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Dell PowerScale vs FileMage comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
232
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (2nd)
Dell PowerScale
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
97
Ranking in other categories
NAS (1st), File and Object Storage (1st)
FileMage
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
9.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (22nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
SK
Solutions Architect at a university with 10,001+ employees
Operates seamlessly and minimizes downtime while meeting enterprise file share demands
The features of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) that I appreciate the most include the scale of architecture and the way it is designed. These features benefit my company by providing less downtime and less overhead. While I have not calculated an exact number regarding the reduction in downtime, we have always been using the product, so we have no baseline to compare it to. However, it is a very good product. Dell PowerScale (Isilon) scales very well with the growing needs of my company.
HarshShah2 - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at Veefin Solutions Ltd.
Modern file gateway has transformed secure cloud transfers and now simplifies partner onboarding
I would like to see an enhanced web-based file manager for non-technical end-users, allowing them to easily preview or move files via GUI. I would also appreciate more native webhook destinations for event-driven automation and deeper out-of-the-box integration with identity providers like Okta for admin single sign-on. The platform is very stable and lightweight in my experience, and most improvements would be minor quality-of-life updates for administration and advanced user management in larger corporate setups. I give it a nine out of ten because I do not think it deserves a ten as it lags in some spaces, especially where large organizations are concerned. FileMage is self-hosted, not serverless, and manual high availability setup is difficult. The basic end-user web interface is a limitation. There is a lack of native complex workflow automation, so I think nine is appropriate.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I cannot imagine my workflow without Everpure FlashArray because I do not have any other type of storage in use."
"After the implementation, the time to run the process was reduced to minutes and it did not require any manual intervention from our DBAs."
"I like FlashArray's ActiveCluster as well as its snapshot and cloning capabilities."
"The all-flash disc is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"The most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray are management and administration user-friendliness, provisioning, and performance."
"If you need a high-performance storage appliance that is easy to install and maintain, you pretty much can't go wrong."
"The solution is stable with low vulnerabilities."
"It releases those to new teams within minutes at a very small storage cost amount."
"The solution has simplified management by consolidating our workloads, and rather than managing all the different workloads on different storage arrays and Windows Servers, we just have one place per data centre where we manage all their unstructured data, saving us time."
"My advice to other companies considering Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is that it takes a little time to understand the product, but once you have it set up and running, it will run stable for all its lifetime."
"The most valuable features of the solution are flexibility and ease of implementation."
"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerScale is its scalability."
"I don't have to rebuild the cluster to add a node."
"It is stable and very user-friendly."
"We would highly recommend PowerScale; we've been very happy with our overall experience."
"Isilon is flexible in supporting various data workloads while keeping them protected. Dell continues to release updates and patches which enhance the use of this solution. This includes offering ransomware protection."
"FileMage has positively impacted our organization by drastically modernizing our file transfer infrastructure, providing security gains associated with legacy SFTP setups, and significantly reducing vendor onboarding time."
"FileMage has positively impacted my organization by drastically modernizing our file transfer infrastructure, eliminating storage maintenance overhead, closing security gaps associated with legacy FTP setups, and significantly reducing vendor onboarding time."
"FileMage works very well with GCP cloud storage right out of the box and it is very easy to install, easy to use, and has a very user-friendly interface."
 

Cons

"Many high-end platforms from other vendors like Dell EMC or Hitachi, their backend has Active/Active architecture, unlike Pure Storage FlashArray which doesn't utilize an Active/Active architecture on the backend."
"I would like to see a Nagios monitoring plugin which watches the health and performance of the system. The only one available just checks volume capacity."
"From a scalability perspective, it is a very small storage solution, so it's not very expandable."
"For large storage needs, it is expensive."
"When creating a support case, visibility should be extended to others involved in assisting."
"Pure Storage FlashArray has not helped to decrease the total cost of ownership, and I believe our total cost has probably gone up, but that's balanced by our increased amount of data and number of use cases."
"I would rate this solution an eight. To make it a ten it would have to be a little cheaper."
"It is a bit expensive."
"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."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) certainly has room for improvement; since it does not provide SAN at the moment, I would look for Dell to create a complete unified solution just like NetApp."
"Backward compatibility is something Dell PowerScale (Isilon) could work on."
"Because of the magic that it does 'under the hood,' it is very difficult to find out within the system where all your storage is going."
"I think Dell PowerScale (Isilon) can be improved, as the cost models are quite expensive for administration."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) could improve the load distribution capability. For example, in some cases, the system load is not distributed automatically on all the nodes but is concentrated only on one. You have a peak request on only one node and the others don't do anything."
"Always, there is room for improvement in terms of cybersecurity, as new challenges are continually emerging in the market."
"The support offered by the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"I give it a nine out of ten because I do not think it deserves a ten as it lags in some spaces, especially where large organizations are concerned."
"To improve FileMage, I would appreciate seeing an enhanced web-based file manager for non-technical users and more native webhook destinations for event-driven automation."
"FileMage can be improved in the area of cloud deployment, which left the permissions wide open, and the Quick Start Terraform does as well."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price is about the only thing that's wrong with it. A little bit better pricing would be great."
"It's expensive, but you get what you pay for."
"They have a standardized fee; it's been the same price for 10 years straight. I am happy with the price — I think it's good."
"My organization has a yearly license, but I believe that Pure Storage FlashArray has capacity-based licenses as well. I'm definitely happy with the pricing."
"Pure is typically more expensive than everyone else. You get what you pay for, but I have lost deals to similar solutions because of pricing. They include everything, and that's another positive about Pure Storage. They aren't trying to nickel and dime their customers for different features. It is all included in one price. The license is by capacity, and the price depends on the capacity and the discount we're getting from the vendor. You get the SKU of the physical appliance, support, and maintenance, and that's it. You're licensed for whatever feature they offer. It is all rolled up into the price of the appliance."
"The cost of Pure Storage is subjective and determined by your environment. Pure Storage tends to be more expensive than NetApp, but it is cheaper than EMC. Performance varies with data workload, making cost considerations complex."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"Because the price is a bit higher than other products, the data reduction equalizes the price with amount of the data reduction."
"It is an expensive product with a high storage capacity suitable for large data requirements."
"The price of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is reasonable."
"This solution is priced slightly higher than others on the market but does offer good quality. With this solution's data reduction and compression, we were able to purchase less. Costs have dropped because of the data rate of compression and deduplication."
"The only drawback for us is that it's a large upfront investment. This was a huge decision for a startup company to make. It took a bit for us to get over the line on it, but we have not regretted it."
"It is an expensive solution."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is an expensive solution."
"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."
"It is a really expensive solution."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
Construction Company
49%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Transportation Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise53
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I have knowledge about the licensing part, which we obtained for around 10 years from the time of deployment, but I d...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
When it comes to Everpure FlashArray ports shown in the GUI, it would be better if, when one of the Pure array ports ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Dell PowerScale has been expensive. Setup costs or provisio...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
For improvements, we can focus on enhancing performance, upgrading the nodes, and accessing data through Isilon for m...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
Dell PowerScale is our main NAS environment storage where we create CIFS and NFS file shares for users.When users req...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FileMage?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has shown that the setup process was incredibly fast. I was up ...
What needs improvement with FileMage?
I would like to see an enhanced web-based file manager for non-technical end-users, allowing them to easily preview o...
What is your primary use case for FileMage?
My primary use case for FileMage is deploying a secure cloud-native SFTP and FTP gateway backed directly by AWS S3 to...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
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,
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale vs. FileMage and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.