We performed a comparison between Dell PowerScale (Isilon) and FreeNAS based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two NAS solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Since it can scale so easily, as long as I have money to buy more nodes, I can grow it as big as I need to. That is important in our business. As sequencing technologies continue to evolve, and as those technologies evolve, the amount of data generation never gets smaller. It just always seems to get bigger. This is one of the absolute key aspects: We can grow on demand without having to forklift stuff."
"It's easy to manage. The web UI is very intuitive, and there's CLI also that you can use to manage it."
"The solution is extremely easy to manage. This is its most valuable feature."
"Our users are able to easily roll back snapshots without going through IT."
"You plug in a new node and data starts migrating over to it, and IT spreads out the load. We've added multiple nodes to the system since deploying it. The process is pretty seamless, and we are able to do it with no downtime. It's a very easy process to do."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its performance."
"The flexibility and the user-friendly interface are the most valuable features."
"The stability of the solution is good."
"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."
"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."
"It has the best storage capacity."
"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."
"It integrates well into either Windows or Linux environments."
"The solution has been very stable so far."
"If they integrated some functions, as they have on Data Domain with a cyber recovery vault, it would be ideal."
"There is room for improvement with the updates. It can take a significant amount of time to do a major OS update. However, even though it takes multiple reboots, the cluster stays up. If we want to apply a newer version of the OS, we have to roll back some of the patches so that we can upgrade. It requires a few reboots just to do that. The cluster doesn't come down, everything is still running, but it's time-consuming, at times."
"The product needs to improve CLI since commands are complex. The search option is also difficult since you must give the full path."
"I would like to see increased reporting and statistics functionalities."
"The management and monitoring tools comprise a disparate suite of products and the roadmap is very unclear. We've got four different products that look after the Isilon, management-wise, and it's a bit of a mess."
"The thing that they are working on now, and we are following closely is more native cloud integrations. The way that we envision workloads in the future is around moving compute to data instead of the other way around. So, we would like to have a single pane glass to manage storage across a variety of different platforms, including native cloud. That would be awesome."
"Its configuration needs to be more straightforward."
"The cost of Dell PowerScale is currently high and there is room for improvement."
"FreeNAS should be better prepared for clustering."
"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."
"If you find the documentation, it is always incomplete and fragmented."
"The latest version of the dashboard doesn't work as good as the previous version."
"They should include clustering for the solution."
"They can improve the integration with PSA systems. This functionality could be better."
"The support for S3 needs to be improved."
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is ranked 1st in NAS with 37 reviews while FreeNAS is ranked 9th in NAS with 9 reviews. Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is rated 9.0, while FreeNAS is rated 8.4. 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 FreeNAS writes "Open-source with great disk management and task synchronization". Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is most compared with Dell ECS, NetApp FAS Series, Pure Storage FlashBlade, Qumulo and HPE StoreEasy, whereas FreeNAS is most compared with StarWind Storage Appliance, Qumulo, HPE StoreEasy, NetApp FAS Series and Buurst SoftNAS. See our Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. FreeNAS report.
See our list of best NAS vendors.
We monitor all NAS 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.