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Dell ObjectScale vs Quantum ActiveScale comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
232
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
Dell ObjectScale
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (6th)
Quantum ActiveScale
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (27th)
 

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.
AM
Associate Vice President at Yotta Infrastructure Solutions LLP
Solution provides stable and efficient object storage with extensive API support
We have huge data of image and video files and we needed a solution for our customers. We were looking for object storage and found Dell ECS to be a very good solution Dell ECS is a very stable solution and most of the S3 APIs are supported. It is power-efficient and fits into a small space due…
reviewer1272210 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Workflow is very easy to manage and maintain with user friendly operations and functionality
I use Quantum ActiveScale for broadcast, specifically for archiving. I'm the manager of our company.  The operations and the functionality are very simple. Workflow is easy to manage and maintain. I'd like to see more integrations with different systems and for the product to be more scalable. If…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Pure Storage FlashArray is simple and easy to use. It offers protection when removing devices. It has the ability to undo deletes."
"It upgrades in place which means we'll be using it well into the future."
"Pure Storage is seen as a visionary company with leading edge technology."
"Running on Pure has given us the ability to scale out our SQL environments."
"On a scale of one to ten, where ten is the most comfortable pricing, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."
"It reduces space and the polar consumption. It also accelerates the application."
"The cost of Pure FlashArray is a bit high compared to peers, but its sustainability and features justify the price."
"The features that are there now are really what we need."
"If someone doesn't want to go on the cloud, then this is the best solution that we have in the market right now."
"The most valuable features of Dell ECS are its capability to integrate multiple protocols seamlessly with other Dell solutions like PowerScale and data domain."
"The support from Dell ECS is better than NetApp."
"The tool is easy to use."
"Dell's technical support team is good."
"The technology is very good, it performs well."
"I have found Dell ECS to be scalable."
"Dell ECS is a cost-effective solution that provides ease of use and availability."
"The operations and the functionality are very simple."
"Quantum ActiveScale is a reliable solution."
"The technology is stable which is good."
"Workflow is easy to manage and maintain."
 

Cons

"They have a product, FlashBlade, which is their object storage integration, and that's something that we haven't integrated with yet. This might be an area for additional focus as it would play into scalability, because the very nature of object storage is that it's infinitely scalable."
"There is not a great need for improvement, but better pricing could be beneficial."
"For large storage needs, it is expensive."
"We would like to see more cloud support, which we know is coming, although it's not out yet. It's going to be released in the next versions. That would be the biggest win, if additional cloud support is built into the array."
"The way Pure Storage does the controller storage warranty or replacement has been an issue for some people who just replace the controllers every couple of years, and that's where some of the confusion with pricing and support has come in. They should be clear on the way the controller replacements happen, as it is important to know whether or not you can get a good return on them, because it can be a little confusing."
"I would like to see more cloud integration."
"In the next release of the solution I would like to see Vormetric native block encryption."
"I would love to see a true one click upgrade solution. Right now, you have to click and schedule an appointment with Pure Storage to be able to upgrade. I would love for it to automatically download, install, and fall-over every controller as it updates."
"We have had issues when the ECS is expiring or the NetBackup is expiring images."
"However, hardware failures can impact the cluster, making it read-only."
"Dell ECS is not fully compatible with S3, as it supports around ninety percent of S3 APIs, which can be improved. Additionally, sometimes there is an issue with memory where it hangs, and they can improve garbage collection, which takes up a lot of space during cleanup."
"They need to ensure that the system will work if a site goes down."
"There are some limitations with integration with certain cloud providers, particularly with Google Cloud Platform in Saudi Arabia."
"The disaster recovery could be improved because there should be something in-built within the ECS. Search and recovery should be in-built. Right now, we have to use some external tools for performing the recovery itself. For example, we're using Atempo or deploying Golden Superna, so it has dependency on the external third party vendors."
"Dell EMC ECS could improve by having Relational Database Services (RDS) to review progress. Additionally, if the training was provided it would be a benefit, it would be good for our engineers."
"Dell ECS could improve the price of the solution. It is expensive."
"We would like to see a self-sufficient installation."
"The setup is very complex, it took 18 hours for the first setup."
"I'd like to see more integrations with different systems and for the product to be more scalable."
"Lacks some ability to integrate with different systems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The best features come included without any additional cost."
"We implemented Pure Storage FlashArray nine years ago when it was new to the market and obtained it at a preferential price."
"We lost a lot of customers because we couldn't compete on price with other vendors."
"I would rate the pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray a five out of ten. It is expensive but not too much."
"Price per terabyte is substantially higher than their competition. We would like to see it drop."
"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."
"I think that the pricing is less expensive compared to other standard products in the market today. Even the support contract and maintenance services cost less when compared to market-leading products like EMC."
"I would rate it a seven out of ten for pricing. It could be improved."
"If I remember correctly, Dell ECS is an appliance, so if you buy Dell ECS, you also have to buy the hardware, while IBM is standalone software, so you can buy IBM as software only without needing to buy the hardware. On a scale of one to five, I'm rating the pricing for Dell ECS a four."
"We initially purchased all of the licenses at the same time."
"It's a lease-based model, so it's capacity-based. We already negotiated the price a lot, but we're still doing that with Dell because somehow the product was not installed successfully, so there was a lot of struggle in the distributor territory between Dell and the environment itself. I would give the solution a 6 out of 10 for the pricing. There's a little room for improvement."
"We are not paying for the license at this stage."
"It is an inexpensive product."
"The charges for this solution are made in blocks of models, which are purchased depending on what features an organization requires."
"The solution's cost is quite reasonable."
"The price of Dell ECS should be reduced."
"Quantum ActiveScale is open-source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Media Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business73
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise160
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise11
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?
When comparing cost, I find that the cost is either the same or slightly higher, but that is returned by the ease of ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
The only thing I think could be improved is price. The price is the main concern for our customers.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC ECS?
The pricing is moderate and at par with the market. As a service provider, we receive good margins, indicating a favo...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC ECS?
I cannot think of anything as an area for improvement with Dell ECS. I do not see any pricing or usability concerns.
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC ECS?
Some valuable features with Dell ECS include its support for various use cases, but I would say the best features her...
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Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
EMC ECS, Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS)
ActiveScale, Quantum ActiveScale Object Storage, ActiveScale Object Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
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Find out what your peers are saying about Dell ObjectScale vs. Quantum ActiveScale and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,403 professionals have used our research since 2012.