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Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.0
PowerScale enhances data management efficiency, reducing costs and energy usage while boosting performance, reliability, and operational efficiency for enterprises.
Sentiment score
6.7
Users find Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform valuable, citing long-term benefits, competitive costs, financial gains, and improved performance.
Despite being more expensive than Huawei, it is stable and most enterprises accept the price due to its stability.
In terms of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) specifically, we have seen a return on investment due to faster performance than our last few storage arrays, and the general usability is a lot better.
The second cluster of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) gives us flexibility for small things like code upgrades, all the way to scenarios where we have lost this data center or data, allowing us to check if data is still intact on the other side.
While performance, security, and financial aspects of Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform are satisfactory, I am unsure about the exact return on investment.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.3
Dell PowerScale customer service is praised for responsiveness and knowledge, though some report mixed experiences with first-level support.
Sentiment score
6.4
Users have mixed feedback on Hitachi's support: praised for expertise but criticized for delays and inconsistent global assistance.
Support online is definitely a ten out of ten.
Dell provides support within four hours, and they always fulfill their promises.
They have managed previous issues well.
The time taken to act upon issues is quite large, and issue identification takes a significant amount of time, especially when it comes to critical problems.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Dell PowerScale efficiently scales with large data demands, seamless expansions, and supports diverse applications with on-premise and cloud integration.
Sentiment score
7.4
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform provides scalable options, adaptability, and reliability, supporting diverse enterprise expansion needs effectively despite some limitations.
We started on PowerScale with around about 300 terabytes and are now two and a half petabytes, still on the same file system.
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.
Dell PowerScale is highly scalable, as evidenced by the reduced physical hardware and the efficient use of rack space.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) offers excellent stability with minimal downtime, efficient clustering, and high user ratings for reliability.
Sentiment score
8.2
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform is highly reliable and stable, ideal for critical 24/7 operations with minimal downtime issues.
Since we have good protection levels, the data is secured and replicated across the disks.
I assess the stability and reliability of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) as perfect.
I find the product to be resilient and stable. There's no downtime and no crashes.
If we are running on a standalone infrastructure, I would rate Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform a 10 for stability.
 

Room For Improvement

Dell PowerScale struggles with high costs, complex updates, limited improvements, and lacks cloud and multi-tenant capabilities.
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform needs improved UX, automation, scalability, support, reasonable pricing, deduplication, and better management tools.
Hardware failures under warranty should be addressed within the promised timeline.
I would want to see more AI features with Dell PowerScale (Isilon).
If I could improve one thing on Dell PowerScale (Isilon), it would be better object storage as it recently breached into S3, and that capability could be broadened.
The interface management and monitoring need improvement.
 

Setup Cost

Dell PowerScale is costly but offers fair pricing and scalability, appealing to enterprises with extensive data requirements.
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform is initially costly but offers justified performance and potential discounts, with complex licensing options.
It's quite expensive for the amount of storage we have.
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) shows it's a premium platform, so it's a big amount of money.
The pricing is excellent.
The cost of Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform is reasonable compared to competitors.
 

Valuable Features

Dell PowerScale excels in management, scalability, and performance, offering flexibility, resilience, and cost-effective storage with advanced monitoring.
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform offers seamless data mobility, reliability, scalability, and efficient storage management with user-friendly features across industries.
Dell PowerScale offers high scalability and stability as well, making it a valuable solution for enterprises.
In our AI initiatives, Dell PowerScale (Isilon) plays a significant role in data analysis, data fusion; principally, it is involved in data analysis, data extraction, and statistical analysis.
Single files are limited to four terabytes in our configuration, however, the system can support up to 16 terabytes, so we can scale based on that too.
The active data management of Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform, especially with the HOPS Center, makes it easier to work with the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform infrastructure.
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)
Ranking in NAS
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (2nd)
Hitachi Virtual Storage Pla...
Ranking in NAS
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (3rd), Frame-Based Disk Arrays (1st), All-Flash Storage (9th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the NAS category, the mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 17.5%, up from 17.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform is 6.3%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS
 

Featured Reviews

Scott Taylor - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Bratislav Petkovic - PeerSpot reviewer
Active data management enhances performance and simplifies operation
The active data management of Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform, especially with the HOPS Center, makes it easier to work with the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform infrastructure. Previously, it was difficult to create and delete LUNs, which would take a long time, but now with HOPS Center, it is functioning correctly. It is now as easy as working with EMC or Dell storage, and the performance is better, especially with new features. The solution's performance, security, and cost are satisfactory. These factors influenced our decision to purchase Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
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...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform?
The cost of Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform is reasonable compared to competitors, but it is dependent on the customer; I cannot say for the entire industry, but for us, it's comparable.
What do you like most about Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform E990?
The product's reliability has been crucial for our company's operations.
What needs improvement with Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform E990?
The replication technology that Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform uses is quite older, and the replication methodology they employ for data between the data center and the production and standby dat...
 

Also Known As

PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series, 5000 Series, E Series, N Series, G Series
 

Overview

 

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,
Turkcell, Owens Corning, Region Nord, Net Credit Financial Group (NFC Group), Russian Railways
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.