Dell Technologies presents Dell PowerScale (replacing EMC Isilon) as a scale-out NAS solution and server technology that provides the flexibility of a software-defined architecture with accelerated hardware innovations to harness the value of data.
Isilon Systems was acquired by EMC in 2010; some EMC Isilon NAS appliances are still available and supported under the PowerScale brand.
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QNAP NAS
Score 8.7 out of 10
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QNAP offers a wide array of network-attached storage units for SMBs, home, and enterprise.
EMC Isilon Scale-Out NAS is well suited for larger files (greater the 128 Kb) and where you need to have everything in one common name space. Where it is less appropriate is for many small files (millions of files less than 128 Kb in size) - this causes the protection level to becoming mirroring, which will cost more space.
We save a lot of money using QNAP for the backup of Virtual machines. We installed a QNAP in the datacenter of our Cloud Provider and the cost of the backup and storage that we use is, at least, 1/10 of the cost that we had in the past. We can choose what kind of drives we can install, so if we want affordable we can use 5400/7200 hard drives, if we need speed we can use SSD drives.
Quick solutions can be produced with flexible storage pools
It can create a powerful customizable system on its own, along with connectivity features and add-ons.
A powerful customizable system can be created with flexible connectivity features and add-ons.
Advanced user management can be easily provided either in its own interface or on the domain.
It can take on the role you want with its integrated modes or add-ons that you can install later.
Most wonderful feature, advanced support service, we never had any unsolved problems and the support engineer was always interested, followed one to one
With web, ssh, ftp, winscp connections, you can easily access in any environment.
Some upgrades require the entire cluster to be rebooted simultaneously. In this day and age, that should not be necessary. This is my biggest disappointment with Isilon to date.
When using multiple storage pools you have to be very careful with your capacity management. Filling up one pool can cause an overflow of data to a pool that is less performance driven. Do not underestimate your capacities or you will find yourself in a tight spot.
Block size is almost always an issue with Isilon. It does not handle all types of data well. In many cases PACS and VNA data is best to be stored on a different storage platform that will utilize the capacity more efficiently that Isilon is capable of.
Deduplication seems to be less efficient on Isilon than on other platforms for similar types of data.
QNAP NAS is a really good product, but I think the best part is the support for the products. Whenever I have a question or imagine something that won't happen, I can ask the support side. When the support engineer understands what I want to do, he does his best.
Raw disk space vs. logical disk space ratio was significantly better on the Isilon. Fast cache using SSD drives for faster searching is available on the Isilon but not available on the Overland solution. Isilon solution included faster backend switching between nodes.
