Dell ECS vs Red Hat Ceph Storage comparison

Dell Technologies and Red Hat are both solutions in the File and Object Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.1, while Red Hat is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.8. Dell Technologies holds a 7.8% mindshare in FaOS, compared to Red Hat’s 19.5% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 81% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Red Hat Ceph Storage and Dell ECS offer scalable data storage solutions, competing in the enterprise storage category. Dell ECS generally has an edge due to its robust enterprise features, although Red Hat Ceph Storage benefits from competitive pricing.

Features: Red Hat Ceph Storage provides open-source flexibility, scalability, and compatibility, enabling customization for various organizational needs. Dell ECS offers enterprise-grade features, including advanced data protection, multi-protocol support, and strong analytics capabilities, which meet the demands of comprehensive data management.

Room for Improvement: Red Hat Ceph Storage could benefit from enhanced user interface design and reduce the technical expertise needed for advanced configurations. It may require more intuitive management tools. Dell ECS might improve by offering more cost-effective expansion options, diversifying deployment configurations, and further optimizing its cloud integration.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Red Hat Ceph Storage features simplified deployment with comprehensive documentation; however, technical expertise is necessary for optimization. Dell ECS provides a guided setup with dedicated customer service, making the process streamlined for enterprises seeking direct support.

Pricing and ROI: Red Hat Ceph Storage generally offers a lower initial setup cost, presenting long-term savings with its open-source approach, suitable for firms investing in technical resources. Dell ECS demands a higher initial investment but provides significant value through feature-rich capabilities and support, potentially yielding a higher ROI for fully integrated solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell ECS vs. Red Hat Ceph Storage Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell ECS vs. Red Hat Ceph Storage

April 2025

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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

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.8%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell ECS is 7.8%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ceph Storage is 19.5%, down from 22.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

File and Object Storage

Featured Reviews

Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us

The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.

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SamuelThomas

Consultant at Key Information Technology L.L.C.

Managing efficiently with user-friendly interfaces for monitoring and managing resources

We normally recommend Dell ECS to enterprise customers and government customers Dell ECS is very easy to handle, primarily because the web UI dashboard and everything is very easy to manage for every customer. They can monitor the DPS, access failures, bandwidth, failed requests, and latency.…

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ANDRE VINICIUS HAMERSKI

IT Private Cloud & Infrastructure Leader at Sicredi

Offers cost-effective scalability through open-source storage integration

Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage. We appreciate the scalability of the open-source solution, allowing us to address our growing data needs without encountering major issues. Having used it as a pilot system in Brazil, we gained significant knowledge and the ability to manage our infrastructure as code.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."

"The solution provides many controllers."

"Speed and ease of use are the two most valuable features."

"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."

"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."

"The snapshots, replication, and the ability to have immutable blades are the most valuable features. You're putting data snapshots out in those blades, and they cannot be touched. Its performance is great."

"I like its size. It is smaller than the other competitors. We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte."

"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"It's definitely good for unstructured data. In earlier days, we had Centera, so for the DR it's really good. It has load balancing facility, and we're using it with the Kemp Load Balancer."

"This solution is very easy to use, and is very reliable."

"I have been satisfied with the stability."

"It's my understanding that the initial setup is straightforward."

"Dell ECS is a cost-effective solution that provides ease of use and availability."

"The tool is easy to use."

"It is a stable platform."

"We face very few hardware failures."

More Dell ECS pros

"High reliability with commodity hardware."

"It's a very performance-intensive, brilliant storage system, and I always recommend it to customers based on its benefits, performance, and scalability."

"Replicated and erasure coded pools have allowed for multiple copies to be kept, easy scale-out of additional nodes, and easy replacement of failed hard drives. The solution continues working even when there are errors."

"Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage."

"We are using Ceph internal inexpensive disk and data redundancy without spending extra money on external storage."

"The ability to provide block storage and object storage from the same storage cluster is very valuable for us."

"I really like that Red Hat Ceph Storage can be used as a total solution without any storage area network components."

"I would definitely recommend Red Hat Ceph Storage. It is a complete solution for cloud-native storage needs."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pros

Cons

"I would like to see more VM-Aware features in the next release of this solution."

"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

"The Pure Storage Orchestrator is our biggest pain point at the moment. If we can have more say in future developments of feature sets that we will need to support for our use case, that would be pretty beneficial to us."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade should improve on more cloud integration."

"There is some room for new features related to authentication and integration with Kubernetes, and other solution using S3 Bucket."

"It usually comes down to just what you hit and the value you're getting when you spend the money and license the products. I would always go, "If you want to make things better, lower your price and make your licensing simpler." There's always an opportunity around that."

"The technical support needs to improve. When we open a case, it is auto assigned to a support tech person. Nine out of ten times, we get an email right back saying that person is off until tomorrow. I cannot handle that. They just did this over the weekend to us, too. I had to call our rep and have them do something about it."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"However, hardware failures can impact the cluster, making it read-only."

"Dell ECS could improve the price of the solution. It is expensive."

"We have had issues when the ECS is expiring or the NetBackup is expiring images."

"The disaster recovery could be improved because there should be something in-built within the ECS. Search and recovery should be in-built. Right now, we have to use some external tools for performing the recovery itself. For example, we're using Atempo or deploying Golden Superna, so it has dependency on the external third party vendors."

"Dell ECS is not fully compatible with S3, as it supports around ninety percent of S3 APIs, which can be improved. Additionally, sometimes there is an issue with memory where it hangs, and they can improve garbage collection, which takes up a lot of space during cleanup."

"The setup is very complex."

"They do not have complete documentation, which is very weak and could be improved."

More Dell ECS cons

"I've heard the integration with OpenShift is great, however, the licensing cost is excessively high."

"Routing around slow hardware."

"Please create a failback solution for OpenStack replication and maybe QoS to allow guaranteed IOPS."

"It took me a long time to get the storage drivers for the communication with Kubernetes up and running. The documentation could improve it is lacking information. I'm not sure if this is a Ceph problem or if Ceph should address this, but it was something I ran into. Additionally, there is a performance issue I am having that I am looking into, but overall I am satisfied with the performance."

"An area for improvement would be that it's pretty difficult to manage synchronous replication over multiple regions."

"Ceph does not deal very well with, or takes a long time to recover from, certain kinds of network failures and individual storage node failures."

"Some documentation is very hard to find."

"The storage capacity of the solution can be improved."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be cheaper."

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."

"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."

"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"Dell ECS is a cost-effective solution."

"We are not paying for the license at this stage."

"The price of Dell ECS should be reduced."

"It is an expensive solution. There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the product."

"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 product is quite expensive."

"It is an inexpensive product."

"If I remember correctly, Dell ECS is an appliance, so if you buy Dell ECS, you also have to buy the hardware, while IBM is standalone software, so you can buy IBM as software only without needing to buy the hardware. On a scale of one to five, I'm rating the pricing for Dell ECS a four."

More Dell ECS pricing and cost advice

"Most of time, you can get Ceph with the OpenStack solution in a subscription as a bundle."

"There is no cost for software."

"The other big advantage is that Ceph is free software. Compared to traditional SAN based storage, it is very economical."

"The operational overhead is higher compared to Azure because we own the hardware."

"The price of Red Hat Ceph Storage is reasonable."

"I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten."

"The price of this product isn't high."

"We never used the paid support."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

29%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

22%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell EMC ECS?

The tool is easy to use.

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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...

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What needs improvement with Dell EMC ECS?

Dell ECS is not fully compatible with S3 ( /products/amazon-s3-reviews ), as it supports around ninety percent of S3 ...

See all answers

How does Red Hat Ceph Storage compare with MiniO?

Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This ...

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What do you like most about Red Hat Ceph Storage?

The high availability of the solution is important to us.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Red Hat Ceph Storage?

I have not identified any drawbacks, however, the response to public platform inquiries could be faster.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 21% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

Qumulo vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 4% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Dell ECS

Compared 19% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Dell ECS

Compared 14% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Dell ECS

Compared 12% of the time

MinIO vs Dell ECS

Compared 11% of the time

Hitachi Content Platform vs Dell ECS

Compared 3% of the time

More Dell ECS Competitors

MinIO vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 40% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 6% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 6% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 4% of the time

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 3% of the time

More Red Hat Ceph Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

April 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell ECS

April 2025

Download Dell ECS product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

April 2025

Download Red Hat Ceph Storage product report

Also Known As

No data available

EMC ECS, Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage, EMC Elastic Cloud Storage

Ceph

Overview

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

Enterprise-ready. Future-proof. Data-first.

Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS) is a file and object storage solution from Dell EMC. ECS has been created to support both traditional and next-generation ecosystems equally. ECS boasts unrivaled economics, manageability, resilience, and scalability to satisfy the demands of today's next-gen, robust business enterprise ecosystems. ECS can easily be deployed in a software-defined model or as a turn-key appliance. ECS is software-defined and multi-layered for unlimited scalability. Every layer is abstracted and scalable with no single point of failure.

Data service layer: Provides S3 access along with access to SWIFT, CAZ, NFS, HDFS.
Storage service layer: Stores, retrieves and protects data.
Fabric layer: Provides clustering, configuration management, health monitoring.

Everything is done within the software, which is containerized, using docker.

ECS is currently deployed using basic commodity hardware, which can easily be federated across as many as eight different locations and managed as a single resource. Additionally, ECS can also protect data at the site level, locally, disk, node, and rack levels. The federation enables a single global namespace with everywhere access to content. Applications can quickly rewrite in an active/active or everywhere active manner.

ECS is also able to be used as secondary storage or archival storage. This will free up valuable primary storage of data that is stale, redundant, or used infrequently, and the data will remain easily accessible. ECS uses policy-based tiering such as Data Domain, Cloud tiering, Isilon using cloud polls, and Geodrive, which give Windows systems direct access to ECS. Windows users can still use server message block (SMB) while leveraging the more expansive ECS storage.

ECS is enterprise-grade and offers valuable features such as retention, multi-tenancy, metering, monitoring, quotas, and more. ECS builds in robust security from the ground up and encrypts data. ECS is compliant with STIG guidelines and adheres to SEC rule 17A-4F.

ECS is an enterprise-ready solution that allows organizations to easily simplify object storage management and visualize information in intuitive new ways, and empowers your business to do even more with data. With ECS, enterprise organizations can deliver cloud-scale economics in-house that will lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and scale, creating greater levels of productivity and profitability.

Reviews from Real Users

One user, who is a deputy director at a tech service company, says ECS offers “good performance, reliability, and technical support”.

Dell EMC ECS is “a stable solution which is easy to scale, install and manage”, relates another user, who is a senior buyer at a tech service company.

"What I like best about this product is that it is a complete solution, both hardware, and software, by the same vendor," summarizes a system engineer at a tech services company.

Dell Technologies

Red Hat Ceph Storage is an enterprise open source platform that provides unified software-defined storage on standard, economical servers and disks. With block, object, and file storage combined into one platform, Red Hat Ceph Storage efficiently and automatically manages all your data.

Red Hat

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

Atos

Dell, DreamHost

Buyer's Guide

Dell ECS vs. Red Hat Ceph Storage

April 2025

Free Report: Dell ECS vs. Red Hat Ceph Storage

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