Dell PowerScale (Isilon) Reviews

Our healthcare storage needs require us to store off several radiology images and use the data since November 2018.

The product has helped my organization by managing large data sets.

The most valuable feature for me is SyncIQ. The reason I find it valuable is its data resilience. 

There's nothing really I'd improve about the product. We're currently expanding it, so we're going to our next generation of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) since we've had it since 2018. We're consolidating as drive sizes have gone bigger, and we're consolidating the footprint down. That's what we're currently doing.

We have had the solution since 2018.

I find the product to be resilient and stable. There's no downtime and no crashes; over the years, we have experienced some issues, yet nothing major. The key components are the helper cloud pools and S3 IAQ.

My organization is quite large, with about 30,000 employees.

The growth has been substantial in areas such as radiology and genomics. One of the best features we've utilized recently is offload to cloud pools due to capacity constraints on-premise. We didn't want to expand Dell PowerScale (Isilon) straight away, so we utilized cloud pools to offload some data to Azure. That's really saved us in certain areas as we didn't have funding to expand Dell PowerScale (Isilon) until next year, which is why we utilized the cloud pools functionality to offload.

Customer service has been really good. 

Positive

Before Dell PowerScale (Isilon), we were using standard Windows SMB back in 2018. The data had grown so much within six, seven years. It was just standard Windows SMB.

I have not compared it to other products in terms of deployment. I have been part of the deployment of the product. It's very straightforward. there were no issues in implementing it.

The solution is expensive. It's quite expensive for the amount of storage we have.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate the product overall about eight.

Our use cases involve sheer storage, as it's about 4 petabytes of storage that we use for our genetics team for storing big data.

The capacity and scalability are what I appreciate the most about it; that was huge for us. We saw its benefits immediately after we started using it.

We're still fairly new with it. It's been a pretty positive experience thus far. However, they could improve implementation, as we had to rack and stack it ourselves.

We have been using the product for less than three months, as we just got it.

The stability has been excellent thus far, with no issues.

The scalability is excellent.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) has features that cater to the needs of medium-sized organizations. It's a pretty configurable product. We're running with about 4 petabytes, which is a massive amount of data, but I know you can run it with much less. 

I see Dell products growing with our future needs. Our company has about 400 people working. 

The technical support has been excellent. I would give them a ten out of ten for support.

Positive

We were using NetApp previously. We haven't used Dell PowerScale (Isilon) long enough to give a full comparison at this point, but they both seem to be pretty comparable products.

The initial deployment was fairly easy. It took two of our guys, but it would have been nice to have a white glove service so they would rack it, and we could have just configured it. Overall, it took less than a day.

It requires very little maintenance on our end.

Two people were required for this type of job overall.

The pricing is excellent.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) does not play a role in our organization's AI initiatives at this time. 

I would rate Dell PowerScale (Isilon) a nine out of ten.

My use cases for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) include CCTV, video management, video server, and archival storage.

What I like about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) are its best features, as it supports file and object storage, and it is very easy to manage.

The main benefit that Dell PowerScale (Isilon) brings to the table is that it gives the organization good file management.

I think Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is very good right now. Perhaps improvements could be made on the CPU level with a better CPU. I haven't used the NVIDIA yet, but a better Intel CPU would be beneficial.

The functionality that I would like to see enhanced in the future for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is SmartPool for lifecycle management of data. I need more features, particularly for data migration and the ability to segregate data from old to new systems for lifecycle management.

I have been working with Dell PowerScale (Isilon) for about 13 years.

I assess the stability and reliability of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) as having no crashes, but there have been performance issues. After someone performed a performance analysis and migration, I resolved the issues with SmartConnect, and the SmartConnect feature is effective as it resolves our performance issues.

I have escalated questions to the technical support and customer service team of Dell. The support center is very poor from Dell. Compared to when it was EMC before, Dell support is getting worse nowadays, with less support.

The response time is concerning. Even if you buy ProSupport Plus, they state within two hours, but after two hours, nobody contacts you. The response time shows there is no sense of urgency. Compared to EMC, the support in our region is not as good as it was before.

Neutral

Before adopting Dell PowerScale (Isilon), the company was using NetApp.

I decided to switch from NetApp to Dell PowerScale (Isilon) because of feature advantages like file system and data protection. It is easy to manage compared to NetApp, and I think the features are better than NetApp from a feature perspective.

I have knowledge about the deployment process of Dell PowerScale (Isilon).

My experience with deploying Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is that the challenges are more related to working with the network team on their side. The OneFS itself is very straightforward and easy.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) serves as a storage node and compute node in this case.

Cost saving is one benefit. The organization finds it easy to manage resources, and it is easy to get to market. We can analyze the data, which makes it much easier to go to market.

I would advise other organizations considering Dell PowerScale (Isilon) that it is easy to manage, and it consolidates all traditional NAS instead of separating file systems and protection levels. NAS is easy, especially the OneFS operating system.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) may play major roles for small and medium-sized organizations.

My organization falls under small and medium-sized organizations in terms of size and revenue.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) has features that specifically cater to the needs of small and medium organizations, as you can start with three nodes and then increase to 252 nodes, allowing you to start small and grow along the way.

I rate Dell PowerScale (Isilon) as a product and solution a nine out of ten.

We primarily use Dell PowerScale for archive purposes. It functions as a large NAS.

One of the features we use in both PowerScale and Pure Storage is the snapshot feature. It's really important for us. 

Additionally, Eyeglass is used to monitor for malware, which is very useful for us.

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.

I have been working with PowerScale for six years.

It's probably very good. However, due to both cost and the knowledge required to maintain and use them, there are considerations about scalability.

Customer service is absolutely satisfying, rating at least nine out of ten, as they have managed previous issues well.

Positive

We do work with Dell and PowerScale, however, we are going to remove them, and as for now, it's going to be in 2026 since Pure Storage has a more cost-efficient model of storage use.

The initial setup requires extensive knowledge. I have to take very expensive courses just to set it up. It's not easy, taking maybe one or two weeks of learning before I should start to use it, which makes it costly.

I do believe that it delivered ROI, however, we see a better return of investment with other products we have considered.

Every time we purchase a PowerScale solution, we buy four nodes for one data center and four for another, with five years of maintenance covered by Dell. 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.

We evaluated other options. Other solutions did not match our requirements, so we chose FlashArrayX instead of a new PowerMax since it was half the price.

If you know how to handle it, Dell PowerScale is a good product. However, Pure Storage offers similar or even better performance at a lower cost, so I rather recommend Pure Storage if you are looking for efficiency and cost benefits. 

Overall, I rate PowerScale an eight out of ten.

Our primary use case for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is that it's the central storage platform for the whole university.

One of the most valuable features I find in Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is the scalability, as you can extend, extend, extend over time without having to move the file system. 

Also, the separation between different access zones is a tenant system that really allows me to completely separate data streams, ensuring that one group of tenants is not allowed to touch or see any of the other tenants' data.

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.

I have been using Dell PowerScale (Isilon) for around about 17 years.

A specific example of where Dell PowerScale (Isilon) made a noticeable improvement or impact on my business operations is that we had a performance impact for around about one week in the whole 17 years, which wasn't really downtime.

The benefit I have realized from using Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is first of all the scalability; we started on PowerScale with around about 300 terabytes and are now two and a half petabytes, still on the same file system.

I would evaluate Dell's support as mostly outstanding because, at least for me, I always find a way to find someone who has enough experience to help me with my problem. For easy problems, I have been through several times, but for complicated problems, I will find someone who can truly help me.

Positive

Prior to adopting Dell PowerScale (Isilon), I was using another solution called Isilon, and I had the first Isilon outside of the labs ever delivered to the customer.

My experience with deploying Dell PowerScale (Isilon) spans 17 years, and I think I have faced every type of problem. In every situation, I have found someone who could help me come out of the situation before anybody would recognize that there was a problem.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) has features that specifically cater to my needs, such as the separation between different access zones. It's a tenant system that really allows me to completely separate data streams to have legal aspects realized, ensuring that one group of tenants are not allowed to touch or see any of the other tenants' data.

I have realized a return on my investment with Dell PowerScale (Isilon). It's worth the money because of the total cost where you only pay one person to run the whole environment instead of paying 15 people to run the same on cheap hardware.

My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) shows it's a premium platform, so it's a big amount of money. Not too many universities in Germany are willing to spend, but I'm a one-man shop, so I'm driving and running the whole platform, which is much cheaper compared to a cheap platform where you need many people to operate it.

Before choosing Dell PowerScale (Isilon), I considered different vendors like NetApp and others as competitors. They had their advantages, but the overall package was better suited for our requests with Dell PowerScale (Isilon), so that was the reason for our choice.

My advice to other companies considering Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is that it takes a little time to understand the product, but once you have it set up and running, it will run stable for all its lifetime. I rate Dell PowerScale (Isilon) a nine out of ten.

Our company's use case for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is unstructured data as it's our general file share for everything.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) benefits my organization by making it easier to connect and work on files. It's also been a great solution for storing our larger modalities and all the pictures and images from that, along with the videos, since we are a healthcare organization. It's been a good use.

The accessibility and the configurability of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is really nice and it expands well. 

The reliability and stability of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is good, with no downtime. 

If I could improve one thing on Dell PowerScale (Isilon), it would be better object storage as it recently breached into S3, and that capability could be broadened. They won't do it as they have ObjectScale, however, the capabilities on Dell PowerScale (Isilon) could be improved.

I have been using Dell PowerScale (Isilon) for eight years now.

I haven't had any downtime, crashes, or performance issues with Dell PowerScale (Isilon) recently, however, we have experienced them in the past; however, it has been a long time. I don't know that any downtimes were a hardware issue with Dell PowerScale (Isilon).

We utilize 70,000 terabytes on Dell PowerScale (Isilon).

Generally, when we put in a ticket on something regarding Dell PowerScale (Isilon), it takes a while to get to the right person as we wade through first-level support. 

Once we reach the second level person or the right level, the support is great and awesome.

I would rate the support for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) as probably an eight.

We switched from NetApp before I joined my team, and while we were using Dell PowerScale (Isilon), we merged with other organizations that were using different solutions and sunset those uses into Dell PowerScale (Isilon). They were using Pure Storage in some other places.

I would describe my experience deploying Dell PowerScale (Isilon) as easy. 

It's a very quick, seamless product, and once we get it in, it's just a matter of setting up some policies to copy data over, whether for an LCR or standing up a completely fresh new one. 

With Dell support always there to help, it remains pretty straightforward since the software is intuitive.

Maintenance and upgrades for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) are also pretty straightforward; sometimes they're a little slow due to the size of our cluster, however, overall, the support is good and maintenance is easy. 

Certainly, we have seen return on investment and peace of mind, especially with our two clusters that are linked together, where one is a disaster recovery solution for the other. We get a lot of peace of mind from that, and it's worth every penny.

The second cluster of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) gives us flexibility for small things like code upgrades, all the way to scenarios where we have lost this data center or data, allowing us to check if data is still intact on the other side; we can flip easily.

I don't get involved in the pricing, TCO costs, and licensing of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) since I'm more involved in engineering what we need, so the prices are hammered out elsewhere.

We haven't considered any other solutions besides Dell PowerScale (Isilon).

My role using Dell PowerScale (Isilon) involves overseeing the hardware and the software, and managing some of the permissions and access to the data on the array. 

Overall, I would rate Dell PowerScale (Isilon) a nine out of ten.

I have been a technical support engineer in Dell PowerScale (Isilon). If you raise a ticket to Dell support for Dell PowerScale (Isilon), it will come directly to us and we will work on that to help you resolve the issue. If you need any documentation or guidance to perform a configuration, we will help you with that. If you need any technical assistance, I will be helping you with that.

What I like the most about Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is that the storage capacity is very high. Compared to other cloud services for archiving purposes, Dell PowerScale (Isilon) has been highly cost-efficient.

The downside of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is that if we are replacing a drive, sometimes in the worst-case scenarios, some of the other drives will also go to the SmartFail state. That is the very worst thing for me in Dell PowerScale (Isilon). Additionally, even a battery replacement will make the particular node into a read-only state. It is not good for a use case. If we are using a three-node or four-node cluster, moving a particular node to read-only state just for a battery replacement is not good. That is my suggestion on Dell PowerScale (Isilon).

The initial deployment of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is a bit difficult. Deploying in the initial stages requires more effort. We need to engage some subject matter experts to deploy it. It is a bit of a lengthy process to deploy.

I have been using it in my career for three years.

We do not face any instability in Dell PowerScale (Isilon). The load balancers work well with this unstructured data storage, so up to 90 percent of the time, we will not face any downtime or instability in storage while accessing or writing in Dell PowerScale (Isilon).

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is highly scalable. There are no issues with that. As an unstructured data storage solution, writing into it and accessing it from the other nodes is highly scalable with no issues.

I am the technical support engineer in Dell PowerScale (Isilon), so I am not going to contact any external support. I am the technical support engineer in Dell PowerScale (Isilon) and I work for Dell as a vendor. Dell PowerScale (Isilon) does require some maintenance on my end. In the initial configuration, it will not require much maintenance.

Positive

The initial deployment of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is a bit difficult. Deploying in the initial stages requires more effort. We need to engage some subject matter experts to deploy it. It is a bit of a lengthy process to deploy.

We need an on-site engineer, a networking engineer from the client team, a subject matter expert, and a technical support engineer. Around five to six members are required for an initial deployment.

I am not aware of the pricing in Dell PowerScale (Isilon).

I would rate this product a 7 out of 10.

I am an administrator for Isilon in India. It provides storage to end users who develop their tasks and use it for simulation purposes, keeping their data isolated.

I use Dell PowerScale (Isilon) to store and share data across different locations according to project-wise needs, which helps in cost savings related to power and in-house rack space.

The solution allows me to use SSMDS to store data for end users and share it within different locations. The feature of data shuffling between locations is notably useful. Dell PowerScale helps in saving costs related to power and rack space, reducing physical hardware from over one hundred to twenty-nine chassis.

Dell's customer service needs improvement. Specifically, hardware failures under warranty should be addressed within the promised timeline. I face difficulty in tracing and finding the right support team due to time zone differences, which is problematic.

I have been working with Dell PowerScale Isilon for eight years now.

Dell PowerScale is highly scalable, as evidenced by the reduced physical hardware and the efficient use of rack space.

I rate customer service as five. The service, particularly about hardware issues and support ticket handling, is an area that needs significant improvement.

Neutral

The setup is easy because of previous configurations and knowledge in this area. I would rate it nine on a scale of one to ten, with ten being very easy.

Dell PowerScale is user-friendly and beneficial for businesses, provided they understand the enabled features and subscriptions. I would give it an overall rating of nine out of ten.