Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs NetApp FAS Series vs NetApp Private Storage comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell PowerScale (Isilon), NetApp FAS Series, and NetApp Private Storage based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Nasuni and others in NAS.
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Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The recent introduction of inline deduplication and compression has drastically improved our efficiency ratios to make it an economical product. This solution has also had a positive impact on our employees' productivity because it reduces the amount of admin that our staff needs to handle.""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 solution is extremely easy to manage. This is its most valuable feature.""This has been a valuable solution for our business overall. It offers business continuity and replication features.""I don't have to rebuild the cluster to add a node.""The most valuable feature of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is all the capabilities together.""Ability to scale the number of nodes without having to build additional clusters.""There are also the policies that you set up on replication and purging files, and policies for something called WORM. That's a "write once, read many," where you can't overwrite certain files or certain data. It puts them in a "protected mode" where it becomes very difficult for someone to accidentally delete. We use that for certain files or certain directories, because we're dealing with video and some video has to be protected for chain-of-custody purposes. The WORM feature works great."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) Pros →

"It has integrated snapshot and backup capability.""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 replication feature is noteworthy because it's faster than most and it uses little bandwidth. Then there's the friendly interface that the equipment offers. With this interface, it is very easy to manage.""The SnapMirror is a good tool because, as long as you're going NetApp to NetApp, it's ultimately the fastest way to move data. We replicate everything to another site for disaster recovery.""Flexible and reliable storage solution with multiple features such as cloning, replication, and deduplication. Data migration can be done without any performance implications on the production systems.""The solution is stable.""The solution is easy to use.""Saves space with deduplication"

More NetApp FAS Series Pros →

"NetApp has really added a lot of features over the years to improve the product and performance. They can do things now like control ingress. They can control egress.""Very stable and very scalable.""It gave us a platform which could clearly arrange all our files and volumes.""The most valuable feature of NetApp Private Storage is out-of-the-box integration with the SAN switches. They are much easier compared to Dell solutions. Additionally, the connector that comes with the solution that allows connection back to the Cisco SAN switches is very good. In Dell, I would need to use an FCIP or CIP port that is required.""As opposed to cloud, we have full control over security, use, who uses it. We own a number of different companies, so we can partition however we want.""At the moment, we are extensively using SnapMirror.""The most valuable feature is integration.""Integration with other NetApp solutions and merging them is manageable."

More NetApp Private Storage Pros →

Cons
"We used to have a chat feature available on the support site. It's not available to us anymore.""Additional metadata reporting would be great. We have to use a separate tool to report on that. We would like to view the age of data and how long it has been since someone has accessed a file.""Dell PowerScale (Isilon) could improve the load distribution capability. For example, in some cases, the system load is not distributed automatically on all the nodes but is concentrated only on one. You have a peak request on only one node and the others don't do anything.""The cost of Dell PowerScale is currently high and there is room for improvement.""The legacy file system for Epsilon didn't scale into the cloud and didn't have a separate OS. It would be key if this was made possible.""Its configuration needs to be more straightforward.""We lost our technical sales reps about two years ago. We haven't gotten one assigned to us and we'd love to have one.""There is room for improvement in its handling of object storage."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) Cons →

"Cluster mode needs to be more ubiquitous.""I think this kind of infrastructure is mostly obsolete. To keep up with developments in this space, you need to move all these features to an All-Flash solution.""The high cost of the product is an area of concern, so from an improvement perspective, the tool needs to be made cheaper.""I would like to see NetApp add incident support.""Cost is always a factor. Some people choose EMC or Dell because they perceive NetApp as being more expensive.""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 WAFL is slow.""The solution can improve on the replication features."

More NetApp FAS Series Cons →

"The solution could improve by having better support experts. For example, they do not have clear instructions on configuration.""The users find the new version's GUI complicated to use.""I think that it should work better with Microsoft solutions, more integrated with Microsoft. We also need integrated NAS and block storage.""It is not the fastest storage solution.""I'm not sure how easy it is to use on the cloud versus on-prem. If they have different user experiences, they should work to make the two as similar as possible to make it easy for a user to understand both even if they only deal mainly with one.""We had to write a number of custom tools or scripts ourselves to use it as a staging area between our on-premises datacenter and our cloud installation.""I would like to see the GUI management simplified in the next release.""There may actually be so many features that the end-user gets lost in the volume."

More NetApp Private Storage Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "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 →

  • "It’s difficult for us to get money, so make sure you get everything in order, because there’s no going back and saying “oh, I missed this or that”, so make sure you plan well and well in advance."
  • "it’s not an inexpensive solution and it may not be for the cost-sensitive customer."
  • "The process for going to cluster mode is expensive."
  • "Most storage vendors also have software, or licensing bundles, which may offer the required licenses considerably cheaper, but do also maybe offer licenses, which are not needed."
  • "There are products available in market with comparatively lower costs."
  • "Cost effective storage for all performance levels (including all-flash)."
  • "The only area that could be improved is to lower prices for their All Flash FAS."
  • "The price it not low, but comparing features to other vendors, the price can be balanced."
  • More NetApp FAS Series Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "We negotiate whatever deal we can get on the type of storage that it is, but it's totally under our control,."
  • "The price could be lower."
  • "The price of NetApp Private Storage is similar to other solutions. There is typically an annual license required for this solution."
  • "In general, I am pleased with the pricing, though it is a little high."
  • "NetApp Private Storage is cheaper here in India compared to other solutions, such as Dell."
  • "It is an expensive solution."
  • "The product is costly."
  • More NetApp Private Storage Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The most valuable feature of the solution is its performance.
    Top Answer:Dell PowerScale is an expensive solution compared to other products like Qumulo.
    Top Answer:The solution’s interface and pricing could be improved.
    Top Answer:Have you considered a NetApp FAS Storage for your NAS needs? I am sure it fits very well.
    Top Answer:The price of NetApp FAS Series is the same as Dell's cost, so I don't think there are any comparable elements in the… more »
    Top Answer:NetApp is faster than other storage brands.
    Top Answer:The product is costly. Also, we need to pay for features like SnapMirror, etc. I rate its pricing a nine out of ten.
    Top Answer:NetApp is a great storage device, but sometimes support is not accessible. Also, the current version has removed most of… more »
    Ranking
    1st
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    2nd
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    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
    NPS
    Learn More
    Overview

    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."

    NetApp FAS series is an enterprise-level storage system that provides a wide variety of data management services, including data protection, block and file storage, and data management.

    NetApp FAS is designed to be highly scalable, allowing your organization to grow storage capacity on demand. NetApp FAS also supports multiple protocols, including NFS, SMB, iSCSI, and Fibre Channel, as well as various storage architectures, including SAN (Storage Area Network) and NAS (Network-Attached Storage).

    The FAS series has multiple data protection and data management features, including snapshots, cloning, replication, and deduplication, to help secure your data and manage it more efficiently. The system integrates with other NetApp products and solutions, to create a unified data management platform. The system can be deployed on-premise, on multi-cloud environments, or hybrid.

    NetApp FAS Series Benefits and Features

    NetApp FAS series provides its users with several key benefits and features, including:

    • Scalability: NetApp FAS series is easy to scale, allowing organizations to rapidly grow their storage capacity according to demand.
    • Security: Protect and manage your data with various data protection and data management tools, including snapshots, cloning, replication, and deduplication.
    • Seamless integration: Integrate with other NetApp products and solutions to ensure a unified data management platform across on-premise, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments.
    • Reduced costs: Consolidation of multiple storage boxes greatly reduces the data center footprint. From a management point of view, with NetApp FAS you manage a single storage box instead of multiple storage boxes.

    • Compatibility: Forward and backward compatibility ensures that you don’t have to trade in existing controllers. New controllers can always integrate with previously released controllers.
    • Multi-protocol support: Support for multiple protocols, including NFS, SMB, iSCSI, and Fibre Channel.
    • High performance and availability: The solution has high input and output per second performance and ensures that critical data remains accessible in the event of a hardware failure.

    • Intuitive interface: The FAS series has a user-friendly interface and management dashboard, making it easy to manage your storage systems. With unified management, you can quickly run a single protocol on your entire system

    • Data cloning and replication: Easily clone databases of any size. Clones occupy a very, very small footprint on the storage until they are severed from the main database. Replications carried out by the system are fast and require very little bandwidth.

    Reviews from Real Users

    NetApp FAS Series stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its speed, reliability, and a wide variety of features.

    Adriano S., IT project and infrastructure service manager, writes, “The replication feature is noteworthy because it's faster than most and it uses little bandwidth. Then there's the friendly interface that the equipment offers. With this interface, it is very easy to manage.”

    Temitope O., a NetApp product manager at Hiperdist Ltd, says, “I like the unified management feature because sometimes you end up running a single protocol on the entire system. You rather have a system for a particular protocol and another system for other protocols, especially in a big environment like mine.”

    NetApp Private Storage (NPS) for Cloud is a family of enterprise storage solutions that lets you use multiple industry-leading clouds and maintain complete control over your data on dedicated storage systems from NetApp.

    Sample Customers
    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,
    Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College
    ASE IT, Concerto Cloud
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Government14%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Educational Organization10%
    Media Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization23%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Healthcare Company11%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Comms Service Provider7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization59%
    Computer Software Company7%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Financial Services Firm4%
    REVIEWERS
    University25%
    Manufacturing Company13%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Real Estate/Law Firm16%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    University10%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise45%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise29%
    Large Enterprise53%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise32%
    Large Enterprise42%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business9%
    Midsize Enterprise64%
    Large Enterprise27%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business43%
    Midsize Enterprise7%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise55%
    Buyer's Guide
    NAS
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Nasuni and others in NAS. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.