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Dell PowerScale vs IBM Storage Fusion comparison

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Executive Summary

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)
IBM Storage Fusion
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (31st)
 

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.
Branko Cirovic - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Engineer at Comtrade Group
Enables seamless file distribution while benefiting from scalability but could use simplified implementation
IBM Storage Fusion is used in telecoms. It is a file center that receives and shares files. It is also used for writing the CDR zone on the storage, since it offers a cost-effective solution for large-scale storage needs in a telecom setup The deployment of Storage Fusion has been new for us in…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like its speed. It has all the features that I need."
"The performance and the ever-growing maintenance are the most valuable features of this solution."
"Once it's set up, it just runs on its own and only requires the occasional checkup."
"The initial setup was really straight forward."
"Non-disruptive upgrades: You can upgrade at anytime without worry."
"We were previously on legacy storage systems, and after moving to Pure Storage, our stability and performance both drastically improved."
"This storage has to be the most well thought out and effective storage that I have had the privilege to work with."
"The intuitive way of managing storage is what I appreciate about Pure Storage FlashArray, along with the clever use of flash modules, and absolutely the data reduction, because they are using that in a very clever way to do compression and deduplication."
"Of all the components in our IT system, it's probably the least troublesome."
"I assess the stability and reliability of Dell PowerScale as top-notch, as the only issues we have ever had are just failed drives, which is to be expected."
"The solution's scalability is very good."
"I rate Dell PowerScale (Isilon) a ten out of ten, and we continue to keep buying it."
"The solution is extremely easy to manage. This is its most valuable feature."
"This has really changed the way our company can acquire and process data in the field, allowing us to differentiate ourselves against all our competitors."
"The features of Dell PowerScale that I appreciate most are the expandability, which allows me to establish a foundational baseline and then add capacity as needed."
"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."
"Fusion provides the ability to install the secret server and distribute files; it serves as a black box where tickets are opened only if issues arise, reducing frequent upgrade problems."
 

Cons

"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 only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can save their investment."
"The latest release contains bugs that shouldn't be in a production environment. Two incidents impacted our client, including hardware-related bugs. They need to be more cautious in testing before they release."
"If they could make it cheaper, that would be something."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve some aspects. There are certain features that are good and there are some features that I see some issues with at the technical level. Those issues are related to replication. They need to resolve those issues, which I have already highlighted to the Pure team. Additionally, there are some issues in the active cluster that could improve."
"We understand that they're thinking about it, but one of the things that would be nice is if they added some basic file-level capabilities to the platform. The idea is that they would run a basic NFS or CIF share from the controllers. FlashBlade is the powerhouse for File and Object storage, but if you don't need all that power, a lightweight file function would make FlashArrays more versatile."
"It's not so scalable. It's got moderate scaling capabilities right now. The clustering technology needs a bit of work, they need to improve that."
"The solution is not cheap."
"The solution isn't suitable for small environments or small customers."
"An example of something that is problematic at the moment or that I would want to see improved is that there needs to be further delineation between access zones and settings."
"The hardest challenge we have is due to how we've bought things over time. The way that we moved to the PowerEdge platform for the newer systems creates a scale problem as I still buy the older style systems, which are more dense storage."
"The legacy file system for Epsilon didn't scale into the cloud and didn't have a separate OS. It would be key if this was made possible."
"There is room for improvement in its handling of object storage."
"We have issues in Brazil with the procurement of solutions because we have to check the entire market and justify the pricing to our audit institutions, making it difficult to keep with the same vendor."
"The replication could lend itself to some improvement around encryption in transit and managing the racing of large volumes of data. The process of file over and file back can be tedious. Hopefully, you never end up going into a DR. If you do go into a DR, you know the data is there on the remote site. However, in terms of the process of setting up the replicates and filing them back, that is just very tedious and could definitely do with some improvement."
"The technical support is average. There are certainly not the best that we have ever dealt with, but far from the worst ones."
"The implementation is complex, especially when using custom servers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You get what you pay for. It is expensive, but it really works."
"The Evergreen Storage subscription is a really cool concept. As long as we maintain our subscription, we will get new controllers every three years and really never have a forklift upgrade like we currently are doing. Just that future-proofing is an ease off of my mind to know that I won't have to do what I'm dong right now again."
"Price per terabyte is substantially higher than their competition. We would like to see it drop."
"The Evergreen Storage subscription is great, because then I get new controllers every three years."
"Pure has been flexible with us on the pricing models."
"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."
"It is cheaper than NetApp."
"Because the price is a bit higher than other products, the data reduction equalizes the price with amount of the data reduction."
"The pricing is expensive, but I think it's a fair value because it does manage itself. It definitely is much simpler than any of the other scale-out storage platforms that we've looked at in the past."
"The pricing is excellent."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The price of the solution can fluctuate. The price can be competitive or other times not. The price of the solution could be better."
"The price of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is reasonable."
"Pricing for this solution is reasonable."
"Dell PowerScale is an expensive solution compared to other products like Qumulo."
"Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is an expensive solution."
Information not available
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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%
Outsourcing Company
18%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
University
11%
 

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
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 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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Storage Fusion?
Compared to other options, purchasing IBM Storage Fusion, along with necessary hardware and maintenance, comes with a...
What needs improvement with IBM Storage Fusion?
The implementation is complex, especially when using custom servers. Simplification or better support for this aspect...
What is your primary use case for IBM Storage Fusion?
IBM Storage Fusion is used in telecoms. It is a file center that receives and shares files. It is also used for writi...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
PowerScale, Dell EMC Isilon
No data available
 

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,
1. Accenture 2. Aetna 3. AIG 4. Airbus 5. Allstate 6. Amazon 7. American Express 8. ATT 9. Bank of America 10. Barclays 11. BASF 12. Bayer 13. Bechtel 14. Boeing 15. BNP Paribas 16. Cisco 17. Coca-Cola 18. Comcast 19. Dell 20. Deutsche Bank 21. Eni 22. ExxonMobil 23. Ford 24. GE 25. Google 26. Hitachi 27. Honeywell 28. IBM 29. Intel 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. Lockheed Martin
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Red Hat, Nutanix and others in File and Object Storage. Updated: October 2026.
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