No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Dell PowerScale vs IBM System Storage N series [EOL] comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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

Dell PowerScale
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
NAS (1st), File and Object Storage (1st)
IBM System Storage N series...
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

RahulSharma8 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Platform Engineer at Expedia Group
Unified file sharing has simplified multi-tenant access and has delivered seamless data replication
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) includes its replication features; when we decommissioned our old Isilon cluster, we migrated all of the data to a new cluster, and it was pretty seamless. All you have to do is create the certificates and make those certificates available to the target cluster, then initiate a few jobs. The inter-cluster replication feature, called SyncIQ, allows you to set up all of the jobs and move your data entirely, either timely or all at once. Another suitable feature is the ability to back up your directories; you can take snapshots for all of your directories, and in fact, I believe you can take around a thousand snapshots for a single directory. The inter-replication, geo-replication is one feature. Dell provides a variety class of hardware suitable for your workloads, meaning if your data is just lab and not critical, you don't have to spend much on the hardware; conversely, if your data is mission-critical, you can buy a high-performance node from Dell. Additionally, you can span Dell PowerScale (Isilon) cluster to a large number of nodes, and code upgrades are pretty smooth because all protocols will be upgraded under a single piece of code. Since it provides a single file system that spans across the nodes, you don't have to worry about that directory structure being separately created on individual nodes, making it a fitting solution for a data lake solution because you can access the same data from multiple protocols.
it_user281973 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage and VMware Expert at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
All protocols come in the same box, including CIFS file server if you have NetApp experience this storage is the same.
All features available through NetApp storage devices All the protocols are on the same box Deduplication and snapshot features are available through the NetApp FAS series It has provided a customer with CIFS file-server protocol. Unify all backup softwares on the same tool to simplify the…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I feel that the reliability and availability of Dell PowerScale have positively affected my company's data operations as it's running stably, and we haven't had service outages or anything of that nature, so it's been very helpful."
"Dell PowerScale has positively impacted our organization by helping us centralize large datasets, scale storage as our AI and analytics workloads grow, and improve data access performance."
"What I like the most about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is that the storage capacity is very high."
"This has really changed the way our company can acquire and process data in the field, allowing us to differentiate ourselves against all our competitors."
"The best thing is that it works. We don't have to maintain it too much; we usually upgrade once a year."
"The solution is extremely easy to manage. This is its most valuable feature."
"Dell has the AI to protect the EMA."
"Dell PowerScale has positively impacted my organization as the students and the teachers are much happier using our services."
"All features are available through NetApp storage devices and all the protocols are on the same box, with deduplication and snapshot features available through the NetApp FAS series."
 

Cons

"The analytics could be improved."
"Improvements could be made on the object storage side."
"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[...]the Unified Permission Model that would allow a user to authenticate before being able to access a private file, does not apply."
"Improvements could be made to reduce the costs and the high level of knowledge needed to maintain and use them. We had old hard drives with moving parts in Dell PowerScale, and due to this, we must switch to a more efficient environment with all-flash."
"The biggest weakness is small file handling."
"The solution lacks a cloud version."
"Dell PowerScale has covered many advantages as a product. However, there are disadvantages that could be improved."
"That said, for the other security features, it would be helpful if Tenable - and I know it's outside the scope of this question itself - had Isilon-specific plugins."
"Unify all backup softwares on the same tool to simplify the administration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is excellent."
"Pricing for this solution is reasonable."
"The pricing is expensive, but I think it's a fair value because it does manage itself. It definitely is much simpler than any of the other scale-out storage platforms that we've looked at in the past."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The price of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is reasonable."
"It is a really expensive solution."
"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."
"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."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which NAS solutions are best for your needs.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise65
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
The on-premises solution with Dell PowerScale, when we buy directly from Dell, is economical. We have done some level of comparison. Although in the current markets we have seen the price differenc...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
There should be some enhancement where Dell PowerScale can have block level functionality or block storage kind of functionality. Although there is a different product line from Dell, if there is s...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
We use Dell PowerScale for our object scale and different kinds of storage, including both object storage and file storage.I am part of the solution architect team, which is a techno-commercial rol...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
System Storage N series
 

Overview

 

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,
FreeBit, Ipeer, Trinecke Zelezarny, ACH Colombia, T-Mobile, Mitsubishi Motors Australia
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, CTERA and others in NAS. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.