We performed a comparison between Dell PowerScale (Isilon) and IBM FlashSystem 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."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"
"The tool's most valuable features are scalability and stability."
"Its scalability has been huge for us."
"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 tool comes with cheap disks and works fast for video content."
"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."
"Its most valuable feature is the DR capabilities replication."
"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."
"The most valuable features are deduplication and compression, which together, enable you to have more space."
"The valuable features are high availability, compression, and a failover mechanism. It's a very highly available storage solution."
"The installation is nice and easy."
"One of the most valuable features is that it's very easy to use and configure. It used to be more difficult, but now it's almost flawless."
"The performance is very good and we use this product to enhance our core system."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is replication...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."
"The most valuable feature is reliability."
"We are a 100% satisfied with the stability of the solution."
"If they integrated some functions, as they have on Data Domain with a cyber recovery vault, it would be ideal."
"It is a bit higher priced than some of the other systems."
"Dell PowerScale's deployment is not easy."
"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."
"There aren't many templates still coming out for it. They need to provide templates so we can copy and paste what we've done in the past to future, new things."
"The biggest weakness is small file handling. Small file compression options are not enabled out of the box. It would be good to have this enabled by default."
"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."
"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 pricing needs to be more competitive."
"The solution is not easy to implement. It takes a lot of time to study the product and it's a little complicated in general."
"The GUI for monitoring performance metrics could provide better visibility. For example, it doesn't let me segregate the IOPS per volume."
"Sometimes the performance is effective but it gets resolved in the process."
"Product support is restricted to IBM only. It must be decentralized to IBM partners as well."
"AHV is Acropolis Hypervisor – A relatively new Hypervisor, robust and stable as VMware vSphere, has built-in advanced analytics and powerful operations, Self Service Portal and components for DevOps included, managed by a single pane of glass (Prism) via HTML5 and it is free of charge – That is why Nutanix is so advanced and revolutionary."
"The Data Reduction Pools (DRP) support could be better."
"Our customers have raised concerns about the limitations of the FlashSystem 5200 and 7300, which only offer a 32-gigabyte connection."
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is ranked 1st in NAS with 37 reviews while IBM FlashSystem is ranked 4th in NAS with 106 reviews. Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is rated 9.0, while IBM FlashSystem is rated 8.2. 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 IBM FlashSystem writes "An easy GUI and simple provisioning but our model does not support compression". Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is most compared with Dell ECS, NetApp FAS Series, Pure Storage FlashBlade, Qumulo and Sonexion Scale-out Lustre Storage System, whereas IBM FlashSystem is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Pure Storage FlashArray, Dell Unity XT, NetApp AFF and Huawei OceanStor. See our Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. IBM FlashSystem report.
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