the initial scope for the solution, is the multi-protocol system that allows you to access the same set of files using different network protocols like NFS or SMB. PowerScale’s Unified Permission Model ensures that data security and access permissions are honoured regardless of whether the client is a Windows desktop or a Linux server"
"It integrates well into either Windows or Linux environments."
"FreeNAS is much simpler and easier to use than other solutions, but we don't have the complete range of features that come with the full version."
"The solution has been very stable so far."
"It has the best storage capacity."
"Its stability is the most valuable. It is reliable, and we don't have to worry too much about it."
"The ease of use of the 'jail', the management of backups, and copies to easily create test and pre-production scenarios have speeded up the development and distribution of business apps."
"What I like about it is that I can work on it from any computer or any device. The initial setup is very simple. The setup wizard is really helpful."
"End-users like that they can rely on the Snapshot technology so they can do their restores themselves."
"NAS stability"
"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."
"The new FAS series is a good fit for some customers. We have good performance and capacity, even though it is full flash."
"Adaptive balancing is a valuable feature."
"It's an easy product to use that is stable and has good performance."
"It has a very good implementation of the Active Directory services, so implementation into a Windows network is easy."
"Most valuable features are its ease of use, robust Snapshot functionality, and that you can use it in two datacenters with SnapMirror-ing."
"If they integrated some functions, as they have on Data Domain with a cyber recovery vault, it would be ideal."
"The price of the solution could be reduced."
"It would be nice to see tools like Superna Eyeglass built into PowerScale."
"The solution can be a bit complex for those not well versed in the technology."
"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."
"Data storage performance needs to be improved."
"Dell PowerScale needs to reduce its price."
"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 support for S3 needs to be improved."
"If you find the documentation, it is always incomplete and fragmented."
"FreeNAS should be better prepared for clustering."
"They can improve the integration with PSA systems. This functionality could be better."
"They should include clustering for the solution."
"The one thing that I find difficult to do which is very time-consuming is that I like to have a backup of the important files."
"The latest version of the dashboard doesn't work as good as the previous version."
"The adoption of flash by NetApp has also been lagging behind the trendsetters, like TMS, Nimble, and others."
"The high cost of the product is an area of concern, so from an improvement perspective, the tool needs to be made cheaper."
"Its operating system is very cumbersome. However, after you set it up, it runs pretty smoothly. Its file system is not very dynamic. It is very static."
"There are some technical limitations, but it would be great to have in-line deduplication and in-line compression for the FAS series as well."
"We would like to have further integration with some backup products. They have some of them already, but there could be more."
"It could be more flexible in terms of configuration."
"NetApp is costly when compared to Dell."
"Its licensing cost can be improved."
