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Dell PowerScale vs Hitachi Content Platform 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
218
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
Dell PowerScale
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
NAS (1st), File and Object Storage (2nd)
Hitachi Content Platform
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (15th)
 

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.
BE
Systems Engineer at Unisity LLC
Flexibility and reliability have supported seamless data growth
I cannot think of anything to improve about Dell PowerScale (Isilon). The hardest challenge we have is due to how we've bought things over time. The way that we moved to the PowerEdge platform for the newer systems creates a scale problem as I still buy the older style systems, which are more dense storage. They're different chassis, so the problem we run into in the data center is the depth of the actual equipment. The newer equipment, if we buy an FX910 or a 900, it's a lot shorter in scale than if I buy an 83,000, which is much bigger. This makes it more complicated for deployment.
EB
Storage Enginner at BNP Paribas
Archive data reliably for years and have trusted support simplifying complex deployments
An application that can do the monitoring and reporting interface for Hitachi Content Platform would be beneficial. Hitachi Content Platform monitor or intelligent monitoring is known, and deployment of this was attempted, but it appears that Hitachi abandoned this project, so it is not in use. The potential of that application was great, but it does not cover everything. When Hitachi was asked about it, they indicated there is no application in the project they will start to develop for this purpose, and they redirected to Prometheus. They shared some Prometheus metrics that can be integrated with Grafana to get some metrics on Hitachi Content Platform, but having a dedicated interface from Hitachi itself would be great, similar to what other vendors provide. The upgrade process for Hitachi Content Platform is too long. When upgrading for just two mandatory versions, it took weeks because all nodes had to be restarted. A hardware support tool is necessary every time upgrading to another version, and it is not practical for the production environment. A large downtime must be predicted and the application team must be asked to stop and suspend their technical batches, which takes a lot of time to do.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The white glove customer service that I get is their greatest value."
"We clearly have seen the difference between having storage on Dell EMC or NetApp versus what we have now on Pure Storage, and the investment was a clear win for us."
"We noticed a dramatic increase in application performance when moving it from NetApp to Pure Storage."
"I like its speed. It has all the features that I need."
"Running SAP on Pure Storage helps a lot without doing any further tuning to improve application performance. Our internal clients are happy."
"What I like most about this solution, is the speed, resiliency and scalability."
"Data deduplication features make it easier to manage storage and forecast growth."
"It's actually very stable"
"On a scale of one to ten, with one being worst and ten being best, I would rate Dell PowerScale (Isilon) a ten."
"It has saved me from having to hire one person over the last six months, and our IT team has gotten about 40 percent of its time back."
"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."
"What I appreciate about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) are its best features: it supports both file and object storage, and it is very easy to manage."
"The solution's scalability is very good."
"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is all the capabilities together."
"The major advantages include data protection, ransomware protection, and cloud capabilities, and the primary advantage is the ability to use the entire cluster in one unified file system, which is a feature I have not observed in other products."
"The features that I have mentioned improve my company through the reliability of the storage; it is always available, and it works, which is the important thing."
"Hitachi is a big company, so it's a very strong product."
"In all my experience and feedback from customers, we are confident that this product is very good."
"Other than that, everything is perfect."
"One of the most hidden valuable features is ensuring that you don't have bit rot, so it will go and check every single object that's stored on the system, then ensure that if there's a problem, it'll be repaired from either a local copy or remote copy, depending upon your configuration."
"The most valuable feature is the retention log, and the way that they handle the DR is very good because when there is a failover, it is seamless to the users."
"The Hitachi Content Platform is a stable and reliable solution."
"The immutability of the solution is great, people like the interface and the integration capabilities, the stability is great, and companies can scale the solution."
"The features that I have found most valuable are their retention logs."
 

Cons

"For scalability, I rate it a six out of ten. We reach a limit. We never reached this limit, however, the architecture allows you to go until a certain size, and after that, you have to buy another array."
"The scalability of the solution is not as good as it probably could be."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve the recent file storage capabilities because it is lacking a lot of features."
"The price is too high."
"One requested enhancement yet to manifest is the scheduling of snapshot replications."
"They are doing some stuff with containers and an object search. These could be improved, because containers is one of the main topics that we are talking with our customers about."
"The overall scalability for this product could be improved as well as having a single console to management multiple arrays."
"The technical support is okay, but could be improved."
"The management and monitoring tools comprise a disparate suite of products and the roadmap is very unclear. We've got four different products that look after the Isilon, management-wise, and it's a bit of a mess."
"The solution isn't suitable for small environments or small customers."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) could improve in terms of having some problems with using IPv6 and IPv4 on the same namespace at the same time, which is one of our biggest problems as you have to do some really bad workarounds to get that working."
"The solution isn't suitable for small environments or small customers."
"Additional metadata reporting would be great. We have to use a separate tool to report on that. We would like to view the age of data and how long it has been since someone has accessed a file."
"The product’s expansion capacity, pricing clarity, and ease of use need improvement."
"There is room for improvement with the updates. It can take a significant amount of time to do a major OS update."
"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."
"This product's ability to track logs for access could be differentiating and still needs to be improved, but that probably doesn't exist on any product in its class either."
"There is room for improvement in the capacity for integration with other platforms."
"When you want to replace a disk, we need to start the maintenance from the S nodes. We have to automate maintenance so any onsite engineer can replace it after that, but we don't need to do this on VSP platforms."
"The only thing is that it should be more cost effective."
"They should improve the user interface. It is a little bit complex, and it does not have a self-learning method; you need to know how to use it before you touch the system, and the user interface is not self-explanatory."
"They should improve the user interface. It's a little bit complex. It does not have a self-learning method. You need to know how to use it before you touch the system. The user interface is not self-explanatory."
"What is lacking in this solution is a simple process to migrate from existing systems."
"At present, it is complicated to use the CLI command."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are no licensing fees aside from the support."
"We evaluated Oracle and Hitachi, but Pure Storage had the better pricing."
"Dell and Pure Storage offer competitive pricing, but Pure Storage might have a slight advantage."
"When you are paying more than you were paying for the storage space, you'd like the cost to be less. If they could get into the spinning disk kind of cost, that would be it."
"I have had a couple of customers who have complained about the cost. It can be a little more expensive than some of the other platforms. After it has been installed, I have never had a customer say, "I wish we wouldn't have spent all that extra money." They have always been happy with the product after it has been installed. They might be on the fence about it because of the price, but everybody who I have ever seen install it, they are always happy with it."
"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."
"We are finding the TCO of flash to be lower than SSD implementations."
"Because the price is a bit higher than other products, the data reduction equalizes the price with amount of the data reduction."
"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."
"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."
"We paid an additional fee to have Dell's ProDeploy Plus team implement it."
"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."
"Our company finds the pricing high, but it decreases over time."
"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."
"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."
"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 could be better."
"Pricing is comparable to other solutions in the market."
"Hitachi is more expensive than StorageGRID."
"The price of the Hitachi Content Platform is very high."
"The product’s cost is average."
"Overall, it's costly."
"I think the ROI for this solution is very good because the pricing for it is in between other solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Government
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business66
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise152
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise46
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise5
 

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?
The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...
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)?
As I mentioned before, we did not purchase Dell PowerScale (Isilon) directly. Since our organization is a government ...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
I think Dell PowerScale (Isilon) could improve some functions such as Apache S3 or containerized storage support, as ...
What needs improvement with Hitachi Content Platform?
In comparison to competitors like Huawei, which can use all storage protocols in the same platform, Hitachi Content P...
What is your primary use case for Hitachi Content Platform?
Mainly, from my project, Hitachi Content Platform is used for archiving. The customer is in banking, so they need to ...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
HCP, Hitachi Vantara Content Platform, Hitachi Vantara HCP
 

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,
Rabobank, Xinhua News Agency, Kremsm'ller Industrieanlagenbau KG, KSC Commercial Internet, AIS Group, Shanghai Interactive Television Co. Ltd (SiTV), China Telecom, Spin Master
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale vs. Hitachi Content Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.