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Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs NetApp FAS Series vs NetApp Private Storage 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 June 2025, in the NAS category, the mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 17.7%, up from 17.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 11.6%, down from 12.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Private Storage is 1.7%, up from 1.0% 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.
Arnaud Salmon - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good performance and
Once, I've been in a program, but they stopped supporting protocols like HTTP, STP, and that kind of stuff. All of the DIP supports at the beginning were kind of support when it was just Python and just five storage. And it happened a few times that the customer required the STP and HTTP protocol for storage. And I was surprised I couldn't do it anymore with NetApp. So, it would be beneficial for them to support both kinds of protocols. The only little black points that I would put on top of NetApp FAS Series. There is room for improvement in deployment and configuration processes. The thing with ONTAP is that we have a lot of layers, from the raw disks to the volumes we present to servers and configure. There are quite a lot of things to configure. Probably NetApp should ease the way to install that. In NetApp products, such as ONTAP and FAS, a solid understanding of storage is still necessary to handle configurations in larger systems. It's not the same with Pure Storage or Huawei. Even someone less familiar with storage could manage it, making it more accessible.
Pramod-Talekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Well-suited for virtualized environments and highly stable solution
We are in a VMware Intra environment, so we are utilizing NetApp Storage for our virtualization infrastructure NetApp offers multiple features that we utilize for our projects. At the moment, we are extensively using SnapMirror Flex. There is room for improvement in the support. It has been a…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I assess the stability and reliability of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) as perfect, as we haven't had any hiccups with it so far."
"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."
"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."
"Features like ransomware protection, file lock retention, and third-party integrations (e.g., Superna for ransomware protection) are significant benefits."
"This has been a valuable solution for our business overall. It offers business continuity and replication features."
"Its scalability has been huge for us."
"It assists with eliminating storage silos because it provides SMB and NFS protocols. PowerScale has also helped free up our employee's time to focus on other business priorities."
"For maximizing storage utilization, PowerScale is great. When you write the data to it, it spreads it out to all the nodes, so you get all the performance from the entire pool."
"The new FAS series is a good fit for some customers. We have good performance and capacity, even though it is full flash."
"Can use both SAN and NAS at the same time."
"They are very satisfied with NetApp and continue to use NetApp and upgrade to new solutions."
"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."
"Fast Snapshots"
"The initial setup was so straightforward. It was well-documented."
"It helps us meet all customer requirements. Customers have been using NetApp for many years. They are very satisfied with NetApp and continue to use NetApp and upgrade to new solutions."
"The best feature is its ONTAP product line for Ransomware protection. It also has features for file storage and block storage. The solution is stable. We've had no issues with it. The tool is scalable and meets our requirements. The technical support and the supporting partner are great. The initial setup is straightforward. It is very easy to maintain the product. The feature set is excellent. I recommend the solution."
"NetApp has really added a lot of features over the years to improve the product and performance. They can do things now like control ingress. They can control egress."
"The most valuable feature is integration."
"NetApp has its own dedicated operating system, so it will not be affected by any wireless piggybacking or malware. That's the beauty of NetApp's operating system."
"Very stable and very scalable."
"It gave us a platform which could clearly arrange all our files and volumes."
"The solution is stable."
"NetApp is faster than other storage brands."
"As opposed to cloud, we have full control over security, use, who uses it. We own a number of different companies, so we can partition however we want."
 

Cons

"Always, there is room for improvement in terms of cybersecurity, as new challenges are continually emerging in the market."
"Dell PowerScale needs to reduce its price."
"Some improvements to the NFS support would be of interest to us."
"We have issues in Brazil with the procurement of solutions because we have to check the entire market and justify the pricing to our audit institutions, making it difficult to keep with the same vendor."
"Improvements could be made to reduce the costs and the high level of knowledge needed to maintain and use them."
"There is room for improvement with the updates. It can take a significant amount of time to do a major OS update. However, even though it takes multiple reboots, the cluster stays up. If we want to apply a newer version of the OS, we have to roll back some of the patches so that we can upgrade. It requires a few reboots just to do that. The cluster doesn't come down, everything is still running, but it's time-consuming, at times."
"We see room for improvement in Dell PowerScale (Isilon) because we need personnel to effectively utilize all our infrastructure; it's not easy to find skilled people to work on AI and data analysis."
"The cost of Dell PowerScale is currently high and there is room for improvement."
"The user interface could be improved."
"The only downside is in ease in management; it is not easy to use."
"The user interface could be improved to have better graphics and the performance analyzer could be better."
"It's not a cheap system. It is very expensive. The pricing has been ridiculous every time that we had to renew the support."
"The product must support more drives."
"The product should improve its user experience."
"There is no NetApp infrastructure set up here in Greece."
"NetApp is costly when compared to Dell."
"I'm not sure how easy it is to use on the cloud versus on-prem. If they have different user experiences, they should work to make the two as similar as possible to make it easy for a user to understand both even if they only deal mainly with one."
"There is room for improvement in the support. It has been a problem for our team."
"It is not the fastest storage solution."
"I would like to have the Active-Active feature. Some competitors already have it. I would like NetApp to add it to stay competitive."
"The users find the new version's GUI complicated to use."
"There may actually be so many features that the end-user gets lost in the volume."
"NetApp Private Storage is still integrated into the ISCSI connectivity and the FC protocol. I would recommend them to migrate to the FCIP because the SAN switches are moving further to an FCIP, and are scaling out of the ISCSI connectivity. Sooner or later, that will be an issue for NetApp Private Storage. An NFCIP should be available to them moving three years down the line."
"We had to write a number of custom tools or scripts ourselves to use it as a staging area between our on-premises datacenter and our cloud installation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive product with a high storage capacity suitable for large data requirements."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is an expensive solution."
"The solution's licensing cost varies based on capacity and performance requirements."
"We paid an additional fee to have Dell's ProDeploy Plus team implement it."
"Dealing with the product costs and licensing areas is getting easier since Dell is simplifying the licensing process and licensing packages offered to users."
"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."
"The pricing for this solution is reasonable."
"The NetApp FAS series price is very competitive compared to other solutions on the market it is a good choice."
"It's not cheap, but at the same time, it's also inexpensive. It's somewhere in between."
"The product is on the expensive side."
"The price, compared to competitors, is quite high."
"It is a one-time license charge for NetApp FAS Series to run and we pay annually for upgrades and support."
"The process for going to cluster mode is expensive."
"NetApp FAS Series could be less expensive."
"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."
"The price of NetApp Private Storage is similar to other solutions. There is typically an annual license required for this solution."
"The price could be lower."
"We negotiate whatever deal we can get on the type of storage that it is, but it's totally under our control,."
"NetApp Private Storage is cheaper here in India compared to other solutions, such as Dell."
"In general, I am pleased with the pricing, though it is a little high."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The product is costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
26%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
19%
Real Estate/Law Firm
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Retailer
9%
 

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)?
We have to go through a certified reseller for Dell PowerScale (Isilon). From a value standpoint, it performs very well.
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
I would make Dell PowerScale (Isilon) better by improving SmartSync in the graphical user interface. Currently, every...
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...
What do you like most about NetApp Private Storage?
NetApp is faster than other storage brands.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp Private Storage?
The product is costly. Also, we need to pay for features like SnapMirror, etc. I rate its pricing a nine out of ten.
What needs improvement with NetApp Private Storage?
NetApp is a great storage device, but sometimes support is not accessible. Also, the current version has removed most...
 

Also Known As

PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
No data available
NPS
 

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
ASE IT, Concerto Cloud
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Hitachi Vantara and others in NAS. Updated: June 2025.
859,545 professionals have used our research since 2012.