It’s 2025, data is exploding faster than your budget. You’re responsible for choosing an Enterprise Data Platform, including considering the best enterprise file storage platforms, to take your organisation into the future. And everyone has an opinion about “the cloud”.
Sounds familiar?
Finding the right enterprise storage isn’t like picking a laptop model. There are way more moving parts, legacy systems and day to day operations to consider. Get it wrong and you’re in for lengthy data migrations, vendor lock-in and cost-shock from that evil word.
Egress.
With over two decades of working with organisations managing petabytes of unstructured data, to mission critical systems, I’ve seen what works in the real world. No marketing fluff, just real honest experience.
I want to cut through the noise and talk about enterprise storage platforms that are winning and how that can help your decision making.
Enterprise File Storage Platforms: Where Most Data Actually Lives
Cloud hype aside, more enterprises still run on file storage. Why? Because, applications expect file systems, users understand folders, and workflows don’t magically disappear because someone mentioned “digital transformation” in a company presentation.
NetApp ONTAP: The Swiss Army Knife
I’ve been lucky enough to have been to the NetApp offices in Windsor. I was a disappointed that it was much nicer looking place than their neighbours Wernham Hogg in Slough
It was in greater Slough I learned about NetApp ONTAP. It’s not just storage, it’s an ecosystem, but grounded in the appliance model of building infrastructure. Simple building blocks that you can run on-prem, or deploy in the cloud. And because of NetApp’s data fabric approach you can grow any way you like.
Scale out, scale up, scale across.
The Good
Being NetApp, the support is out of this world, and the platform is bombproof. End result: IT teams can sleep at night. Don’t need a PhD to deliver in line to what your business needs
The Bad?
NetApp doesn’t come cheap. There will be conversations about “cost vs value”. But there’s a reason why the biggest companies in the world remain loyal to NetApp. They deliver time and time again, both in terms of what they promise on day one, and well after the sales rep has received their commission payment.
Dell PowerScale (Isilon): Built for Scale
If your organisation works with large unstructured datasets (think media companies, research institutions or any business that handles content), PowerScale was designed for you.
By using an appliance based system, Powerscale systems can get huge, and are nearly as easy to click together as Lego bricks. By using clever caching (NVMe combined with Nearline) they’ll claim to deliver performance for high sustained datarate workloads like video production.
I don’t entirely agree with this (which I’ll write about at another time). But, they’re good enough to keep a lot of video editors and data scientists happy. And it’s a damn site better than SharePoint
What’s the catch? No matter what Dell tell you, it’s pretty much an on-prem solution. No cloud or hybrid magic like ONTAP, and integrating with other parts of the Dell ecosystem such as their UDS Object storage is still a bit clunky. Oh, and it’s a bit more complex to manage.
The Good Bit? Dell support is up there with NetApp. So you can sleep at night. The other thing is that Dell are very easy to buy from. Chances are you’re already on some kind of Framework deal with them so you can just call up your local rep and buy some. It’s like Amazon Prime for businesses.
Qumulo: The Modern File System That Actually Gets It
The founders of Qumulo came from Isilon (which then became PowerScale). So you can see why some people call it Isilon 2.0.
They took the foundation of a the Legobrick approach to storage, and took the experience to the next level. Their UI and Analytics are out of this world. I still occasionally stare at screengrabs of the Qumulo Analytics and marvel
Their analytics engine is so tightly coupled to the filesystem, it’s completely in tune with what’s going on. There’s some serious nerdery going on with B-Trees, Metadata wizardry and real-time statistical cleverness that I definitely need to write about some time (Qumulo Software Overview)
The End Result? Visibility of DATA on a Qumulo is game-changing. It has all the usual storage platform stuff that tells you it’s alive. But you get to see what’s happening with data in real-time. They’ve finally cracked hybrid, so on-prem and cloud is possible. And this sets it apart from something like PowerScale.
The Reality Check? They’re a smaller company compared to NetApp or Dell, but they do have some big ticket customers. Being (arguably) a software only company, there’s the added complexity of needing to think about more bits of infrastructure, or needing an integrator to become your “one throat to choke” for support.
Vast Data: The Newcomer Shaking Things Up
Vast Data is doing what Qumulo has done on steroids (or some other mind-altering substance). They’ve built a platform around 100% NVMe, put all of the components into Containers, and given it clever metadata capabilities that let them not only do analytics, but also data orchestration and stuff. (Vast Whitepaper)
Being NVMe performance is pretty much linear (subject to the wider infrastructure environment. And with their containerised metadata magic, they claim they cracked the Global Namespace conundrum.
The Interesting Bit A lot of promises, enterprise scale without enterprise complexity. Single namespace that can span multiple sites. No performance degradation.
But… They’re new to the enterprise game. It’s a shiny that early adopters are happy to get behind in marketing videos. But time will tell whether they can deliver on their promise. I can’t see them stealing marketshare from NetApp, Dell or Qumulo for the core Enterprise Unstructured Storage. Only time will tell.
What Actually Matters for Your Decision
I’m going to skip feature comparison for a second. Here’s what I’d think about to help make the right decision:
Performance. If applications need microsecond response times, you’re looking at all-flash. If you’re archiving security footage, spinning disks might be fine. Match the technology to the business need, not the marketing hype.
Integration Complexity. Platforms that work with existing infrastructure and applications. The cheapest storage platform becomes expensive when you need to hire consultants to make it work within your operation.
Support Quality. If, no, WHEN storage goes down outside of business hours, vendor support that understands enterprise environments is the difference between a minor incident and a world of pain.
Vendor Viability. You’re not just buying storage – you’re choosing a technology partner for at least 5 if not 7 years. Consider the company’s financial stability, roadmap clarity, and commitment to your market segment.
Side note; early 20’s me would have found this really boring. Risk averse, sensible, strategically aligned advice. He would have said “f**k it, just roll the dice”
The Bottom Line: Choose Wisely
The best enterprise file storage platform isn’t the one with the most impressive benchmark numbers or the lowest price per terabyte. It’s the one that solves your business problems without creating new ones.
In 2025, choosing a storage platform isn’t just buying technology – you’re laying the foundation for business growth. And this growth is not powered by the storage, it’s powered by the data that’s sat on the storage. This is where the value is at.
Storage can serve your business, but it can also hold your business back.