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Dell EqualLogic PS series vs IBM FlashSystem comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

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

Dell EqualLogic PS series
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM FlashSystem
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
NAS (6th), All-Flash Storage (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of Dell EqualLogic PS series is 4.3%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem is 12.3%, down from 19.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM FlashSystem12.3%
Dell EqualLogic PS series4.3%
Other83.4%
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
 

Featured Reviews

Khuram Ayyaz - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Executive at Virtual University
Has enabled uninterrupted access to educational platforms and simplified storage management
Dell EqualLogic PS series is easily scalable, and we can add extra boxes and storage. It was easy to deploy during COVID. Deploying Dell EqualLogic PS series is straightforward, with no complexity involved. Dell EqualLogic PS series is a good product. We did not experience any failures in the last six to seven years, and it is still running as our storage for offline data. There are snapshot capabilities in data protection available, but we did not use that feature because it consumes much space. We have only 150 terabytes of space and simply use it to create volumes without utilizing it for snapshots. We use thin provisioning in Dell EqualLogic PS series, but I did not explore that feature further.
OmarIsmail1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Technical Specialist II at Clicks Group
Offers high performance and dependable support for fast storage needs
The most valuable feature of IBM FlashSystem is its robust back code. When integrated properly into the environment and configured according to the guidelines, it provides a very solid infrastructure that does the job on demand. Additionally, IBM FlashSystem offers competitive pricing and reliable performance. The hardware is dependable, ensuring that it functions effectively when the setup is done correctly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We were attracted by the flexibility of being able to put in a new shelf whenever we needed to, to expand."
"The technical support is very good."
"I have been using Equallogic arrays for myself and my customers for over seven years now, and they continue to be my gold standard for SMB storage."
"If you have one datacenter fail, the VMs will start to run inside the other data center."
"It is stable and scalable."
"We were attracted by the flexibility of being able to put in a new shelf whenever we needed to, to expand."
"Its high availability. It has a lot of redundancy and good management software as well as good alerting."
"The support was excellent."
"User friendly management interface."
"The valuable features for us are the extra add-ons, such as the FIM provisioning, the compression, the disaster recovery capabilities, and the storage pooling functions."
"This is probably the best unit you're going to find out there."
"We've found the solution to be very stable so far."
"IBM FlashSystem has an easy to use GUI, similar to the IBM Storewize family, which make it one of the best flash storage systems in the market."
"It's a mature product. It's like a BMW that evolves consistently."
"As a result of the accelerated read and write operations from disks, productivity across the enterprise has increased in daily work."
"The most valuable features in IBM FlashSystem are IOPS, performance, duplication, and compression."
 

Cons

"Synchronous replication uses space inefficiently."
"The searchable online documentation is missing."
"There is no inline deduplication capability."
"It is at the end of support and no longer supported. We have to move our VMware to another storage platform, and we have decided to use Dell PowerStore. We like Dell's products, and it is a new platform with a lot of features."
"6510 and 6610 have two iSCSI connections in each controller. Why do 6110xxx members have only one, and why do the same members have the possibility of having an active iSCSI interface in the passive controller? It could make a lot of noise with a failover."
"The product is reaching the end-of-lifecycle."
"Three of the four devices have been rock solid, and one of them had a string of issues that we eventually resolved."
"The performance was never very good, and its latency was higher than expected."
"If you want to expand, you cannot expand the disc enclosure. You have to buy a total individual node. Sometimes, this is difficult because we are just looking for capacity and not a node."
"The solution is quite expensive. That's one of the downsides to using it."
"It doesn't scale out that well."
"The pricing is high; storage solutions are always expensive. I do not know if the price needs to be reviewed, but it is worth considering."
"The solution is not able to replicate data in one-to-many scenario."
"We sometimes had a problem with some bugs in FlashSystems. One time, one FlashSystem was burnt up. There was some smoke and the data was damaged."
"Deduplication feature is not mature and it is significantly increasing the latency."
"The GUI for monitoring performance metrics could provide better visibility. For example, it doesn't let me segregate the IOPS per volume."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Dell EqualLogic PS series can improve its scale-out feature. Sometimes the customer has a limited budget for storage expansion. When they want to expand their capacity, they need to buy a complete controller plus storage capacity, which sometimes is out of their budget. If Dell EqualLogic PS series support could scale up the environment in which only hard drive extension controllers should be supported, then customers can expand within a lower budget."
"I don't think I would say that the product is less expensive...The product's price is not an issue for our company, considering the relationship we have with Dell and the customer support we receive."
"All features are out of the box. The license will be in the virtual, OS, or application layer."
"Initial packages include all upgrades and services."
"Price-wise, the solution is cheap. I rate it a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is very cheap, and ten is very expensive."
"There are annual maintenance costs beyond the original licensing period."
"I didn't buy it. It was another person seven years ago. So, I don't really know, but all storage platforms cost a lot of money. It is probably in the mid-range, but you get what you pay for."
"​It is a fair price."
"Our customers would like IMB FlashSystem to be less expensive."
"Among IBM, Dell EMC, and Pure Storage, IBM is the cheapest. The price is also based on our location, the size of our entity, and our regular annual purchases from them. We are a very big IBM customer, so we normally get very high discounts. We are not a big customer of Pure Storage. We don't buy that much from Pure Storage per year. Everything is included in the price. There is no extra license for different functions."
"The cost of the IBM FlashSystem is lower than the HPE solution."
"This is an expensive product and if the price were reduced it would be better."
"The solution requires a license and could be less expensive."
"The pricing may be a bit higher than other brands. If you compare the IBM FlashSystems in midrange with Dell EMC in midrange, IBM costs a bit more, but I prefer IBM because it has more specs that I can benefit from."
"The price of IBM FlashSystem is a little high because you pay a premium because the solution is from IBM. We had paid for the SLA prior to using the solution."
"I would rate the pricing of this solution a four out of five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise59
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell EqualLogic PS series?
The technical support for the solution was really good.
What needs improvement with Dell EqualLogic PS series?
I do not have anything in mind regarding new capabilities for Dell products at this time.
What is your primary use case for Dell EqualLogic PS series?
We are essentially a university, and we have deployed Dell EqualLogic PS series in our data centers to run our production sites, student portals, websites, our on-premises portal, and campus manage...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem?
The pricing is high; storage solutions are always expensive. I do not know if the price needs to be reviewed, but it is worth considering.
What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem?
As far as I know, IBM FlashSystem has already improved, but I do not see room for improvement. It is simple to use and manage via SVC, simple to configure, and even for the zoning, I do not see imp...
 

Also Known As

EqualLogic PS series
IBM Storwize
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

FAW Foundry, AW Engineering, Unimat, eLongNet Information Technology, BDO Brasil, Odyssey Space Research
Celero, Friedhelm Loh Group, Clarks, Mingkang Natregro Health Food Group, Sofia, Etisalat Fights Fraud, UF Health Shands Hospital, Generali, Elecon Engineering Company Limited, Ventiv , Technology, CPFL Energia, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., SciQuest, Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated, Paddy Power, Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, Interconnect Services, Severstal IP-Only AB, PVU Group GmbH
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell EqualLogic PS series vs. IBM FlashSystem and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.