No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cohesity SmartFiles vs Dell ObjectScale comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
Cohesity SmartFiles
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (19th)
Dell ObjectScale
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (7th)
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
SM
Evangelist / CTO at fgnext
Enables effective data management with reliable backup and recovery
Cohesity SmartFiles aids in data management with features like full-text search through indexed documents. The architecture supports backup, ransomware awareness, and data management on a converged platform, offering triple-protocol access (NFS, CIFS, and S3) while facilitating gradual improvements in access rights management. It allows for redundant setups, with automated backup and recovery options in a cloud environment.
RM
Solution arhitect at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
Extends data management capabilities while offering robust options for further enhancement
Dell ECS provides features such as active-active and geo-replication, which offers a good approach for disaster recovery. As a Dell platinum partner, we appreciate that most Dell portfolio products are integrated together. For example, Dell ECS can be integrated with other file share systems or PowerScale without requiring third-party tools. The integration between Dell products is particularly noteworthy because Dell provides the full cycle of storage solutions, from NAS, SAN, hybrid, to object storage. All these solutions are fully integrated together. The pricing is competitive when compared to other vendors. While comparing with HP's offerings, Dell ECS as object storage is one of the best. Pure Storage might offer better pricing, but you won't find the same level of integration across products if you source the full cycle from one vendor. The complete integration of Dell solutions is one of the main features I appreciate, and I often advise my customers to consider this ecosystem. This integration helps with having a single point of contact and support.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We put a fair amount of stress on it because we run sequel workloads and we run web applications where the same web files are hit over and over, and we have had almost zero stability issues with that SAN, which has been really great for us."
"Pure gives us better compression, it's easier to manage, a lot less hands-on."
"It is very easy to use."
"The seamless integration into the public cloud has improved my organization."
"Pure Storage FlashArray's overall speed is its most valuable feature."
"If you need a high-performance storage appliance that is easy to install and maintain, you pretty much can't go wrong."
"The performance and the ever-growing maintenance are the most valuable features of this solution."
"It has improved my organization in the way that we have high reliability and faster access to our data."
"Cohesity SmartFiles aids in data management with features like full-text search through indexed documents."
"For the performance it gives, it's quite competitive."
"The technology is very good, it performs well."
"It's my understanding that the initial setup is straightforward."
"This solution is very easy to use, and is very reliable."
"This product is very competitive, it's a good product."
"Dell EMC provides good service, and their products are easy to use, to install and configure."
"I'm recommending Dell EMC ECS because it's a Dell product, and it's as competitive as NetApp StorageGRID."
"We face very few hardware failures."
 

Cons

"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve some aspects. There are certain features that are good and there are some features that I see some issues with at the technical level. Those issues are related to replication. They need to resolve those issues, which I have already highlighted to the Pure team. Additionally, there are some issues in the active cluster that could improve."
"They have a product, FlashBlade, which is their object storage integration, and that's something that we haven't integrated with yet. This might be an area for additional focus as it would play into scalability, because the very nature of object storage is that it's infinitely scalable."
"I would like to get a weekly report of how our storage has been used, and if there is any storage sitting there not being used."
"I would like the ability to swap out the network adapters into it. So, without taking out the whole controller, I would like to be able to swap adapters. This would make things easier."
"I wish they could add more of a monitor on the machine itself so you don't have to rely on a KVM or something to look at the display, such as an onboard diagnostic display."
"It is not possible to create a cluster on top of multiple arrays."
"Larger capacity and more storage ports would be the two things I'd like to see."
"I would like to see box-to-box encryption on replication included in the next release."
"Users must remember that running DataProtect and files on the same cluster could threaten access if there is a platform failure. It's not suitable for applications needing high I/O or low latency."
"In Taiwan, they don't have professional technical support."
"They do not have complete documentation, which is very weak and could be improved."
"From an improvement perspective, Dell ECS should aim to offer a better pricing plan to its users."
"While there can be occasional issues with routing to the wrong region that lead to slight delays, it's typically business as usual."
"Dell EMC ECS should support segregation of duty, particularly for role-based access controls. Having a single pane of glass for smarter observation and better control mechanism would also make this solution better."
"We have had issues when the ECS is expiring or the NetBackup is expiring images."
"They need to ensure that the system will work if a site goes down."
"The major weakness in the solution is that there is no cloud version for Dell ECS."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is an annual or perpetual license required for this solution."
"The price, in general, is around $100,000, however, I know it costs more."
"The price was slightly higher than others, but competitive, if you consider all the other features that you get from it."
"We purchased a license to use this solution and we pay for the storage ourselves."
"There are no licensing fees aside from the support."
"The Evergreen Storage subscription is a really cool concept. As long as we maintain our subscription, we will get new controllers every three years and really never have a forklift upgrade like we currently are doing. Just that future-proofing is an ease off of my mind to know that I won't have to do what I'm dong right now again."
"We have a seen a reduction in TCO. It is definitely a cost-effective solution for us. We have seen ROI."
"The licensing is $100,000."
Information not available
"The charges for this solution are made in blocks of models, which are purchased depending on what features an organization requires."
"It is an inexpensive product."
"The price of Dell ECS should be reduced."
"The solution's cost is quite reasonable."
"It's a lease-based model, so it's capacity-based. We already negotiated the price a lot, but we're still doing that with Dell because somehow the product was not installed successfully, so there was a lot of struggle in the distributor territory between Dell and the environment itself. I would give the solution a 6 out of 10 for the pricing. There's a little room for improvement."
"The solution could be cheaper."
"It is an expensive solution. There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the product."
"We initially purchased all of the licenses at the same time."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which File and Object Storage solutions are best for your needs.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Construction Company
11%
University
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I have knowledge about the licensing part, which we obtained for around 10 years from the time of deployment, but I d...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
When it comes to Everpure FlashArray ports shown in the GUI, it would be better if, when one of the Pure array ports ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cohesity SmartFiles?
SmartFiles is an economical solution, priced per terabyte on the backend. Initial setup and licensing costs align wit...
What needs improvement with Cohesity SmartFiles?
Users must remember that running DataProtect and files on the same cluster could threaten access if there is a platfo...
What is your primary use case for Cohesity SmartFiles?
Our customers use Cohesity SmartFiles ( /products/cohesity-smartfiles-reviews ) in conjunction with Cohesity SpanFS (...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC ECS?
The pricing is moderate and at par with the market. As a service provider, we receive good margins, indicating a favo...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC ECS?
I cannot think of anything as an area for improvement with Dell ECS. I do not see any pricing or usability concerns.
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC ECS?
Some valuable features with Dell ECS include its support for various use cases, but I would say the best features her...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
No data available
EMC ECS, Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS)
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
1. Acer 2. Adobe 3. AIG 4. Airbus 5. Allstate 6. Amazon 7. American Express 8. Aon 9. Apple 10. ATT 11. Autodesk 12. Bank of America 13. Barclay's 14. Bayer 15. BlackRock 16. Boeing 17. BNP Paribas 18. Cisco 19. Coca-Cola 20. Comcast 21. Dell 22. Deutsche Bank 23. Equinix 24. ExxonMobil 25. Ford 26. GE 27. Google 28. HP 29. IBM 30. Intel 31. JPMorgan Chase 32. Kroger
Atos
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Red Hat, Nutanix and others in File and Object Storage. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.