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Dell PowerScale vs Hitachi Content Platform 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
7.2
Number of Reviews
232
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
Dell PowerScale
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
NAS (1st), File and Object Storage (1st)
Hitachi Content Platform
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (16th)
 

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.
RahulSharma8 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Platform Engineer at Expedia Group
Unified file sharing has simplified multi-tenant access and has delivered seamless data replication
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) includes its replication features; when we decommissioned our old Isilon cluster, we migrated all of the data to a new cluster, and it was pretty seamless. All you have to do is create the certificates and make those certificates available to the target cluster, then initiate a few jobs. The inter-cluster replication feature, called SyncIQ, allows you to set up all of the jobs and move your data entirely, either timely or all at once. Another suitable feature is the ability to back up your directories; you can take snapshots for all of your directories, and in fact, I believe you can take around a thousand snapshots for a single directory. The inter-replication, geo-replication is one feature. Dell provides a variety class of hardware suitable for your workloads, meaning if your data is just lab and not critical, you don't have to spend much on the hardware; conversely, if your data is mission-critical, you can buy a high-performance node from Dell. Additionally, you can span Dell PowerScale (Isilon) cluster to a large number of nodes, and code upgrades are pretty smooth because all protocols will be upgraded under a single piece of code. Since it provides a single file system that spans across the nodes, you don't have to worry about that directory structure being separately created on individual nodes, making it a fitting solution for a data lake solution because you can access the same data from multiple protocols.
EB
Storage Enginner at BNP Paribas
Archive data reliably for years and have trusted support simplifying complex deployments
An application that can do the monitoring and reporting interface for Hitachi Content Platform would be beneficial. Hitachi Content Platform monitor or intelligent monitoring is known, and deployment of this was attempted, but it appears that Hitachi abandoned this project, so it is not in use. The potential of that application was great, but it does not cover everything. When Hitachi was asked about it, they indicated there is no application in the project they will start to develop for this purpose, and they redirected to Prometheus. They shared some Prometheus metrics that can be integrated with Grafana to get some metrics on Hitachi Content Platform, but having a dedicated interface from Hitachi itself would be great, similar to what other vendors provide. The upgrade process for Hitachi Content Platform is too long. When upgrading for just two mandatory versions, it took weeks because all nodes had to be restarted. A hardware support tool is necessary every time upgrading to another version, and it is not practical for the production environment. A large downtime must be predicted and the application team must be asked to stop and suspend their technical batches, which takes a lot of time to do.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We find the ease of usability and setup valuable."
"The Direct FlashArray stands out as one of the best features in the market. The Pure1 storage management lets us see the details about utilization and everything else for all 40 storage boxes in one place."
"Compared to other storage boxes, Everpure FlashArray is very useful because it is cost-effective and requires less work."
"We like the data reduction rates. That has been really helpful. You get 4U of Pure storage replacing something like two racks of spinning disks. One of the things that has contributed to that are the data reduction rates."
"I appreciate the ease of provisioning storage on Pure Storage FlashArray."
"We've had different types of storage, and three things of this solution are valuable. The first one is its outstanding performance. The second one is its stability. In the about three years that we've had it, we've had component failures, but we never had a service interruption or any data loss. The third one, which is really critical, is that it is super easy to use in terms of provisioning, storage, and managing the arrays. I'm able to maintain a multi-site environment with a couple of dozen arrays with a single mid-level storage admin."
"I find two features of Pure Storage most valuable. The first is the "safe mode" function, and the second is its simplicity."
"This solution has improved the way our organization functions through its reliability and consistent platform for storage and has helped us to simplify storage because the management tools make everything a lot easier."
"PowerScale, in our infrastructure, is really a winning piece because today we have three times the performance on the I/O at an affordable price while greatly improving the performance and reliability of our HPC storage."
"This has been a valuable solution for our business overall. It offers business continuity and replication features."
"The tool's most valuable features are scalability and stability."
"Dell PowerScale's performance is good."
"The features that I have mentioned improve my company through the reliability of the storage; it is always available, and it works, which is the important thing."
"Dell PowerScale offers several advantages, particularly regarding AI-driven data insights, automation, and advanced workloads."
"With Dell PowerScale, there is no concern about whether the system is running; Dell PowerScale operates in all circumstances, and we have experienced six years of zero seconds of downtime."
"The recent introduction of inline deduplication and compression has drastically improved our efficiency ratios to make it an economical product. This solution has also had a positive impact on our employees' productivity because it reduces the amount of admin that our staff needs to handle."
"The platform helps in efficient data management with the ease of server provisioning."
"The Hitachi Content Platform is a stable and reliable solution."
"As an architect, I like the management features that come with Hitachi Content Platform because it makes things easy."
"The product provides the fastest technology."
"In all my experience and feedback from customers, we are confident that this product is very good."
"The main selling point is its compatibility with different environments. It functions like an on-prem Google Drive or Dropbox built on top of the object storage."
"Other than that, everything is perfect."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the versioning and the ransomware protection."
 

Cons

"The best way to improve Pure Storage FlashArray is the active DR because that can get very confusing, especially when you're trying to test a failover and replicate back; better instructions on how to do that would help because we actually lost an entire volume when we were testing out some stuff as the fingerprint got reinitialized, and when you replicated back, it didn't know about that volume, causing a failure in that process."
"It falls far short of protocol support."
"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."
"They are doing some stuff with containers and an object search. These could be improved, because containers is one of the main topics that we are talking with our customers about."
"I would like the ability to swap out the network adapters into it. So, without taking out the whole controller, I would like to be able to swap adapters. This would make things easier."
"It doesn’t provide enough information on performance analytics. For example, Nimble Storage has Infosight, which provides data; Pure Storage doesn’t have an equivalent."
"The interface lacks the same level of control as some other arrays I've used."
"For large storage needs, it is expensive."
"It would be good to have synchronized mirroring between two clusters without using a third-party program."
"We lost our technical sales reps about two years ago. We haven't gotten one assigned to us and we'd love to have one."
"I would appreciate seeing improvements in Dell PowerScale, particularly because it has been weak with small file writes."
"Version upgrades and patches take a long time to complete."
"Dell's customer service needs improvement."
"I have escalated questions to the technical support team of Dell, and I find the support center to be very poor compared to what it was during EMC's time."
"The solution lacks a cloud version."
"The pricing is expensive, but I think it's a fair value because it does manage itself."
"The solution could use more integration with clouds."
"This product's ability to track logs for access could be differentiating and still needs to be improved, but that probably doesn't exist on any product in its class either."
"The only thing is that it should be more cost effective."
"Although they claim to provide NFS, the actual implementation requires an additional gateway, which makes it a costly solution."
"The user interface isn't as user-friendly, and the management platform UI isn't as intuitive as others. So it can be more user-friendly."
"The pricing of the solution could be better."
"There is room for improvement in the capacity for integration with other platforms."
"I would advise anyone using this solution to get proper glue. For that process, when you have to have the right glue and you come up with a complete solution - Hitachi can be a bit painful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO)."
"FlashArray is expensive, but the quality justifies the price."
"The cost has room for improvement."
"It is a more expensive solution, but it is worth it. You are getting what you paid for."
"It's priced higher than the market."
"My organization has a yearly license, but I believe that Pure Storage FlashArray has capacity-based licenses as well. I'm definitely happy with the pricing."
"The pricing of Pure Storage is all-inclusive. It is very fair, and very easy. In comparison, Dell EMC has licensing that needs to be added if you wan to work in a complex environment or in specific functionalities."
"Price per terabyte is substantially higher than their competition. We would like to see it drop."
"The price of the solution can fluctuate. The price can be competitive or other times not. The price of the solution could be better."
"Dell PowerScale is an expensive solution compared to other products like Qumulo."
"The solution's licensing cost varies based on capacity and performance requirements."
"The pricing is excellent."
"The price of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is reasonable."
"The pricing for this solution is reasonable."
"It is a really expensive solution."
"Our company finds the pricing high, but it decreases over time."
"Pricing is comparable to other solutions in the market."
"Overall, it's costly."
"The product’s cost is average."
"I think the ROI for this solution is very good because the pricing for it is in between other solutions."
"Hitachi is more expensive than StorageGRID."
"The pricing could be better."
"The price of the Hitachi Content Platform is very high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
 

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 Business31
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise66
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise5
 

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 PowerScale (Isilon)?
I think the price is reasonable. We procured this during the time of COVID, around 2022, and the price was very compe...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
The disadvantage that I felt is not hardware-related. I feel that Dell needs to focus on the service aspects. Once th...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)?
Dell PowerScale is used for keeping our company data. Continental is an automotive company, and we keep recording fil...
What needs improvement with Hitachi Content Platform?
An application that can do the monitoring and reporting interface for Hitachi Content Platform would be beneficial. H...
What is your primary use case for Hitachi Content Platform?
Hitachi Content Platform's metadata search feature is not used in any case. It was only used in one tenant designed f...
What advice do you have for others considering Hitachi Content Platform?
Multitenancy is not understood or the term is not known in English. The overall review rating for this product is an ...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
HCP, Hitachi Vantara Content Platform, Hitachi Vantara HCP
 

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,
Rabobank, Xinhua News Agency, Kremsm'ller Industrieanlagenbau KG, KSC Commercial Internet, AIS Group, Shanghai Interactive Television Co. Ltd (SiTV), China Telecom, Spin Master
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerScale vs. Hitachi Content Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.