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Celerra [EOL] vs Dell PowerScale comparison

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Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Celerra [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell PowerScale
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
NAS (1st), File and Object Storage (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

it_user5157 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr System Engineer at a outsourcing company with 501-1,000 employees
Highly scalable and reliable SAN with fiber channel connectivity but bulky in size and consumes a lot of power
Hot spare disk system to take over the full workload in the event of a failure, at the same performance and service levels. The data is clustered over multiple disks so data read/write access time is very low. Fiber channel connectivity option for high speed data transfer. Single point of management/control. Customized version of Linux OS hence much higher security.
Santosh Bharadwaj Rangavajjula - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
File sharing has supported collaboration and disaster recovery but security support still needs work
Dell PowerScale can improve specifically for AI workloads, particularly on the MCPs. I would add that we have not seen an official MCP from Dell PowerScale and are relying on open source. It would be valuable to have an MCP server that we can set up directly with them. Regarding Dell PowerScale's AI capabilities, I think its governance and security could be better. We have Superna that we buy along with Dell PowerScale, but we are seeing very big problems with integrating it. Superna is primarily for the security use case, as we want to prevent cybersecurity attacks and ransomware attacks. If Dell is providing this as a supplementary feature, it should provide better support. Regarding Dell PowerScale's AI capabilities, I do not see much accuracy and reliability of output. This is actually a security problem because Dell does not provide official MCP servers while most other vendors are providing it. This forces us to rely on open source, which is not secure. Dell PowerScale plays a role in my organization's AI initiatives as we want to use the Metadata IQ functionality from Dell PowerScale; however, there is not enough support and extensive documentation for us to be able to do this.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"At last we bought this Celerra NS 40, with 17 TB of space which is giving superb performance."
"The solution's scalability is very good."
"The best features Dell PowerScale offers are the soft elements, such as supportability, resilience, after-sales services, the brand, and its reliability."
"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."
"PowerScale is one of those things that will grow in your environment; once you start it with one thing, you'll learn that it can do much more, very quickly."
"The solution in general has allowed us to move off of multiple Windows boxes where they had huge data stores, and we migrated it to the Isilon, making it easier and more cost-effective with just one point of contact."
"We would highly recommend PowerScale; we've been very happy with our overall experience."
"Dell PowerScale helps in saving costs related to power and rack space, reducing physical hardware from over one hundred to twenty-nine chassis."
"For five years, I have not lost any data, and I can access whatever data I fed in the first year as if it were fresh today, which is what makes it special."
 

Cons

"Very bulky and heavy in weight."
"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."
"I have not seen a great return on investment from Dell PowerScale. It would benefit significantly more if users adopted it, but unfortunately, I do not see that happening at the moment."
"The solution's rate structure or rate redundancy needs to be improved."
"I have escalated questions to the technical support team of Dell, and I find the support center to be very poor compared to what it was during EMC's time."
"A recent development is, that there's a key feature coming out in OneFS 9.3, however, when you then try to get to 9.3 or 9.4 of the OneFS, it's been pulled from the download of the Dell website and we're referring back to 9.2.1 as the target code."
"The solution can be integrated with an automation system. Dell uses another framework developed in-house. They can integrate it with machines."
"Its configuration needs to be more straightforward."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"It's a high-cost offering amounting to three or four million Swedish kronor, or about $400,000 or euros, for approximately 480 terabytes of storage."
"The price of the solution can fluctuate. The price can be competitive or other times not. The price of the solution could be better."
"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."
"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."
"The general cost for a system like this is expensive. The total cost depends on your use case. You need to pay for every additional feature that you use."
"We use the TNA approach which is a great opportunity for us to better manage the licenses based on how much consumption is available for the different customers so we can use that approach and scalability."
"It is an expensive solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise70
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
I think the price is reasonable. We procured this during the time of COVID, around 2022, and the price was very competitive. If you are looking for technology, there will also be a price associated...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
The disadvantage that I felt is not hardware-related. I feel that Dell needs to focus on the service aspects. Once they sell this hardware to customers, customers also expect service from them. Del...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
Dell PowerScale is used for keeping our company data. Continental is an automotive company, and we keep recording files on a petabyte basis. We have globally around more than 200 petabytes of Dell ...
 

Also Known As

Celerra
PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Wentworth-Douglas Hospital, Kindred Healthcare, Cosentry, Sumitomo Life Insurance Company, Shriners, BZWBK
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,
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, CTERA and others in NAS. Updated: October 2026.
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