Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Hitachi NAS Platform comparison

Dell Technologies and Hitachi Vantara are both solutions in the NAS category. Dell Technologies is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.8, while Hitachi Vantara is ranked #13 with an average rating of 7.0. Dell Technologies holds a 16.2% mindshare in N, compared to Hitachi Vantara’s 2.5% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Hitachi Vantara users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Read 66 Dell PowerScale (Isilon) reviews

10,962 Views
5,262 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Hitachi NAS Platform

Read 12 Hitachi NAS Platform reviews

835 Views
835 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Hitachi NAS Platform

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 2024

Hitachi NAS Platform and Dell PowerScale are competing in the enterprise storage solutions category. Hitachi NAS Platform appears to have the upper hand in pricing and support, whereas Dell PowerScale excels in scalability and performance.

Features: Hitachi NAS Platform is known for its high data throughput, efficient data management, and advanced security features. Dell PowerScale offers seamless integration, comprehensive analytics, and exceptional scalability, making it highly suitable for large-scale deployments.

Room for Improvement: Hitachi NAS Platform could enhance its scalability and integration features to better compete with larger deployments. Improvements in handling mixed workloads and expanding analytics capabilities are also potential areas. Dell PowerScale could benefit from simplifying its deployment process and improving customer support responsiveness. Additionally, it may need to address initial setup costs to appeal more broadly to budget-sensitive enterprises.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Deployment with Hitachi NAS Platform tends to be straightforward, supported by an effective customer service team. Dell PowerScale also provides a good deployment model; however, its support quality may sometimes fall short, which can affect the overall implementation experience.

Pricing and ROI: Hitachi NAS Platform typically presents lower initial setup costs, offering an appealing choice for businesses with budget concerns while still promising satisfactory ROI. Dell PowerScale, though costlier upfront, offers substantial ROI over time with its robust features, appealing to enterprises with strategic long-term investment goals focused on scalability.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Hitachi NAS Platform Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Hitachi NAS Platform

September 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

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Ranking in NAS

2nd

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

File and Object Storage (3rd)

Hitachi NAS Platform

Ranking in NAS

13th

Average Rating

7.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the NAS category, the mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 16.2%, down from 17.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hitachi NAS Platform is 2.5%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

NAS Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell PowerScale (Isilon)	16.2%
Hitachi NAS Platform	2.5%
Other	81.3%

NAS

Featured Reviews

Scott Taylor

Senior Infrastructure Specialist at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Manages large data sets efficiently with hybrid cloud integration

My organization is quite large, with about 30,000 employees. The growth has been substantial in areas such as radiology and genomics. One of the best features we've utilized recently is offload to cloud pools due to capacity constraints on-premise. We didn't want to expand Dell PowerScale (Isilon) straight away, so we utilized cloud pools to offload some data to Azure. That's really saved us in certain areas as we didn't have funding to expand Dell PowerScale (Isilon) until next year, which is why we utilized the cloud pools functionality to offload.

Read full review

Mir Gulzar Ahmed

IT Manager at Synergy Computers

Needs standalone functionality but provides a robust NAS solution for existing SAN environments

I would suggest that Hitachi make a NAS box that can work independently, without relying on SAN connectivity. The current solution only suits customers who already have a Hitachi SAN environment and want to add NAS protocols like NFS and CIFS. It's not suitable for customers without an existing SAN, as they would first need to acquire the SAN infrastructure before adding NAS functionality.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"PowerScale helped free up our employees' time to focus on other business priorities. There are now automated jobs such as backing up and replicating data, that reduce the footprint we have. Those types of tasks were previously done manually."

"It's easy to manage. The web UI is very intuitive, and there's CLI also that you can use to manage it."

"The most valuable feature for me is SyncIQ."

"I would rate Dell PowerScale (Isilon) as a product a ten out of ten."

"The solution provides massive performance, scalability, efficiency, and ease of management."

"My experience with Dell as a vendor is pretty good; they are probably one of the best in the industry."

"The technical support has been excellent. I would give them a ten out of ten for support."

"I don't have to rebuild the cluster to add a node."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pros

"Hitachi NAS has improved my storage operations significantly."

"The product’s technical support services are good."

"Hitachi is reliable with high availability and solid performance. It performs well regardless of the workload."

"There are no other NAS in the current market that can compete with Hitachi in terms of performance."

"The most valuable feature is its ability to handle a high number of users while maintaining both stability and performance."

"Hitachi NAS Platform is very stable."

"Hitachi NAS has improved my storage operations significantly."

"The reliability and scalability of Hitachi NAS Platform are valuable features."

More Hitachi NAS Platform pros

Cons

"I'd like to see more Iceland products in the cloud so that we can port our data into different environments if needed. I would also like to see a virtual appliance or software-defined Iceland product."

"Additional metadata reporting would be great. We have to use a separate tool to report on that. We would like to view the age of data and how long it has been since someone has accessed a file."

"Data storage performance needs to be improved."

"Improvements could be made to reduce the costs and the high level of knowledge needed to maintain and use them. We had old hard drives with moving parts in Dell PowerScale, and due to this, we must switch to a more efficient environment with all-flash."

"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."

"Perhaps if there was a local chatbot built within the system or on the dashboard where we could directly ask for anything on the OneFS, it could help us."

"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."

"Pricing is an issue. It's quite expensive for the amount of storage we have."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) cons

"Hitachi NAS Platform's pricing could be reduced. It is high compared to other competitors."

"Hitachi NAS Platform needs to improve by offering a unified storage solution. Due to budget constraints in regions like Southeast Asia, customers prefer a single machine that can handle all problems, which the current platform does not provide."

"I rated Hitachi NAS a seven out of ten, primarily due to the interface or insufficient improvements in certain areas."

"I do not like Hitachi NAS because it's an old-school NAS solution, compared to the other, newer-type solutions such as Isilon from Dell or Qumulo."

"I would like to see the inclusion of support for cloud-connectivity to providers like AWS."

"For the Hitachi NAS Platform, the tools are basic and don't provide much insight."

"Hitachi could be more flexible and have a simpler management interface."

"The monitoring tool is not well developed."

More Hitachi NAS Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We paid an additional fee to have Dell's ProDeploy Plus team implement it."

"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."

"Our company finds the pricing high, but it decreases over time."

"This solution is priced slightly higher than others on the market but does offer good quality. With this solution's data reduction and compression, we were able to purchase less. Costs have dropped because of the data rate of compression and deduplication."

"The pricing is expensive, but I think it's a fair value because it does manage itself. It definitely is much simpler than any of the other scale-out storage platforms that we've looked at in the past."

"I always want things to be less expensive. However, I would say the pricing is fair. Their costs are in alignment with their competitors. It is a good value for the money."

"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 pricing for this solution is reasonable."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pricing and cost advice

"It is a highly-priced product."

"I would rate the solution's pricing six to seven out of ten."

"This solution is priced well and there are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"Hitachi NAS Platform’s price is high and depends on SCSI disc capacity."

"Costs are based on the features and it is a considerable amount."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

16%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	17
Large Enterprise	35

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	2

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?

The solution provides massive performance, scalability, efficiency, and ease of management.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?

It's considered between mid and high-end regarding. Dell usually knows how to position each model. If the customer wants something inexpensive, there's PowerVault. The system is marketed for mid-ra...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?

With every iteration of the OneFS system, new features are being added, and the UI is being updated here and there. So far, the system is adequate as a whole. Perhaps if there was a local chatbot b...

See all answers

What do you like most about Hiachi NAS Platform?

The product has valuable features for data migration.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hiachi NAS Platform?

The pricing for the Hitachi NAS is higher compared to other NAS solutions since the NAS protocol is provided on top of the existing SAN environment, requiring an additional device for NAS functiona...

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What needs improvement with Hiachi NAS Platform?

See all answers

Comparisons

NetApp FAS Series vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 15% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 10% of the time

Dell ObjectScale vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 9% of the time

Qumulo vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 8% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 2% of the time

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) Competitors

NetApp FAS Series vs Hitachi NAS Platform

Compared 20% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs Hitachi NAS Platform

Compared 18% of the time

NetApp Private Storage vs Hitachi NAS Platform

Compared 12% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Hitachi NAS Platform

Compared 10% of the time

More Hitachi NAS Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

September 2025

Download Dell PowerScale (Isilon) product report

Buyer's Guide

NAS

August 2025

Download Hitachi NAS Platform product report

Also Known As

PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon

Hitachi NAS

Overview

Dell PowerScale leads in unstructured data management with unified file and object storage, massive scalability, security, and cloud adaptability, enhancing AI, analytics, and enterprise applications with exceptional performance and resilience.

Dell PowerScale Isilon provides a comprehensive platform for unstructured data, excelling in scalability, management, and performance. With features like single-pane management, SyncIQ, and SmartQuotas, it handles large datasets with flexibility and robust security. Its multi-protocol support and seamless expansion improve operational efficiency. While it offers strong data protection, enhancements in cloud integration, cybersecurity, and performance are sought. Users note potential for cost reductions and streamlined configurations and mention desired improvements in object storage handling and NFS support.

What are the key features of Dell PowerScale Isilon?

Single-pane management: Simplifies data control and monitoring through a unified interface.
SyncIQ: Ensures efficient data replication for business continuity.
SmartQuotas: Provides intelligent quota management for optimized storage allocation.
Multi-protocol support: Facilitates cross-platform data access and integration.
Seamless storage expansion: Allows effortless scaling to accommodate growing data needs.

What benefits should users consider when reviewing Dell PowerScale Isilon?

Operational efficiency: Reduces workload with easy management and automation.
Enhanced security: Offers comprehensive data protection and recovery options.
Scalability: Supports large-scale data storage with flexible growth capabilities.
Performance: Delivers high-speed data processing for demanding applications.
Integration flexibility: Adapts to on-prem and hybrid cloud environments for diverse deployment needs.

Organizations across industries utilize Dell PowerScale Isilon for large-scale unstructured storage, supporting applications like video archiving, genomic data storage, and high-resolution imaging. Educational institutions, research centers, and media enterprises rely on its scaled-out storage capabilities, providing centralized, secure storage for diverse applications in hybrid, cloud, and on-prem environments.

Dell Technologies

Hitachi NAS Platforms help you with file sharing, file server consolidation and application storage for Oracle, Microsoft and virtual environments. Deploy the highest performance per node in the industry. Apply capacity efficiencies that let you actually do more, but with a lot less. Realize significant cost savings for your organization.

Hitachi Vantara

Sample Customers

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,

Intersect Australia

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Hitachi NAS Platform

September 2025

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