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Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs HPE StoreEasy vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the NAS category, the mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 16.2%, down from 17.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE StoreEasy is 4.3%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 10.5%, down from 12.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Dell PowerScale (Isilon)16.2%
NetApp FAS Series10.5%
HPE StoreEasy4.3%
Other69.0%
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.
Vinoth Bala - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable, cost-effective, and easy to deploy and manage
I did not have any difficulties in deploying StoreEasy for the customers. It is user-friendly and easy to deploy. It has a Windows Server and a required license built in. For implementation, we follow the HPE documentation. We follow the Configuration guide and the Installation guide. For all HPE products, we follow the HPE documentation. For a single box, it takes a maximum of two days. It depends on the customer's availability. For different configurations, it can take two to three days. The number of people required varies from customer to customer, but generally, it requires three people. For mounting the storage, we always have three people to unbox, mount, and do other things. It does not require any maintenance. From the data center perspective, maintaining StoreEasy is very easy. No customer has complained about any difficulty in maintaining StoreEasy.
Srikanth Purushothaman - PeerSpot reviewer
Has supported long-term data protection and backup while requiring better part availability and pricing options
For monitoring purposes, we normally use flash access storage exclusively. We utilize a hybrid system because we need performance, combining NL-SAS for the volume and SAS flash to use as a fast cache system that provides more IOPS. We normally implement RAID 10, which we prefer over RAID 6's n plus 2 combinations. We utilize it for data redundancy, even with write intensity on. Regarding the unified storage architecture for NetApp FAS Series, we normally opt for exclusivity unless budget constraints exist. Our IOPS are very high, reaching somewhere about 50k to 150k or 1.150k. The high performance ensures minimal latency. An advantage we've seen with NetApp FAS Series is that snapshots provide very rapid backup and fast recovery. We basically use snapshots for data protection as first-level protection, with deduplication between the two storages serving as second-level protection.

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."
"The solution is stable."
"Dell PowerScale's performance is good."
"My experience when deploying Dell PowerScale (Isilon) was very straightforward, as we had Dell come on site to do all the actual setup, which was a big help."
"Dell PowerScale overall is easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerScale is its scalability."
"Its scalability has been huge for us."
"The solution provides massive performance, scalability, efficiency, and ease of management."
"This solution allows me to better and more easily manage user data without impacting my primary storage."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the duplication."
"The tool's data protection capabilities are robust."
"The most valuable feature of HPE StoreEasy is the storing of virtual machines."
"StoreEasy is a better solution for backup purposes."
"I like the tool's provisioning feature and OneView."
"It is easy to manage. There is a management console that comes with StoreEasy. It simplifies managing storage permission. There is snapshot scheduling as well. The updates and everything else is good."
"I can use both the on-premises and cloud storage options. I need to have an APR extension from StoreEasy, and it's that simple."
"It has a very good implementation of the Active Directory services, so implementation into a Windows network is easy."
"Can use both SAN and NAS at the same time."
"One important feature for customers is its ease of use and continuity, enabling seamless usage across on-premise and cloud environments."
"NetApp's cloud-based PaaS has been a massive help for unstructured data."
"The replication feature protects us from data loss."
"The solution has tiers inside which means we do not only need to use SSDs."
"The migration of the volume on the cluster is very useful and easy to use."
"It has integrated snapshot and backup capability."
 

Cons

"The solution's rate structure or rate redundancy needs to be improved."
"Since our Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is our own on-prem in-house built system, we don't have many up-to-date resources, and we're still a few years behind."
"I would like to see increased reporting and statistics functionalities."
"We used to have a chat feature available on the support site. It's not available to us anymore."
"Dell's customer service needs improvement."
"We lost our technical sales reps about two years ago. We haven't gotten one assigned to us and we'd love to have one."
"Dell PowerScale needs to reduce its price."
"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."
"The cluster service is not available in the latest version of HPE StoreEasy."
"It would be better if it were more scalable. In the next release, I would like to access some Microsoft Windows storage server features. I guess the newest version of Windows Server has some restrictions."
"I would like to improve the tool's technical support. I would also like to see the product's hybrid cloud version."
"The support of HPE StoreEasy can improve its responsiveness. Dell support is better."
"There could be improvements in providing more hardening options on the operating system side, similar to iLO's security scoreboard."
"The areas of HPE StoreEasy that need improvement are scalability and migration."
"There are some SKUs in StoreEasy that are built to order, and there are only limited options, such as StoreEasy 1670 and 1870, which can be configured to order based on customer preferences."
"There is a default Windows installation. Sometimes, when it crashes, the HPE support team asks the customer to reinstall it. That is the only issue customers are facing."
"As I see it, there could be more interfaces, more cache, etc."
"I would like to see NetApp add incident support."
"The solution's configuration is not flexible."
"NetApp systems are somewhat more complex, though not excessively so. If you're transitioning from a Windows server environment to NetApp, get training or education; otherwise, you might struggle with this solution."
"NetApp needs to put its OS on a microchip rather than on disks."
"Technical support needs to be improved, as there are no longer partners in our country."
"I think this kind of infrastructure is mostly obsolete. To keep up with developments in this space, you need to move all these features to an All-Flash solution."
"The user interface could be improved to have better graphics and the performance analyzer could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is excellent."
"The solution's licensing cost varies based on capacity and performance requirements."
"Our company finds the pricing high, but it decreases over time."
"The solution is expensive; it is not the cheapest solution out there. If you look at it from a total cost of ownership perspective, then it is a very compelling solution. However, if you're looking at just dollar per terabyte and not looking at the big picture, then you could be distracted by the price. It is not an amazing price, but it's pretty good. It is also very good when you consider the total cost of ownership and ease of management."
"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."
"The price of the solution can fluctuate. The price can be competitive or other times not. The price of the solution could be better."
"Dealing with the product costs and licensing areas is getting easier since Dell is simplifying the licensing process and licensing packages offered to users."
"It is a really expensive solution."
"The price of HPE StoreEasy is approximately $15,000 to $20,000 and it is a one-time purchase. The price is similar to competitors, such as Dell."
"I would rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten. You need to pay additional costs for the solution."
"This is an economical solution for the company and I am satisfied with the pricing."
"Based on what I hear from our customers, it is not very expensive. From the cost perspective, I see nobody complaining about its cost."
"We have considered upgrading to an All-Flash solution but when we evaluated the cost-benefit we discovered that we don't have enough money to invest in it. To maintain the same technology with All-Flash would be too expensive for us."
"I've sold arrays for as little $20,000 USD and as high as $300,000 USD."
"It is a moderately low-priced platform."
"The solution is more expensive than other vendors."
"It is a one-time license charge for NetApp FAS Series to run and we pay annually for upgrades and support."
"The only area that could be improved is to lower prices for their All Flash FAS."
"Most storage vendors also have software, or licensing bundles, which may offer the required licenses considerably cheaper, but do also maybe offer licenses, which are not needed."
"The scalability is pretty good, but it's too expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
7%
Educational Organization
7%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise36
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise37
Large Enterprise57
 

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)?
The cost is competitive with other vendors such as HP. I always compare prices between two vendors, and they are good...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
Sometimes, it takes too long to set up everything. That's something I would want them to improve. The main challenge ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE StoreEasy?
HPE StoreEasy is competitively priced compared to competitors. It offers configuration options, such as different pro...
What needs improvement with HPE StoreEasy?
The product is stable, running on Windows Server ( /products/windows-server-reviews ) with updates from HPE, includin...
What is your primary use case for HPE StoreEasy?
I use HPE StoreEasy ( /products/hpe-storeeasy-reviews ) to provide file sharing to our business users. We are a logis...
Which SAN product would you choose: IBM FlashSystem (FS9500) vs PureFlash Array/X NVMe vs PureFlash Array/XL NVMe?
Have you considered a NetApp FAS Storage for your NAS needs? I am sure it fits very well.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp FAS Series?
The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is not cheap, but in comparison to other vendors, NetApp FAS Series is affordable be...
 

Also Known As

PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
HP StoreEasy
No data available
 

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,
John Lewis, HPE IT, Comline AG, AmeriPride Services
Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, CTERA and others in NAS. Updated: October 2025.
872,837 professionals have used our research since 2012.