Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Scality RING comparison

Dell Technologies and Scality are both solutions in the File and Object Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.6, while Scality is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.0. Dell Technologies holds a 8.8% mindshare in FaOS, compared to Scality’s 4.1% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Scality users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Scality RING and Dell PowerScale compete in the storage solutions category, focusing on scalability and data management. Dell PowerScale holds an advantage due to its advanced data management features and long-term cost-effectiveness.

Features: Scality RING offers unified file and object storage, high scalability, and flexibility for handling unstructured data. Dell PowerScale provides intelligent data tiering, in-depth analytics, and enhanced data management, offering significant insights and storage efficiency.

Room for Improvement: Scality RING could benefit from enhanced analytics capabilities, expanded data tiering options, and more comprehensive integration with other platforms. Dell PowerScale may improve by simplifying deployment processes, increasing cost-effectiveness for smaller enterprises, and expanding support for hybrid cloud environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Scality RING is known for its simple deployment and robust support services, appealing to companies seeking easy onboarding. Dell PowerScale's deployment is complex due to its comprehensive features but is supported by extensive customer service ensuring necessary assistance.

Pricing and ROI: Scality RING offers competitive pricing with a flexible cost structure, providing quick ROI for SMEs. Dell PowerScale, with higher initial costs, offers long-term returns supported by its robust features and cost efficiencies, proving beneficial for larger enterprises needing extensive data solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Scality RING Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Scality RING

April 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.8%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is 8.8%, up from 8.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Scality RING is 4.1%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

File and Object Storage

Featured Reviews

Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us

The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.

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Eric Burgueño

High-Performance Computing Services Manager at The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Limited

Simplified data management, tremendously reducing our users’ cognitive overhead

The only thing that I think PowerScale could do better is improving the HTTP data access protocol. At the present, you cannot protect access to data via HTTP or HTTPS the same way that you can secure data access through other protocols like NFS or SMB. You can either access a file because it can be access by anyone in the organization, or you cannot at all. There is no in-between. HTTP is not considered a first-class data access protocol, so the Unified Permission Model that would allow a user to authenticate before being able to access a private file, does not apply. However, with the recent introduction of S3 starting from OneFS 9, I believe the necessary plumbing is already there for HTTPS to also be elevated to a first-class protocol in the future because both protocols sit behind a web server under the hood. It does not sound like it would be too complicated to implement, but it would be a valuable feature and it is currently missing.

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Guillaume Lapouge

Cloud Architect at Claranet France

Offers UTIPI (Unified Tiered Infrastructure Per IOPS) feature in billing but lacks extensive testing

It's a very good product, but for large-scale usage, it has limitations. Scality RING's lack of extensive testing and potential hidden limitations. While Scality provides precise architecture guidelines for sizing the storage infrastructure, Orange utilizes a different processor architecture for its Ovi servers, requiring additional optimization beyond what Scality offers. In essence, the product lacks third-party optimization capabilities.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is user-friendly. It's replication feature is great because it has active replication and active DR. That's the beauty of the product. It's a perfect solution for block storage."

"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."

"The ease of deployment and management has helped us simplify our storage. We also do not have to worry about capacity management as much. A lot of these things are native to Pure Storage."

"The initial setup was straightforward. If you know how to plug in power and network you're pretty much qualified. They were on site to configure the network, the box to fit into our network architecture. Other than that, we self-managed from there."

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."

"The most valuable features include the ease of implementation, ease of use and the speed that you can do backup and recovery on."

"The main feature I have found to be product replication."

"I like its size. It is smaller than the other competitors. We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"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 most valuable feature of Dell PowerScale is its scalability."

"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."

"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 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 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."

"We use the solution internally to support our own managed servers and run our own support center."

"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is all the capabilities together."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pros

"I think it's the economic factor. This solution has the lowest cost for storage systems."

"The most valuable feature of Scality RING8 is its performance and good interface."

"Another feature I like is the life cycle management that helps me with data storage efficiency."

Cons

"I would like to see better integration."

"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."

"Its configuration should be easier."

"The feature that we're waiting on is better integration with the cell services."

"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."

"I would like to see more deduplication."

"An area for improvement in Pure Storage FlashBlade is its price. It could be reduced. The technical support for Pure Storage FlashBlade also needs improvement. It used to be good, with more experienced engineers. Nowadays, it isn't, and it takes longer for support to solve problems."

"There is some room for new features related to authentication and integration with Kubernetes, and other solution using S3 Bucket."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade 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."

"There is room for improvement in its handling of object storage."

"The solution's rate structure or rate redundancy needs to be improved."

"The product’s expansion capacity, pricing clarity, and ease of use need improvement."

"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 solution can be integrated with an automation system. Dell uses another framework developed in-house. They can integrate it with machines."

"The support offered by the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"I would like to see increased reporting and statistics functionalities."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) cons

"Scality RING is not easy to learn for someone new. It is a little bit difficult. There are a lot of components to it, and you also need to understand them to work with it effectively."

"When we used this solution in 2015, it was not scalable at all. I don't know if they have improved on that, but at the time, scalability was just horrible."

"Scality RING8 could improve by having more features. We have to use two automation tools to meet our needs. We would prefer to use only one."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."

"The price could be cheaper."

"Support is a separate line item. Support is a different cost, but whatever your support is now, that's what you're going to pay forever. If your support's $100 today, six years from now it's $100. It doesn't fluctuate unless you upgrade it, or change it, etc."

"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"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."

"It's a high-cost offering amounting to three or four million Swedish kronor, or about $400,000 or euros, for approximately 480 terabytes of storage."

"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."

"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 price of the solution can fluctuate. The price can be competitive or other times not. The price of the solution could be better."

"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is an expensive solution."

"We use the TNA approach which is a great opportunity for us to better manage the licenses based on how much consumption is available for the different customers so we can use that approach and scalability."

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) pricing and cost advice

"The initial cost (CAPEX) to set up the infrastructure is expensive due to the specific hardware required."

"The cost of Scality RING8 could be less expensive. It is difficult for smaller businesses to afford it."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

29%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

19%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?

The solution provides massive performance, scalability, efficiency, and ease of management.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?

Every time we purchase a PowerScale solution, we buy four nodes for one data center and four for another, with five y...

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What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?

Dell's customer service needs improvement. Specifically, hardware failures under warranty should be addressed within ...

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What do you like most about Scality RING8?

Another feature I like is the life cycle management that helps me with data storage efficiency.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Scality RING8?

It's a very good product, but for large-scale usage, it has limitations. Scality RING's lack of extensive testing and...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Scality RING8?

I work with Scality RING for storage, and we have a concrete strategy to offer it to business customers. Many custome...

See all answers

Comparisons

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

Supermicro SuperBlade vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 2% of the time

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NetApp FAS Series vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 14% of the time

Dell ECS vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 13% of the time

Qumulo vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 9% of the time

HPE StoreEasy vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 6% of the time

VAST Data vs Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

Compared 6% of the time

More Dell PowerScale (Isilon) Competitors

MinIO vs Scality RING

Compared 16% of the time

Cloudian HyperStore vs Scality RING

Compared 15% of the time

Dell ECS vs Scality RING

Compared 15% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Scality RING

Compared 14% of the time

VAST Data vs Scality RING

Compared 2% of the time

More Scality RING Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

April 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon)

April 2025

Download Dell PowerScale (Isilon) product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

April 2025

Download Scality RING product report

Also Known As

No data available

PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon

Scality RING, RING8

Overview

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

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."

Dell Technologies

Scality RING object storage enables enterprises and cloud service providers to run petabyte-scale, data-rich services like web applications, VOD, active archives, compliance archives, and private storage clouds. The RING is software, so you can deploy it on standard x86 servers of your choice, taking advantage of server and media innovation over time. Acting as a single, distributed system, the RING can scale linearly across thousands of servers, multiple sites, and an unlimited number of objects. Data is protected with policy-based replication, erasure coding, and geo-distribution, achieving up to 14 9s of durability and 100% availability.

Scality

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

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,

Comcast, TimeWarner Cable, EuroSport, Orange, Deluxe, DailtMotion, SFR, RTL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Telstra

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Scality RING

April 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Scality RING

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