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Dell PowerScale vs Rubrik NAS Cloud Direct comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 18, 2026

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
Ranking in NAS
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (1st)
Rubrik NAS Cloud Direct
Ranking in NAS
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
3.9
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the NAS category, the mindshare of Dell PowerScale is 13.8%, down from 17.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rubrik NAS Cloud Direct is 0.7%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerScale13.8%
Rubrik NAS Cloud Direct0.7%
Other85.5%
NAS
 

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.
Linga Raja - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Backup & Recovery Administrator at LTM
Secure backups have protected critical data and provide seamless integration for our team
I am not sure about areas for improvement. In terms of stability, Rubrik NAS Cloud Direct is still not stable as it is evolving, so I would give it a seven or eight. Stability can be improved because there are too many changes happening across the world and the vendor is trying to keep up. The reason I give it an eight is that it is still evolving. There are many features which are still being added to the software and there is more scope for improvements. It does provide features, but there are many other tools which are more capable than this. However, the vendor is still building them. So maybe in a matter of a few years, they will be coming in at one. Maybe we can give it a nine or ten at that time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I rate Dell PowerScale (Isilon) a ten out of ten, and we continue to keep buying it."
"The ease of use of this solution has been the most valuable aspect as well as the SyncIQ and snapshot features."
"Customer service has been really good."
"My experience when deploying Dell PowerScale (Isilon) was very straightforward, as we had Dell come on site to do all the actual setup, which was a big help."
"The solution allows me to use SSMDS to store data for end users and share it within different locations."
"It has allowed us to have more consistent quality controls. It has also allowed us to expand the number of servers in clients processing and accessing data, allowing us to get a lot bigger projects out the door."
"The solution provides massive performance, scalability, efficiency, and ease of management."
"The solution's scalability is very good."
"Rubrik NAS Cloud Direct has improved my organization with secured backups, and even in case of attacks, we are safe with respect to the backup data we have."
 

Cons

"I am uncertain if Dell PowerScale meets the growing needs of my organization."
"Data storage performance needs to be improved."
"There is room for improvement with the updates. It can take a significant amount of time to do a major OS update."
"The pricing could be reduced."
"The technical support is average. There are certainly not the best that we have ever dealt with, but far from the worst ones."
"Sometimes my team needs to restart the machine or restart VMware, which takes a long time."
"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 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."
"In terms of stability, Rubrik NAS Cloud Direct is still not stable as it is evolving, so I would give it a seven or eight."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is high."
"The price of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) 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 a really 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 an expensive solution."
"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."
"The price of the solution can fluctuate. The price can be competitive or other times not. The price of the solution could be better."
Information not available
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise55
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 provisioning experience has been pleasant. Typically you have kickoff meetings and there...
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 more efficiency. Additionally, improvements to interfaces and certain aspects of ...
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 request a CIFS file share, they specify the SMB share name and the SmartConnect zon...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rubrik NAS Cloud Direct?
Regarding the pricing of Rubrik NAS Cloud Direct, I am not sure because there is a separate team who is working on the cost.
What needs improvement with Rubrik NAS Cloud Direct?
I am not sure about areas for improvement. In terms of stability, Rubrik NAS Cloud Direct is still not stable as it is evolving, so I would give it a seven or eight. Stability can be improved becau...
What is your primary use case for Rubrik NAS Cloud Direct?
Approximately 25 users in a big team manage the backups with Rubrik NAS Cloud Direct.
 

Also Known As

PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
No data available
 

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,
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, CTERA and others in NAS. Updated: August 2026.
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