We performed a comparison between Dell PowerScale (Isilon) and NetApp FAS Series based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two NAS solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
"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."
"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."
"Our main goal is to do disaster recovery with whatever solution we use and Isilon makes it pretty simple to replicate those workloads over to our secondary data center."
"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."
"This has been a valuable solution for our business overall. It offers business continuity and replication features."
"The recent introduction of inline deduplication and compression has drastically improved our efficiency ratios to make it an economical product. This solution has also had a positive impact on our employees' productivity because it reduces the amount of admin that our staff needs to handle."
"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."
"PowerScale has made it extremely easy to scale file data across our organization. We have two implementations of Isilon. One is a replica of the other. When scaling, we add nodes to each location and expand the cluster. The process is straightforward."
"The replication feature is noteworthy because it's faster than most and it uses little bandwidth. Then there's the friendly interface that the equipment offers. With this interface, it is very easy to manage."
"The most valuable features are the NAS features and NetApp's excellent support."
"Reliable storage solution with an easy setup. It has high availability and makes single file restoration easy. It also has good stability and scalability."
"The input and output per second performance are satisfactory."
"The solution is easy to use."
"I have found all the features useful in NetApp FAS Series."
"NetApp FAS is highly stable and reliable, especially under a heavy load. That is what I like most about the NetApp."
"The solution is stable."
"The replication could lend itself to some improvement around encryption in transit and managing the racing of large volumes of data. The process of file over and file back can be tedious. Hopefully, you never end up going into a DR. If you do go into a DR, you know the data is there on the remote site. However, in terms of the process of setting up the replicates and filing them back, that is just very tedious and could definitely do with some improvement."
"Data storage performance needs to be improved."
"Some improvements to the NFS support would be of interest to us."
"If they integrated some functions, as they have on Data Domain with a cyber recovery vault, it would be ideal."
"There aren't many templates still coming out for it. They need to provide templates so we can copy and paste what we've done in the past to future, new things."
"It would be nice to see tools like Superna Eyeglass built into PowerScale."
"It is a bit higher priced than some of the other systems."
"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."
"You always need a huge amount of hardware to fulfill a given setup. Its deployment can be complex, especially if you go MetroCluster."
"NetApp FAS Series could improve by being more secure."
"For long term partnership in Myanmar, the local warehouse should be built in Myanmar that's something I'd like to see. We have some issues with supply so there is sometimes a delay in getting the hardware."
"The NetApp FAS Series is not as high-performing and is not as fast. Its speed needs improvement, but this could only be done if it's an all-flash solution."
"There is no NetApp infrastructure set up here in Greece."
"We're supposed to have used NetApp FAS Series for replication, but then one of the nodes failed, and then it's taken us some time to bring it up."
"Its operating system is very cumbersome. However, after you set it up, it runs pretty smoothly. Its file system is not very dynamic. It is very static."
"We are not able to connect to the support of NetApp from Sudan. We have to go through many agents for support, which makes it difficult."
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is ranked 1st in NAS with 21 reviews while NetApp FAS Series is ranked 5th in NAS with 16 reviews. Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is rated 9.2, while NetApp FAS Series is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) writes "As you add more nodes in a cluster, you get more effective utilisation". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp FAS Series writes "Reliable, scalable, and stable storage solution which offers multiple features". Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is most compared with Dell ECS, Qumulo, HPE StoreEasy, Huawei OceanStor 9000 and Hitachi NAS, whereas NetApp FAS Series is most compared with IBM FlashSystem, Hitachi NAS, HPE StorageWorks MSA, Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) and Qumulo. See our Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. NetApp FAS Series report.
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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.
I think you need rewiew more than only performance or capacity, I have installed both machines, Netapp FASS have many options Hibrid or only objects, in Netapp Objects is StorageGrid where can obtain 720 TB in SG5760 but you can select SG6060 or SG5712 and Isilon is similar you have many options where could be ALL FLASH or SATA but Isilon is only NAS, and Isilon have many reference too, 8 reference F810 have 924 TB and up 250.000 I/Ops.
Actually I recommend one arquitecture where no focus only in one purpose, Scale up or Scale out all vendors have different alternatives and deppend the machine offer more I/O or Capacity, Midrange and High end, I don´t like Isilon because is only for NAS I dont like Hibrid or Unified Machines as FAS or VNX, I need to know which is the prupose for have a NAS because actually I can have a Storage for all protocols no only to CIFS and NFS and with prices cheaper than NAS, in conclusion I don´t like one Storage for NAS other for SAN other for Virtualization... Is better only one Storage where I can do it all, It reduce TCO.