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Dell PowerScale vs VAST Data 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)
VAST Data
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (30th), File and Object Storage (17th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (10th)
 

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.
Alan Powers - PeerSpot reviewer
HPC CTO at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Stability-wise, a device that has been up and running for years
The failover capability and resiliency are some of the solution's valuable features. The big thing is resilience because it has richer coding in it, so multiple devices can't fail. Also, one can still access a number of CBoxes that can allow one to access their file system. Once a device fails, it fails the transparency of the end-user, and it just starts using another resource. The encryption capability, the snapshots, along with a whole bunch of features make the tool valuable. VAST Data keeps adding more and more features all the time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution has improved our organization. In the past, we had reports that were taking up to two hours and after switching to SSD storage the overall processing power dropped to half an hour. The end users saw an immediate performance gain."
"We have seen savings in our storage, and the speed of deployment has gone from several days to a few minutes, reducing backup and restore times from 93 days to minutes and simplifying storage for us."
"When you put all of the features in a box, leverage them and migrate your application to one of these arrays, it will give you a lot of benefits."
"The most valuable feature of the FlashArray is Pure One, which provides a comprehensive overview of our entire storage environment."
"Data reduction and compression. Sub millisecond latency."
"Pure gives us better compression, it's easier to manage, a lot less hands-on, and the biggest selling point for me was the replacement of the hardware, the controllers, without any major expense to the clinic."
"If you need a high-performance storage appliance that is easy to install and maintain, you pretty much can't go wrong."
"This storage has to be the most well thought out and effective storage that I have had the privilege to work with."
"Dell PowerScale helps in saving costs related to power and rack space, reducing physical hardware from over one hundred to twenty-nine chassis."
"Dell PowerScale overall is easy to use."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is scalable, it is easy to expand capacity, and the solution is suitable for companies with a lot of data."
"The features of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) that I appreciate the most include the scale of architecture and the way it is designed, which benefit my company by providing less downtime and less overhead."
"The fact that we were able to set it up, use it, and, for the most part, didn't have to worry about it after we had it set up has been valuable."
"Dell PowerScale's performance is good."
"The solution provides massive performance, scalability, efficiency, and ease of management."
"This has been a valuable solution for our business overall. It offers business continuity and replication features."
"The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations."
"This has been one of the most reliable storage systems that I have ever used."
"This has been one of the most reliable storage systems that I have ever used."
 

Cons

"What it needs to do is work a little closer with solutions, like VMware, so it understands the particular workloads that are on it."
"I would like some performance analytics which go deeper than today. It should be specific to some hosts and applications."
"Historical analytics would be useful. At the moment, they don't have any type of application built for historical analytics."
"Going forward, don't complicate things for the customers."
"Pure Storage's logs could provide more visibility to the end-user. The logging algorithms are different from those of other vendors. For example, Cisco's logs provide extensive troubleshooting data, whereas Pure Storage logs offer limited information. We have to contact support to get more information."
"There's always an opportunity for new feature functionality."
"Some services could be inserted directly into the SAN, so Pure Storage could complete with the HyperFlex."
"It's too early to tell if we've seen a reduction in total cost of ownership. The solution is expensive."
"We used to have a chat feature available on the support site. It's not available to us anymore."
"I think Dell PowerScale (Isilon) can be improved, as the cost models are quite expensive for administration."
"The initial setup for this solution is complex."
"They should add some new services that should be for on-premises, and more analytics should be there for the data, allowing for a deep dive from that analytics, which is currently missing."
"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."
"It is a bit higher priced than some of the other systems."
"The legacy file system for Epsilon didn't scale into the cloud and didn't have a separate OS. It would be key if this was made possible."
"The solution isn't suitable for small environments or small customers."
"The write performance could be improved because it is less than half of the read performance."
"The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement."
"The write performance could be improved because it is less than half of the read performance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a seen a reduction in TCO. It is definitely a cost-effective solution for us. We have seen ROI."
"In comparison to the competitors, Pure is very price-competitive for the future functionality that it provides."
"The price is reasonable."
"It is cost-effective because after buying a subscription, they provide a service to upgrade hardware for free. They are providing so many features. When you consider the features provided, it is cost-effective."
"Pure is not a cheap product. It is not something that is inexpensive. But, the total cost of ownership tends to be lower than with other solutions, because you don't need a lot of expertise, you don't need a lot of training or very expensive engineers or very expensive consultants."
"No storage device is cheap, but Pure Storage is fairly priced and offers what you pay for. You get all the licenses in the future when you purchase a license."
"All storage is expensive so any price improvement would help."
"It is a more expensive solution, but it is worth it. You are getting what you paid for."
"The pricing is excellent."
"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."
"Dell PowerScale is expensive on the start-up side but we can recoup those costs quickly by not having to reapply the savings to other equipment."
"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."
"Pricing for this solution is reasonable."
"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 product with a high storage capacity suitable for large data requirements."
"The price of the solution is high."
"We acquired VAST Data as a one-time, capital purchase."
"Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one."
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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
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Healthcare Company
5%
 

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
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?
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 ...
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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,
Norwest Venture Partners, General Dynamics Information Technology, Ginkgo Bioworks
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale vs. VAST Data and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.