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Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Scality RING comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
8.4
Pure Storage FlashBlade delivers cost savings, efficiency gains, and increased VM density, with returns seen within four years.
Sentiment score
7.3
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) enhances cost efficiency, scalability, and resource allocation, offering notable ROI and reliability despite some higher costs.
Sentiment score
7.5
Scality RING offers low-cost storage with 75% savings, providing predictable costs and enhanced ROI across IT environments.
Despite being more expensive than Huawei, it is stable and most enterprises accept the price due to its stability.
In terms of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) specifically, we have seen a return on investment due to faster performance than our last few storage arrays, and the general usability is a lot better.
The second cluster of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) gives us flexibility for small things like code upgrades, all the way to scenarios where we have lost this data center or data, allowing us to check if data is still intact on the other side.
I think RING's ability to maintain predictable costs while providing scalable storage solutions impacts our budget by allowing us to pay only for capacity.
For instance, while the cost per gig on a block storage platform may be $2, it's $1.50 for NAS, and only $0.50 for object storage, leading to a remarkable 75% reduction in costs by utilizing the Scality platform.
Scality RING has reduced our operating costs.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.2
Pure Storage FlashBlade's customer service is praised for expertise but sometimes experiences slower responses due to growth challenges.
Sentiment score
8.3
Dell PowerScale receives mixed reviews on support, praised for escalation handling but criticized for initial delays and communication issues.
Sentiment score
7.4
Scality RING's customer service is praised for responsiveness and helpfulness, despite some needing to re-explain setups.
I would rate them an eight out of ten.
Dell provides support within four hours, and they always fulfill their promises.
They have managed previous issues well.
I would evaluate the customer service and technical support for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) as great.
I've always received responses within the required timeframe, the answers were technically relevant, and there was follow-up—people called us back to check if everything was okay and if the ticket could be closed.
Technically, when we have major issues in P1, they are very responsive and we can't say that we don't get a response.
They provide very fast responses and help.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.9
Pure Storage FlashBlade is praised for its scalability and ease of expansion, satisfying various industries like banking and media.
Sentiment score
8.0
Dell PowerScale offers scalable, flexible storage solutions, easily expanding to meet demands, though often needing technical support for setup.
Sentiment score
6.5
Scality RING offers impressive scalability, adaptable to enterprise needs with easy expansion, improved handling, and cost-effective management.
We started on PowerScale with around about 300 terabytes and are now two and a half petabytes, still on the same file system.
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.
Dell PowerScale is highly scalable, as evidenced by the reduced physical hardware and the efficient use of rack space.
Upwards, I think, almost unlimited by what we can imagine.
I've never had issues with scalability.
We are relatively well informed about their new features, what will be implemented in future versions, and the scalability of the solution.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.8
Pure Storage FlashBlade is highly rated for stability, reliability, and performance, with minimal downtime and swift recovery.
Sentiment score
8.4
Dell PowerScale is praised for exceptional stability, near-perfect uptime, easy management, and seamless integration into existing systems.
Sentiment score
8.0
Scality RING ensures stable, resilient operations with minimal incidents, maintaining access during maintenance or failures without data loss.
In case there is any issue with any blade, the data is moved to another.
I assess the stability and reliability of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) as perfect.
I find the product to be resilient and stable. There's no downtime and no crashes.
I find Dell PowerScale (Isilon) to be very stable and reliable.
It is a platform that is very stable at the customer level and does not generate incidents or blockages that you might encounter with standard storage solutions, where you can lose data.
I find that Scality RING is very stable because it allows for many maintenance operations without service loss.
There are factors that can cause Scality RING to become occasionally unavailable, but due to the system's resilience, it is capable of recovering or degrading gracefully.
 

Room For Improvement

Users want better cloud integration, support, pricing, efficiency, and improvements in analytics, configuration, and backup for FlashBlade.
Dell PowerScale faces challenges in cost, cloud integration, complexity, and user demands for better pricing, support, and efficiency improvements.
Scality RING needs improvements in S3 compliance, security, usability, and simplified updates to reduce complexity and enhance user experience.
Its configuration should be easier.
Hardware failures under warranty should be addressed within the promised timeline.
I would want to see more AI features with Dell PowerScale (Isilon).
If I could improve one thing on Dell PowerScale (Isilon), it would be better object storage as it recently breached into S3, and that capability could be broadened.
Encryption and data security need improvement. We don't have a solution for customers who need confidentiality.
They should prioritize quality over timeliness to minimize customer disruptions and not force customers into a cycle of fixes that interfere with daily work.
A technical aspect would be the Operating System part, which today isn't really covered by Scality RING, whereas it is with Artesca.
 

Setup Cost

Pure Storage FlashBlade is costlier but valued for performance, ease, and reliability, justifying its comprehensive licensing with included software.
Dell PowerScale is costly but seen as worthwhile due to features, flexible licensing, and ease of management.
Scality RING suits enterprises needing 10 PB+, but high setup and ongoing costs challenge smaller companies, pay-as-you-grow helps.
It's quite expensive for the amount of storage we have.
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) shows it's a premium platform, so it's a big amount of money.
The pricing is excellent.
Fortunately, in terms of the license, we are able to expand the disks without having to adjust the license.
In the end, it always depends on how much you pay for it.
 

Valuable Features

Pure Storage FlashBlade offers high performance, scalability, and ease of use with excellent data protection and seamless integration for large storage needs.
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) offers scalable, efficient storage with advanced management, data protection, and security features for versatile workloads.
Scality RING offers scalable, secure data storage with robust features like S3 support, erasure coding, and flexible deployment options.
We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte.
Dell PowerScale offers high scalability and stability as well, making it a valuable solution for enterprises.
In our AI initiatives, Dell PowerScale (Isilon) plays a significant role in data analysis, data fusion; principally, it is involved in data analysis, data extraction, and statistical analysis.
Single files are limited to four terabytes in our configuration, however, the system can support up to 16 terabytes, so we can scale based on that too.
When a server is lost, the data is still accessible.
It is even better stored when there is only one copy on a system and there is a second copy on an immutability system, which is almost equivalent to backing it up on tape and taking it offline, making it completely inaccessible.
Scality RING has influenced our approach to scaling in different dimensions by providing a cost-effective solution for the tremendous amount of data we generate every day for each customer.
 

Categories and Ranking

Pure Storage FlashBlade
Sponsored
Ranking in File and Object Storage
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (16th), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (7th)
Dell PowerScale (Isilon)
Ranking in File and Object Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
NAS (2nd)
Scality RING
Ranking in File and Object Storage
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 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 4.2%, 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 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Yamandù Correa - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps reduce data silos, improves performance, and flexibility
Our customers have seen improvement in performance, space, and flexibility for growth and management of data protection through snapshots and other systems. The AI models are something we are looking forward to trying but are not there yet. The algorithms are specific to each company and their industry. One of the most important things is the data localization. Many scenarios require the project data traffic to be close to where it is generated and read. A lot of interaction is between users and systems. So data localization is one of the most important things in terms of using the data algorithm. We don't need to manage our PowerScale and run its storage from any location yet but it is something that is coming for sure because several customers have centralized data in main data centers. But in different locations across the globe. So this is going to be a topic. I think that through the different functionalities that the Dell platform can grant, it will be a great player. When it comes to the flexibility for supporting various data workloads while protecting them, the combination of PowerScale and PPDM and all the other components of the data protection solution right now is key. So the automatic integration between the products is one of the killer features of the solution itself. PowerScale helped us to reduce data silos. This has simplified the management of large data environments in terms of scalability and management instead of having a different solution for the right reports to see how the data evolves and how to better manage them. PowerScale can do that in combination with the other components of the ecosystem. In terms of risk reduction, We need to mention the data management and the recovery part, So of course, the integration with the data domain is key. The fact that we can rely on these functions, and the fact that we also manage different customers, and possess the recovery plans and tests that can prove the solution is working.
Sebastien Foucou - PeerSpot reviewer
Leverages seamless data access with efficient storage management
I would improve Scality RING by bundling the Operating System with RING and modernizing the graphical interfaces. As for areas for improvement—if I had to summarize—a technical aspect would be the Operating System part, which today isn't really covered by Scality RING, whereas it is with Artesca. It would be a real advantage for customers to have a bundle that includes both the Operating System and Scality RING, with an install and maintenance model handled by Scality. Secondly, perhaps a more cosmetic point—the graphical interfaces could be modernized a bit. There's been work done on Artesca; maybe it should be extended more to RING. I believe that should come with version 10, so I'm not too concerned. I find RING's cyber resilience against ransomware threats somewhat complicated to assess. The product itself offers sufficient protection, and the features provided via S3 allow you to protect against this kind of attack—provided you implement these features, such as object lock with retention and everything that goes with it. If I had to identify an area for improvement, it would be the OS part—but that doesn't necessarily concern RING, unlike Artesca, which comes bundled with an OS. There's been real work done by the Scality teams to secure the system layer in Artesca. It didn't influence us. We know the product and what needs to be implemented to protect data, and it's part of the best practices we also pass on to our clients.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
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...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.
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...
What do you like most about Scality RING8?
Another feature I like is the life cycle management that helps me with data storage efficiency.
What needs improvement with Scality RING8?
I would like to see more possibilities in the UI for managing aspects of the RING as indicated in the roadmap for the...
What is your primary use case for Scality RING8?
We have a lot of use cases for Scality RING, including backup, archive, binary lake, data applications, multimedia se...
 

Also Known As

No data available
PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
Scality RING, RING8
 

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. Scality RING and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.