Dell PowerScale Reviews

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 work with Dell PowerScale as a customer and technical architect. I have been working with Dell PowerScale since around 2020 to 2021.

Dell PowerScale offers several advantages, particularly regarding AI-driven data insights, automation, and advanced workloads. The AI features support these aspects effectively. The primary benefit from AI is enhanced data intelligence and operational efficiency.

Dell PowerScale has covered many advantages as a product. However, there are disadvantages that could be improved.

I have used the solution for around 2020 to 2021.

From my personal experience, Dell PowerScale is a highly stable product with no significant glitches or latency issues.

Dell PowerScale is a highly scalable product without notable limitations on scalability.

I would rate the support at nine points on a scale from zero to ten points, with ten being the best.

I have not worked with similar tools from other vendors for comparison to Dell PowerScale.

Dell PowerScale provides return on investment in terms of value for money.

Dell PowerScale is quite affordable in terms of pricing.

Dell PowerScale is designed for enterprise customers and includes features for small and medium businesses.

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.

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.

In using or managing Dell PowerScale (Isilon), I have two roles: one is part of the decision-making process for deploying it, and the second is in our go-to-market with Dell, as far as integrating our two products.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) has supported growth or operational success for a company such as mine because we are still in the early stages of deployment and from an integration go-to-market perspective. Due to the strategic nature of our two companies and our products, it is going well, and we are seeing growth in that area.

My main use cases for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) are as a data storage environment, where Wasabi fits as a long-term retention target.

The features of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) that I prefer the most include some of the newer technologies that are on it, which would include SmartSync and the ability for the data mover to continue to make incremental changes.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) has features that specifically cater to the needs of small and medium organizations. Primarily, our performance is what caters to those needs.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) scales greatly with the growing needs of my company.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) can be improved by enhancing the ability for more native data mover technologies that offer security and resiliency features.

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

My experience with customer service and technical support has been challenging. The reason is that it is difficult to find subject matter experts around the solution.

I'm still having those support issues; it is a challenge to get competent support around the issues we have.

Positive

My experience with the pricing, the setup costs, and licensing of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is that pricing is decent, but licensing is a challenge.

From my point of view, I cannot think of anything that is the biggest return on investment when using Dell PowerScale (Isilon).

I understand that we are still in the early stages regarding metrics that we have found out while using Dell PowerScale (Isilon), such as improvements or anything that has been significant.

Currently, Dell PowerScale (Isilon) does not play a role in my company's AI initiatives, but we are looking at it being part of an overall AI workflow, particularly where AI workloads and migrating data into Dell PowerScale (Isilon) and then Dell PowerScale (Isilon) migrating come into play.

The advice I would give to other companies that are considering Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is that I would recommend it as a product, as a technology, and as a solution. I rated this review an eight out of ten.

Dell PowerScale serves as a premier scale-out network-attached storage solution that I primarily use for data storage and managing mass volumes of unstructured data. I use it to handle different domains such as healthcare and media data analytics, utilizing this data in Power BI systems to generate reports that help the organization forecast outcomes.

A specific example of how I have used Dell PowerScale in healthcare is crucial, because healthcare is a domain where data privacy and security must be carefully maintained, as any data leakage can lead to legal concerns. Dell PowerScale helps by protecting the data we feed into it in a secure manner and managing unstructured data in such a way that it displays structured layouts in different formats, enabling me to select the best option for Power BI reports to generate effective healthcare reports for end users.

My experience with Dell PowerScale in the healthcare domain also highlights its excellent generative AI capability. It checks every detail in the data we feed into it, such as detecting duplicity, inconsistent data, and junk data that does not align with healthcare-related domains. With the help of AI, it segregates these data disturbances, helping us to correct them so we can generate healthcare-related reports using Dell PowerScale.

My role in using and managing Dell PowerScale involves handling data management responsibilities.

Dell PowerScale has positively impacted my organization by significantly speeding up our processes. Initially, when AI was not integrated and we did not have Dell PowerScale, our data processing speed was much lower compared to now, which allows us to deliver multiple projects efficiently with the help of Dell PowerScale.

Regarding improvements in processing speed, initially it used to take us around three to four months to deliver to end users, customers, and stakeholders. Now, with the help of Dell PowerScale and its integrated AI, we can deliver within a month, which has drastically improved our efficiency.

My experience with the performance of Dell PowerScale when managing complex datasets is that it is much faster than my previous experiences once we use Dell PowerScale.

One of the best features Dell PowerScale offers is its enterprise AI model that works in parallel.

The features include various file systems and data management capabilities.

Dell PowerScale's AI capabilities provide excellent governance and security, maintaining privacy securely with GDPR concepts, making me confident in using Dell PowerScale F910 to manage our organizational data efficiently.

The accuracy and reliability of output from Dell PowerScale are impressive, featuring very high throughput AI that offers hybrid archive storage for all the mass data we feed into it from various domains such as PostgreSQL, Oracle database, and even Excel or CSV files. It systematically segregates data, which I believe is one of its best features.

I have utilized Dell PowerScale's data protection and security features, and they effectively help safeguard our data. We prioritize checking the security of our data, so we implement Dell PowerScale's security features during the initial setup before feeding our data in, and it adheres to the best GDPR concepts.

Dell PowerScale's multi-protocol support allows us to fetch mass data effectively, producing high-performing integrations and various models, thus aiding us in our day-to-day tasks and report generation.

I find the overall operational efficiency and ease of use of Dell PowerScale to be excellent; any person with slight hardware and software knowledge can easily start and manage it without difficulties.

The integration of Dell PowerScale with our existing IT infrastructure is very efficient, as we can upgrade it without needing to shut down our old systems.

I believe Dell PowerScale can be improved by advancing its AI capabilities further. For instance, when we fetch data, it could potentially display multiple options of how the data looks in different formats, allowing us to quickly access and analyze data disturbances if we wish to delete any data and retrieve reports.

As it stands, Dell PowerScale is up to the mark, and improvements will continue to happen with advancements in AI and other technologies, as this is a continuous improvement process.

I have been using Dell PowerScale for the last five years.

Dell PowerScale's reliability and availability significantly impact my organization's data operations because I consider it one of the best systems. For five years, I have not lost any data, and I can access whatever data I fed in the first year as if it were fresh today, which is what makes it special.

When I fetch data into Dell PowerScale, it scales effectively, and even though I have been using it for the last five years, it monitors the history of the data to see if there is any available data from previous years. Based on this, it generates excellent reports for us.

I have not encountered any issues with support; whenever we get stuck with Dell PowerScale F910, customer support has been excellent, and our end users are very satisfied.

Dell PowerScale is very compatible with cloud-based operations, which plays a crucial role in our overall IT strategy by helping us generate revenue.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate Dell PowerScale a perfect 10.

I give Dell PowerScale a 10 out of 10 because it is very scalable and significantly speeds up our processes, which helps our organization not just in delivery but also in generating revenue from it.

We deploy Dell PowerScale in a hybrid cloud setup.

For our hybrid cloud setup, we use Microsoft SharePoint, which integrates the Power BI concept that we are currently working on.

We purchased Dell PowerScale through the Microsoft channel.

I believe we use Dell PowerScale for server.

I like the features of Dell PowerScale, but I am uncertain about certain aspects. Dell PowerScale's alignment with my organization's goals of supporting digital transformation initiatives is a tough consideration.

I am somewhat hands-on with Dell PowerScale, performing power cycling when something goes wrong, but otherwise I remain very hands-off from it and our infrastructure.

I am uncertain if Dell PowerScale meets the growing needs of my organization.

Dell has been great with everything. I would evaluate Dell's technical support highly.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Dell's technical support a ten.

I believe we were using VMware for virtualization prior to adopting Dell PowerScale.

Cyber threats would be one of the biggest emerging challenges and opportunities I foresee in managing enterprise data.

Currently, Dell PowerScale does not play a role in my organization's AI initiatives as we are not considering rolling out any kind of AI, at least within the next two years.

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.

My main use case for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is storage. I use it for NAS storage. I can outline that there's no specific use case for the organization, as it's regular storage for all users.

I buy Dell PowerScale (Isilon) because of the price, service, and technology. The technology that is particularly good for my company is that I have two Dell PowerScale (Isilon) systems in two sites, and I use replication between them with Superna software, which is a third-party Dell technology.

Sometimes, it takes too long to set up everything. That's something I would want them to improve. The main challenge I face with it now is that my team is accustomed to using other vendors, and when I try to use Dell technology, it's difficult for them to use something new.

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

I would evaluate the customer service from Dell as pretty good. The Indian support is not cooperative, and we ask to move to European support.

Positive

The experience of pricing, licensing, and setup costs is good. I have an account manager, a good account manager that helped me with all the maintenance, other requirements, and troubleshooting problems.

I have seen return on investment already, and it's a good ROI.

The cost is competitive with other vendors such as HP. I always compare prices between two vendors, and they are good in this situation.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) does not play a role in my organization's AI initiative. I have not supported features or aspects such as AI-driven data insight, automation, or advanced workloads; it's just storage. The size of my company is 10,000 users and approximately 1,000 servers. 

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

The use case for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is for most applications, including policy management, end user needs, file management, forensics extraction, analysis, smartphones, and media applications.

The benefit to our organization from using Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is that we can execute our jobs and activities effectively because we have the necessary capacity. With this latest technology, we can execute our activities in a better form.

The most helpful feature of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is the integration with ECS, now called ObjectScale, because we can implement Tier functionality. This allows us to move data between hot areas and cold storage areas, which is a very good resource for us.

I would make Dell PowerScale (Isilon) better by improving SmartSync in the graphical user interface. Currently, everything has to be done through the command line, and I prefer having a graphical interface.

I have been using Dell PowerScale (Isilon) for six months.

I find Dell PowerScale (Isilon) to be very stable and reliable. We have not had any problems in six months.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) does grow with our business needs. We currently have Isilon, and with the purchase of Dell PowerScale (Isilon), we can expand our environment significantly. It is very scalable.

I have not used customer service and support for Dell PowerScale (Isilon) yet, but I don't anticipate that we will have any problems.

On a scale of one to ten, with one being worst and ten being best, I would rate Dell PowerScale (Isilon) a ten. It is perfect.