TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Dell Compellent (discontinued)

    Score8 out of 10
    N/ASince it's acquisition in 2011 Compellent became a Dell product line of storage solutions (e.g. Dell Compellent Storage Center). Compellent products became part of the Dell EMC SC Series of enterprise flash and SAN storage devices and are now EOL.N/A

    FreeNAS

    Score5.4 out of 10
    N/AFreeNAS is an open source operating system that allows nearly any hardware serve as a network-attached storage device. It was developed by iXsystems.N/A
    Pricing
    Dell Compellent (discontinued)FreeNAS
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Dell Compellent (discontinued)FreeNAS
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    Dell Compellent (discontinued)FreeNAS
    Enterprise Flash Array Storage
    Comparison of Enterprise Flash Array Storage features of Dell Compellent (discontinued) and FreeNAS
    Feature
    Dell Compellent (discontinued)
    8.3
    3 Ratings
    7% below category average
    FreeNAS
    -
    Ratings
    Flash Array Performance8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Flash Array Integration8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data Compression8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Non-Intrusive Upgrades8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Simplicity9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Power Savings9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Dell Compellent (discontinued)FreeNAS
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    DiskStation
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Everpure FlashArray
    Score8.2 out of 10
    DiskStation
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Everpure FlashArray
    Score8.2 out of 10
    DiskStation
    Score8.8 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Dell Compellent (discontinued)FreeNAS
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (6 ratings)
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    Support Rating
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Dell Compellent (discontinued)FreeNAS
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Discontinued Products
    All in all this series great in addressing issues applications that need flash storage as a backend storage supply. It addresses the need for fast, responsive servers that need to boot quickly. It is easy to use and for the most part there are few issues and none that can't be addressed/fixed quickly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iXsystems
    FreeNAS is well suited for most storage serving scenarios, whether it be for an office file server, backup destinations, data replication across the internet, or as backend storage for virtual machines. It can serve various types of clients via a plethora of standard protocols and can easily integrate with existing infrastructure using LDAP authentication and so on. It's pretty simple to use (it helps to have at least a basic understanding of the underlying technologies) and almost maintenance-free. One scenario that springs to mind that it may not be appropriate for (yet) is as S3 storage. However, S3 functionality was added in a recent release and may have improved greatly since then. I'm sure it will eventually work very well for this.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Discontinued Products
    • Dell Compellent support (Co-Pilot) and the add-on service (Optimize) are critical services that Dell Compellent does very well. Alerts from the array are sent to Co-Pilot where tickets are automatically generated and customers are notified of events. Of greater importance at times is the proactive support Co-Pilot and Optimize provide by contacting us of inefficiencies in the array and consulting on resolutions.
    • Enterprise Manager (Dell's "single pane of glass" management framework) is a useful tool for configuration/evaluation of the array and other Compellent products.
    • Ease of management. From firmware upgrades to managing server volumes the process is much simpler than with other arrays.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iXsystems
    • The FreeNAS web interface is modern looking. It makes tasks like provisioning drives into raid volumes easy.
    • The ZFS raid option allows you to add in an SSD as a cache drive to increase performance.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Discontinued Products
    • The GUI could be a little more updated with a lot more information regarding usage.
    • There could be some assistance with high I/O times where snapshots go to consolidate. There seems to be issues when that attempts to occur, and there will times where the virtual machine stuns due to the I/O intensity.
    • Modification of multiple volumes or the creation of multiple volumes is a pain in the DSM management console.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iXsystems
    • Not good for beginners as it requires deep understanding of networking and storage.
    • Most of the good and required features are not available in free version.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Discontinued Products
    This is not solely based on the support engineers themselves but more so that the logging and gotcha's that their array has. There have been multiple times where logs are pulled, but the folder is not large enough, and it crashes the array. Other times there are certain aspects that support either does not know of or isn't knowledgable about how to look at particular issues that could be causing problems.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iXsystems
    There were some things that can be found by other users on forums and Google and some things that were not.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Discontinued Products
    We selected Compellent solely based on price. Honestly I would rate it only slightly better than a QNAP we used (which was even cheaper). If performance and reliability are factors in your decision (and they should be) I would recommend looking at something like a VNXe.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iXsystems
    FreeNAS effectively uses all resources really well and it is highly recommended for in premises NAS. It has unlimited ROI as it is really free and open-source. The only payment we need to pay is when we need any support from those guys. FreeNAS helps us to effectively do our work with the legacy systems as it manages all the components really well. FreeNAS although rebranded to TrueNAS will still be there until our legacy systems run.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Discontinued Products
    • The SC9000 has been able to serve our current and futures needs well enough to not need to upgrade anytime soon.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iXsystems
    • Low-Cost Network Attached Storage
    • Provides additional network storage to support client & business operations
    • FreeNAS secures our data using custom encryption keys
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots