Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Nutanix Unified Storage comparison

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Nutanix Unified Storage

Download the complete report

Helped 793,295 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Ranking in File and Object Storage

3rd

Average Rating

9.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

NAS (1st)

Nutanix Unified Storage

Ranking in File and Object Storage

4th

Average Rating

9.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

All-Flash Storage (7th), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (5th), Public Cloud Storage Services (6th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 8.0%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Unified Storage is 2.5%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

File and Object Storage

Unique Categories:

NAS

26.5%

All-Flash Storage

0.3%

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

6.2%

Featured Reviews

YannisAlexandris

Senior Technical Consultant at Amplus

Feb 16, 2024

Addresses the customer's need for a global rather than discrete file system

The maintenance depends on the time you are willing to invest in learning about the platform. It varies for each individual, and if you have people eager to learn, it can make a significant difference. IBM built its sources of disk management which control costs. They don't rely on purchasing from vendors. For example, Dell PowerScale doesn't manufacture the disks; instead, they source them from suppliers or engage in patching. They do not produce the disks themselves; they procure them. IBM can utilize gateways that offer a similar file system to PowerScale. These gateways provide both block storage and file services. This is different from PowerScale because when purchasing PowerScale, you acquire building blocks including CPU and memory. This configuration lacks the flexibility to adapt to various infrastructures. While this setup can be configured, it may pose limitations. You can customize security settings within the tool, including access and file-level permissions. This focuses on enabling 'write once' capabilities, making it challenging to alter data without appropriate authorization. It would be impossible to tamper with unless an individual gains access by obtaining administrator credentials. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Read full review

Carlos Urgel

It solution arquitech at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees

May 22, 2024

Cost reduction and simplicity results in fewer hours required from manpower for configuration and day-to-day administration

The throughput or latency of Nutanix Unified Storage for data-intensive workloads, such as AI or data analytics, is not an area my company considers a use case in our infrastructure. In our company, we are exploring and migrating some AI and LLM models while also testing them on an on-premises model in order to have a little more control of the data that we are training and so that we can reduce some costs associated with the public cloud, but in general, it is a medium-term project we have in our operations. The product is also capable of working with big projects. My company has not faced any use cases where we had to use the product to detect and block ransomware threats. Implementing the tool has certainly resulted in a reduction in the number of storage nodes due to an increase in storage capacity per node. I don't have the specific number because storage is not my main area, but I say from the top of my head that it could be at 3:1 or 4:1 consolidation. You should not take my word for granted because it is not my main area. The aforementioned area has affected my company's operations and business, especially in terms of simplification, by allowing us to save hours for our providers in the storage area for our administrators while also covering a reduction in incidents. I don't have any idea about Nutanix Data Lens, but in the future, I am interested in working with the cybersecurity team to have a look at the tool's PoC phase, if possible. I think it could be a good use case for us. I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The flexibility and the user-friendly interface are the most valuable features."

"The guaranteed performance, combined with the scalability through its scale-out capability, makes it an excellent choice."

"Its scalability has been huge for us."

"Dell PowerScale includes a wealth of features that are important from a security and recovery perspective."

"Since it can scale so easily, as long as I have money to buy more nodes, I can grow it as big as I need to. That is important in our business. As sequencing technologies continue to evolve, and as those technologies evolve, the amount of data generation never gets smaller. It just always seems to get bigger. This is one of the absolute key aspects: We can grow on demand without having to forklift stuff."

"Its most valuable feature is the DR capabilities replication."

"The product's scalability feature is super easy to use."

"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."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pros

"The most valuable features of the solution are high availability and synchronization to another location."

"Nutanix Unified Storage is a simple, user-friendly, and stable solution."

"The real-time alerts generated by this system enable us to swiftly address and mitigate such threats."

"The most important point is the simplicity of the API integration. We can leverage the API integrations and connect our hybrid-cloud network environment with Nutanix's cloud storage."

"Unified Storage's centralized management features enable us to accomplish whatever we want in terms of operations and migrations."

"The solution's most valuable features are its support and speed."

"My company has benefitted from Nutanix Unified Storage because we have everything in a centralized place. With Prism Central, we can go to the console files and do what we have to do."

"They have well-documented best practices and the interface is good."

More Nutanix Unified Storage pros

Cons

"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."

"If they integrated some functions, as they have on Data Domain with a cyber recovery vault, it would be ideal."

"The product needs to improve CLI since commands are complex. The search option is also difficult since you must give the full path."

"The solution’s interface and pricing could be improved."

"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is a little bit pricey, and its pricing could be improved."

"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."

"The pricing could be reduced."

"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."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) cons

"We have some problems with Nutanix Unified Storage's support because they asked us to change our hardware."

"The management is pretty clunky, in my opinion. It could be a little bit better."

"Its licensing can be better. They can make it easier for us to scale our infrastructure."

"Security is an area for improvement. When there are vulnerabilities, there needs to be a faster approval process. The solution needs to automatically target the vulnerabilities and not waste too much time."

"The GUI is not user-friendly for new users and has room for improvement."

"Historically, it has been a hyper-converged infrastructure, so when you are looking to grow the solution, you need to scale the compute and storage. Having the ability to scale the storage independently would be a good improvement."

"I would like to see the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. That could definitely be a major breakthrough in providing a unified, seamless experience for end-users. It could reduce costs as well as human effort."

"While they are good and they do work, some of the snapshotting and tiering features are not as simple to set up as they could be."

More Nutanix Unified Storage cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"The price of the solution is high."

"The price of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is reasonable."

"The pricing for this solution is reasonable."

"It is an expensive product with a high storage capacity suitable for large data requirements."

"Our company finds the pricing high, but it decreases over time."

"The platform is not cheap. However, on the software side, you can choose what you want license. So, you can start your licensing with the features that you need, then after buying the platform add some other features."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pricing and cost advice

"I'm happy with the cost and licensing because I don't have big volumes."

"Its pricing is good to okay. It is not super inexpensive, but it is still competitive. Everything could always be lower."

"The price of the license is expensive when comparing it to traditional storage."

"The price can always be improved. As a customer, you always seek reasonable solutions within your budget, and they give us little to do a lot. My IT team always has to justify that we are choosing an optimal solution, so the price could be a little lower Maybe the prices could be a little bit lower."

"Nutanix is very competitive."

"I am not the one who makes the calls, but it seems to me that it was very competitive. Other solutions would have required dedicated hardware, so an additional CapEx has to be put in place. In that sense, it was definitely a more competitive option to go with Nutanix Files."

"Compared to other solutions, NUS is cost-effective and efficient. It also has good performance."

"We are Nutanix partners, so it is pretty good. With the free terabyte that comes with the Nutanix clusters, we have started to build proposals for the clients. The price adjustment with the new policy of Nutanix Unified Storages seems attractive. Let us see if it has results."

More Nutanix Unified Storage pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which File and Object Storage solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

24%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

31%

Computer Software Company

29%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

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.

What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?

The price always has room for improvement.

What do you like most about Nutanix Unified Storage?

Nutanix has excellent product documentation available on their portals, written in simple, easy-to-understand language.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix Unified Storage?

Nutanix's licensing model isn't too difficult, but the price is high for Brazil, and the software renewal is considerable.

What needs improvement with Nutanix Unified Storage?

While Unified Storage has evolved a lot over time, its database handling needs to improve a little. There could be an improvement in terms of costs. It's a little expensive for Brazil but still del...

NetApp FAS Series vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Comparisons

Compared 17% of the time

Dell ECS vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 16% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 10% of the time

Qumulo vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 8% of the time

VAST Data vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 4% of the time

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Nutanix Unified Storage

Compared 19% of the time

MinIO vs Nutanix Unified Storage

Compared 10% of the time

VAST Data vs Nutanix Unified Storage

Compared 6% of the time

Dell ECS vs Nutanix Unified Storage

Compared 6% of the time

Qumulo vs Nutanix Unified Storage

Compared 6% of the time

More Nutanix Unified Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Download Dell PowerScale (Isilon) product report

Nutanix Unified Storage

Download Nutanix Unified Storage product report

Also Known As

PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon

Nutanix Files Storage, Nutanix Volumes Block Storage, Nutanix Objects Storage

Learn More

Dell Technologies

Video not available

Nutanix

Overview

Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon) storage solutions are designed to help manage data for enterprises of all types. Dell PowerScale systems are simple to install, manage, and scale to virtually any size and include a choice of all-flash, hybrid, or archive nodes. Dell PowerScale solutions stay flexible and reliable no matter how much storage capacity is added, how much performance is required, or how business needs change in the future.

With Dell PowerScale, your data lake always stays simple to manage, simple to grow, simple to protect, and simple enough to handle the most demanding current and future workloads.

Ideal for companies of any size, from small enterprises to multi-national ones, Dell PowerScale storage provides secure collaboration, modular scalability, flexible consumption models, and easy cloud integrations, all with management tools spanning multiple platforms.

Key Benefits of Dell EMC PowerScale Storage

Centralized management: Manage your storage infrastructure from a single unified platform.
Data protection: Dell PowerScale offers security, data protection and replication tools. Back up and protect your data from cyber-attacks with an integrated ransomware defense system.
Artificial intelligence: PowerScale is the foundation for building an integrated and optimized IT infrastructure for AI projects, from concept to production.
Cloud support: Store and manage your data on the cloud and move data between your data center and the cloud. Dell PowerScale runs data-intensive cloud workloads with no outbound traffic costs.
Long-term storage: Dell PowerScale offers highly efficient and resilient active archive storage or long-term data retention for large-scale data archives. With the proven scalability architecture of PowerScale, you can meet your growing archiving demands. Dell PowerScale has a wide variety of enterprise-grade data protection and security options to keep your archived data safe.

Reviews from Real Users

Dell EMC PowerScale storage stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its scalability capabilities and its user-friendly centralized management system.

Rachel B., a chief operations officer & acting CFO at Like a Photon, writes, "PowerScale allows us to manage storage without managing RAID groups or migrating volumes between controllers. It has really simplified things. We're not having to worry about the underlying infrastructure. That takes care of itself. We just worry about the data. It's really easy for deploying and managing storage at the petabyte scale."

Keith B., the director of IT at NatureFresh Farms, writes, "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."

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is a software-defined storage solution that consolidates seamless access and management of siloed block, file, and object storage into a single platform. Leveraging the Nutanix Cloud Platform, NUS is built for scale, performance, and integrated data security requirements of modern applications deployed on core, cloud, or edge.

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,

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Nutanix Unified Storage