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Dell PowerStore vs FreeNAS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 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

Dell PowerStore
Ranking in NAS
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
129
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (4th), Enterprise SAN (1st), All-Flash Storage (1st), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (1st)
FreeNAS
Ranking in NAS
16th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the NAS category, the mindshare of Dell PowerStore is 11.3%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FreeNAS is 2.0%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Dell PowerStore11.3%
FreeNAS2.0%
Other86.7%
NAS
 

Featured Reviews

Eoin O’Brien - PeerSpot reviewer
Improves cost efficiency and significantly while boosting workload performance
We have realized several benefits from using Dell PowerStore; we migrated to the current Dell PowerStore models from tiered storage, and now we're using all flash. The dedupe and compression has been a big benefit for us versus the old storage that it was running, and we've seen the performance of all flash for our storage services. My company finds particular features within Dell PowerStore valuable, primarily the cost benefits for the performance that we get out of the platform. We've definitely seen the benefit on that side of it, including the cost per terabyte, and the support from Dell has been excellent as well. We haven't had any issues with it, so it's been very reliable as a platform for us. The performance metrics I use to measure success with Dell PowerStore are all IOPS and throughput. We are not using it with AI workloads on Dell PowerStore, so it's primarily just customers running IaaS, however, it is important that it's reliable and performs well, and we get that from Dell PowerStore. Dell PowerStore has supported growth and operational success for my business; a key driver at the moment is consolidation, and the dedupe and compression ratios allow us to standardize on a single platform. This has helped improve our operational metrics and overall operations, as we now have only one vendor to support and one set of storage arrays to manage. We have a very clear path into support and escalation if there is an issue, and we are not dealing with multiple vendors.
Vincenzo D'Aniello - PeerSpot reviewer
Open-source with great disk management and task synchronization
The system itself allows you to add any feature. The only bad thing is that this maybe depends on FreeBSD, and sometimes finding documentation is difficult. For example, we knew that previous versions automatically enabled the Linux kernel, yet with the recent version, this was no longer the case. Now, there was the possibility of being able to create Debian-based jails, and finding the documentation was not easy or fast. That said, in the end, we succeeded. If you find the documentation, it is always incomplete and fragmented.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Overall, we're quite happy with the product because we can move the data that is stored on more than 10 of our current storage devices to a single PowerStore."
"The latency and the security are the most valuable features of Dell PowerStore."
"In the five months we've been running Dell PowerStore, it's been 100% uptime with no issues at all, so it's been excellent."
"I rate Dell PowerStore a perfect 10 out of 10."
"The deduplication functionality provided by the solution is fairly good. The speed offered by the product is enough for our organization."
"The most valuable feature is the unwavering performance."
"Dell PowerStore has rarely had any downtime."
"The product is reliable and stable."
"What I like about it is that I can work on it from any computer or any device. The initial setup is very simple. The setup wizard is really helpful."
"It has the best storage capacity."
"The solution has been very stable so far."
"FreeNAS is much simpler and easier to use than other solutions, but we don't have the complete range of features that come with the full version."
"It integrates well into either Windows or Linux environments."
"Its stability is the most valuable. It is reliable, and we don't have to worry too much about it."
"The ease of use of the 'jail', the management of backups, and copies to easily create test and pre-production scenarios have speeded up the development and distribution of business apps."
 

Cons

"We are happy with the service in general. The only thing would be the price of the platform."
"The biggest area in PowerStore that needs improvement is the overall visibility within the ESX environment."
"Dell PowerStore does not meet the needs of a small organization; Dell has Unity which meets the entry-level or SMB segment."
"Dell PowerStore is a good solution overall, but some models could support hypervisors better by allowing for more customization and flexibility for customer needs."
"From our region perspective, it would be beneficial to have support with local languages for Dell PowerStore. However, English is acceptable for us as it serves our needs."
"AI will be a challenge and we must manage different kinds of data with more performance and security."
"Improvements could be made in the replication solutions of Dell PowerStore. Even though replication between Dell PowerStores is possible, high latency connectivity is problematic."
"One suggestion for improvement would be related to volume management by both controllers. Currently, a volume is managed by a single controller, with alternate controllers managing different volumes based on load distribution. For example, if volume one is managed by controller one, volume two will be managed by controller two. In other vendors' solutions, both controllers participate in the I/Os. It would be more efficient if the volumes were controlled by both controllers in an active-active configuration."
"They should include clustering for the solution."
"If you find the documentation, it is always incomplete and fragmented."
"The support for S3 needs to be improved."
"FreeNAS should be better prepared for clustering."
"They can improve the integration with PSA systems. This functionality could be better."
"The latest version of the dashboard doesn't work as good as the previous version."
"The one thing that I find difficult to do which is very time-consuming is that I like to have a backup of the important files."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We only have a single machine and we are currently using half of the hard disk slots. We have asked for an upgrade for the rest of the hard disks but, from my point of view, it costs too much. We have 12 to 15 hard disks inside and if we try to upgrade only the hard disks, it costs the same as the complete system. This is something I don't understand."
"We are currently using Dell PowerStore for our smaller storage and there is no competition for pricing."
"The pricing is good. There's no need to pay for a license; it's all-inclusive."
"The price of Dell EMC PowerStore could be better, it is a bit expensive."
"If we use the 500 or 1000, the licensing and pricing are reasonable. PowerStore can compete with any vendor and the price isn't that expensive."
"It is easy to work with Dell from the licensing perspective."
"There's still a cap on the upgrade path, where you can consume all the engines within the frame before you have to go to another frame... Normally, we exceed the IOPS on the frames before we can ever exhaust the storage, so anything they can do to help us avoid stranded storage capacity, capacity that we couldn't get to, would be beneficial."
"In terms of licensing, my organization has Dell Technologies End User License Agreement (EULA), but I don't know exactly how it works, though it is a big bundle of licenses for Dell Data Domain, Dell EMC Unity XT, Dell PowerStore, Dell ECS, and all such kinds of storage arrays."
"Its price is okay. It suits our needs."
"For our configuration, we pay a little bit less than €10,000 ($12,000 USD) per year."
"Its licensing cost is based on the hardware capacity."
"We use the free version of the program."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
6%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Performing Arts
14%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise61
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

What do you think about Dell EMC PowerStore? Is it actually a new product?
PowerStore is flexible, scalable, simple, and performant with market-leading economics for a wide range of legacy and next-gen apps. It is only Flash and can support many workloads from today's app...
How does Dell's EMC PowerStore compare with its EMC Unity XT?
Dell EMC PowerStore is a unified storage platform that has the added benefit of being scalable. The automated management of resources feature provides a more simple administration. I found the flex...
What's the difference between DELL EMC Powerstore and Powermax NVMe?
Dell PowerStore is an all-solid-state midrange storage system. It has many internal elements taken from other Dell offerings and integrated into the PowerStoreOS. The installation and setup have a ...
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

PowerStore
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Morroni Technologies Inc., Creative Integrations
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerStore vs. FreeNAS and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.