Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 6, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)
Ranking in NAS
1st
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (3rd)
NetApp FAS Series
Ranking in NAS
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
100
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (5th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the NAS category, the mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 26.5%, up from 22.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 17.6%, up from 15.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS
Unique Categories:
File and Object Storage
8.0%
Deduplication Software
2.0%
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
19.6%
 

Q&A Highlights

AV
Mar 12, 2020
 

Featured Reviews

MM
May 20, 2024
Offers reliability along with an easy deployment phase
The tool's support team and the way the cases are handled by the product's technical support team are both areas of concern where improvements are required. When replacing hardware parts of the tool, there are about 15 steps to follow before our company gets the parts sent over to us by Dell, making it an area that we feel consists of a lot of unnecessary work for our employees. Dell should streamline the aforementioned process and make it just one or two steps instead of making users go through 15 steps. The support offered after installing the tool to deal with the problems associated with the tool could be a little bit better. After the installation phase, the tool's support services have certain shortcomings because our company is not allowed to use or send the automated error reports back to Dell. The aforementioned process needs to be manually handled by Dell and us, which is why it takes so long, even though we are eligible to get help from a dedicated support engineer. Processing logs and other stuff takes time.
DC
Jul 23, 2020
Straightforward to set up and it scales well
We are a solution provider and NetApp FAS is one of the infrastructure-related products that we implement for our clients. Our customers' use cases vary, where some of them use it as a backup target and others use it for the general workload. The primary use case is probably for general workload…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The fact that we were able to set it up, use it, and, for the most part, didn't have to worry about it after we had it set up has been valuable."
"You plug in a new node and data starts migrating over to it, and IT spreads out the load. We've added multiple nodes to the system since deploying it. The process is pretty seamless, and we are able to do it with no downtime. It's a very easy process to do."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its performance."
"Dell has the AI to protect the EMA."
"This has been a valuable solution for our business overall. It offers business continuity and replication features."
"It's easy to manage. The web UI is very intuitive, and there's CLI also that you can use to manage it."
"There are also the policies that you set up on replication and purging files, and policies for something called WORM. That's a "write once, read many," where you can't overwrite certain files or certain data. It puts them in a "protected mode" where it becomes very difficult for someone to accidentally delete. We use that for certain files or certain directories, because we're dealing with video and some video has to be protected for chain-of-custody purposes. The WORM feature works great."
"The single pane of glass for both IT and for the end-user is a valuable feature. On the IT side, I can actually control where things are stored, whether something is stored on solid-state drives or spinning drives... The single pane of glass makes it very easy to use and very easy to understand. We started at 100 terabytes and we moved to 250 and it still feels like the exact same system and we're able to move data as needed."
"The solution is very stable and reliable"
"The most valuable feature for us is the combining of HA and SnapMirror."
"End-users like that they can rely on the Snapshot technology so they can do their restores themselves."
"The storage efficiency provided a maximum savings in our storage utilization."
"You can use different protocols at the same time. Monitoring is also very easy in NetApp FAS Series. There is a free tool for monitoring."
"NetApp FAS Series is simple to set up."
"The product is user-friendly and helps to evaluate the performance of each node. It ensures that if one node encounters an issue, the system can immediately redistribute the workload without interruptions. This setup provides uninterrupted operation for our systems."
"The most important features are SnapVault, Snapshots, and SnapMirror."
 

Cons

"The support offered by the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The tool's support team and the way the cases are handled by the product's technical support team are both areas of concern where improvements are required."
"Because of the magic that it does 'under the hood,' it is very difficult to find out within the system where all your storage is going. That's a little bit of a ding that we have on it. It does so much magic in order to protect itself from drive failures or multiple drive failures, that it automatically handles the provisioning and storage of your data. But by doing that, finding out why a file of a certain size, or a directory of a certain size, is using more storage than is being reported in InsightIQ, is very difficult to discern."
"We had some issues with level 1 support. We had to fight with them on repeated issues. There is room for improvement in level 1 support."
"There are some missing features in the product, especially when our company needs to do some tape backup, and we see that the tool doesn't have integration capabilities."
"That said, for the other security features, it would be helpful if Tenable - and I know it's outside the scope of this question itself - had Isilon-specific plugins."
"The product needs to improve CLI since commands are complex. The search option is also difficult since you must give the full path."
"The legacy file system for Epsilon didn't scale into the cloud and didn't have a separate OS. It would be key if this was made possible."
"The AutoSupport could be improved to be more proactive in certain cases."
"We have some experience with older equipment end-of-life. For example, when warranty support stops or updates stop – it can be frustrating. Not all clients can buy a new filer every year or two, and NetApp ending support a bit quickly can be a concern."
"The solution's configuration is not flexible."
"The product must support more drives."
"The WAFL is slow."
"The user interface could be improved to have better graphics and the performance analyzer could be better."
"Replication should ideally be part of the ONTAP base bundle."
"The solution could do more than just data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price was also a significant factor in our decision to go with PowerScale. The team at EMC, now Dell EMC, came through with a highly competitive offer that tipped the scales towards their solution. There was only one other solution around the same price point, but it could not match PowerScale on features. That other solution is no longer on the market."
"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."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is an expensive solution."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The pricing for this solution is reasonable."
"Our company finds the pricing high, but it decreases over time."
"It is an expensive product with a high storage capacity suitable for large data requirements."
"The solution's licensing cost varies based on capacity and performance requirements."
"It is expensive."
"The scalability is pretty good, but it's too expensive."
"NetApp FAS Series is a reasonably high-priced solution, partially because we select the configuration that duplicates the entire system."
"It is a moderately low-priced platform."
"The product is on the expensive side."
"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."
"If we want a ransomware solution with the product or other extended features, we need to pay an extra cost."
"NetApp FAS Series could be less expensive."
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Answers from the Community

AV
Mar 12, 2020
Mar 12, 2020
Isilon is Scale-out storage, while NetApp is Active-Standby storage. Regarding the performance issue based on the field engineer’s experience, Isilon is better than NetApp in case of a huge amount of io, while NetApp is better than Isilon in case of a medium amount of IO.
2 out of 3 answers
BH
Mar 9, 2020
My recommendation is to take a close look at our CS Concerto Scale-Out Cluster system.
SK
Mar 10, 2020
Isilon is Scale-out storage, while NetApp is Active-Standby storage. Regarding the performance issue based on the field engineer’s experience, Isilon is better than NetApp in case of a huge amount of io, while NetApp is better than Isilon in case of a medium amount of IO.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
60%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

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)?
Dell PowerScale is expensive on the start-up side but we can recoup those costs quickly by not having to reapply the savings to other equipment.
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 depends on the disks we choose. We got quite a good price compared to Huawei Dorado because we compared the prices between NetApp SSD and Dorado, and the price was quite similar.
 

Also Known As

PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
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,
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 PowerScale (Isilon) vs. NetApp FAS Series and other solutions. Updated: July 2024.
793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.