We performed a comparison between Dell PowerScale (Isilon) and FreeNAS based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two NAS solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The best thing is that it works. We don't have to maintain it too much; we usually upgrade once a year."
"We use the solution internally to support our own managed servers and run our own support center."
"The flexibility and the user-friendly interface are the most valuable features."
"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."
"It has allowed us to have more consistent quality controls. It has also allowed us to expand the number of servers in clients processing and accessing data, allowing us to get a lot bigger projects out the door."
"The most valuable feature we started using, beyond the initial scope for the solution, is the multi-protocol system that allows you to access the same set of files using different network protocols like NFS or SMB. PowerScale’s Unified Permission Model ensures that data security and access permissions are honoured regardless of whether the client is a Windows desktop or a Linux server"
"It's easy to manage. The web UI is very intuitive, and there's CLI also that you can use to manage it."
"You plug in a new node and data starts migrating over to it, and IT spreads out the load. We've added multiple nodes to the system since deploying it. The process is pretty seamless, and we are able to do it with no downtime. It's a very easy process to do."
"It integrates well into either Windows or Linux environments."
"FreeNAS is much simpler and easier to use than other solutions, but we don't have the complete range of features that come with the full version."
"Its stability is the most valuable. It is reliable, and we don't have to worry too much about it."
"It has the best storage capacity."
"The ease of use of the 'jail', the management of backups, and copies to easily create test and pre-production scenarios have speeded up the development and distribution of business apps."
"The solution has been very stable so far."
"What I like about it is that I can work on it from any computer or any device. The initial setup is very simple. The setup wizard is really helpful."
"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."
"There aren't many templates still coming out for it. They need to provide templates so we can copy and paste what we've done in the past to future, new things."
"The only thing that I think PowerScale could do better is improving the HTTP data access protocol. At the present, you cannot protect access to data via HTTP or HTTPS the same way that you can secure data access through other protocols like NFS or SMB[...]the Unified Permission Model that would allow a user to authenticate before being able to access a private file, does not apply."
"The UID mapping and how to configure mapping-related things is a struggle."
"The cost of Dell PowerScale is currently high and there is room for improvement."
"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."
"Some improvements to the NFS support would be of interest to us."
"We used to have a chat feature available on the support site. It's not available to us anymore."
"The support for S3 needs to be improved."
"FreeNAS should be better prepared for clustering."
"They can improve the integration with PSA systems. This functionality could be better."
"The one thing that I find difficult to do which is very time-consuming is that I like to have a backup of the important files."
"They should include clustering for the solution."
"The latest version of the dashboard doesn't work as good as the previous version."
"If you find the documentation, it is always incomplete and fragmented."
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is ranked 1st in NAS with 46 reviews while FreeNAS is ranked 9th in NAS with 9 reviews. Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is rated 9.0, while FreeNAS is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) writes "We can easily deploy, manage, and maintain systems without needing a huge amount of expertise to facilitate them". On the other hand, the top reviewer of FreeNAS writes "Open-source with great disk management and task synchronization". Dell PowerScale (Isilon) is most compared with NetApp FAS Series, Dell ECS, Pure Storage FlashBlade, Qumulo and HPE StoreEasy, whereas FreeNAS is most compared with StarWind Storage Appliance, HPE StoreEasy, Qumulo, NetApp FAS Series and HPE 3PAR StoreServ. See our Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs. FreeNAS report.
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