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Dell VMAX All Flash vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell VMAX All Flash
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
30th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
26th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 6.7%, up from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell VMAX All Flash is 0.7%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is 1.2%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray6.7%
IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe1.2%
Dell VMAX All Flash0.7%
Other91.4%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
AS
Solution Architect at a agriculture with 10,001+ employees
Performance and interface improve data processing speeds but require complex configuration
The most valuable features of VMAX are its performance and GUI interface. We have seen significant improvements in technology over the last four to five years. The snap feature, along with deduplication, has notably enhanced our data processing speeds. We haven't experienced any outages or core-level issues in the last ten years, making us comfortable with the storage solution.
Yacine Bouakttaya - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer North Africa at Huawei
High-speed data processing has improved billing cycles but performance headroom still needs growth
In terms of improvement regarding IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe, I can compare with other competitors, especially regarding solution architecture. Data resiliency can be a concern because IBM can reach up to only four controllers, while others like Dell EMC can support up to eight controllers with better resiliency without service staff. Additionally, the SBC one benchmark is a storage performance console that stresses different storage solutions like Dell EMC and NetApp. It generates metrics of IOPS and latency, showing that the competition can have two million IOPS, significantly outperforming IBM's capabilities. As for the capability of scaling, we can see the limitations in reaching such high-performance levels.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Lone segmentation is simpler and more agile. It's improved the velocity in overall provisioning from project to operation."
"Their evergreen solution is probably the most needed in any industry, especially today in unprecedented times and supply chain issues, their evergreen solution is amazing."
"The solution helps to simplify storage."
"They are quite responsive and our local team was pretty good."
"I am very satisfied with this solution and I would recommend it to others."
"It's actually very stable"
"The cost of Pure FlashArray is a bit high compared to peers, but its sustainability and features justify the price."
"Pure Storage FlashArray is a good product with minimal management requirements once set up correctly and helped reduce our storage footprint from EMC."
"It works very well."
"We haven't experienced any outages or core-level issues in the last ten years, making us comfortable with the storage solution."
"The ransomware protection feature is housed in a separate unit, specifically addressing the top twenty most critical threats."
"The product's initial setup phase was good."
"The snapshot feature has been precious for our testing processes, application development, and managing testing environments due to its efficiency and ease of use."
"The most valuable features of VMAX are its performance and GUI interface."
"The technical support is good."
"What I like about the product are its high availability, maximum efficiency in performance, and its ability to handle a high level of I/O operations."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is a stable solution."
"The storage serves the virtual environment. Most of our applications run in the virtual environment, and it serves nearly 30% of the bank's capacity."
"IBM FlashSystem is an excellent product."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is easy to use and comes with good performance."
"The features I find most valuable include its use for storage and performance."
"It's easy to use, has good stability, and many features."
 

Cons

"We would like more extended historical data to help with some of the capacity planning. This is something that we are asking for all the time. E.g., what was the historical performance of this particular volume? So, we would like more historicals."
"Currently, the solution fails to support file screening."
"I feel like there is too much automation; the user doesn't have any manual input."
"When creating a support case, visibility should be extended to others involved in assisting."
"In the next version of this program, I would like to see increased security, higher encryption, and faster throughput."
"I would like to see them lower the costs."
"It is not possible to create a cluster on top of multiple arrays."
"I think replication is one area that still needs improvement. Earlier, Pure Storage FlashArray only had IP-based replication. There was no API-based replication, but they have enhanced the feature now. However, they need to work on API replication for C-type of arrays."
"The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability. We've had to procure additional engines to address this limitation."
"We encountered some challenges during large data migrations that could be addressed for smoother transitions."
"Improvements are needed in both partition recovery and scalability."
"The configuration part of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"There is room for improvement in the centralized administration."
"The storage system itself should have built-in capabilities for different ransomware attacks."
"In the FlashSystem 5200, there were only four ports of 32 fiber channels for the architecture. This has been resolved in the new generation."
"There could be a possibility of not requiring to buy a new box while upgrading to a newer version."
"Other vendors have included a block and file system. IBM doesn't include a file system."
"IBM's support is not good. I experienced a big problem where I opened the console IBM Storage and would see that something was broken. I called the call centers, and I said, "I have a problem. My drive is not working." They want me to give them the serial number, I gave it to them and they told me "I cannot find your product. Your product is not here.""
"Other vendors have included a block and file system. IBM doesn't include a file system. And yet, it's very necessary for all organizations' networks to have file systems. We have other systems for the file system, however, ideally, we would like to have one system with these features."
"Deduplication and compression should be improved."
"The tool's architecture is complex. It also needs to add data utilization reports."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When you are paying more than you were paying for the storage space, you'd like the cost to be less. If they could get into the spinning disk kind of cost, that would be it."
"We would like them to improve the pricing, so we could put them to use some more product, like backup or long-term storage. In the future, if the price goes down, then we could buy different types of products."
"The price of the solution can be a bit expensive. There is an additional fee for support."
"They have a standardized fee; it's been the same price for 10 years straight. I am happy with the price — I think it's good."
"It is a cheaper solution."
"Price is about the only thing that's wrong with it. A little bit better pricing would be great."
"Because of the SSD, it is cheaper because I am not purchasing so many disks."
"Our licensing is on a yearly basis. So, every year, we renew. We could do a three-year contract, but right now, we only do a one-year."
"It is not a cheap product."
"The price falls within the mid-range, neither inexpensive nor high-priced."
"The price of the FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable."
"Compared to its competitors, IBM's offering is the most cost-effective."
"The solution's price is competitive."
"The product has an average cost."
"There are pricing options from the mid-rand to the high-range, of which the suitability depends upon the requirements."
"Compared to other solutions, the cost of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable, with a one-time payment of around $70,000. However, additional support is available for $25,000 for three years. The overall maintenance cost is steep."
"The price of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is less than Dell. For upgrades, the Dell solutions are more expensive."
"The tool's pricing is competitive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I find the pricing of Everpure FlashArray to be quite high compared to other storage solutions; however, the reliabil...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I believe we have covered the most important features; the architecture of Pure Storage is essential, and features su...
What needs improvement with Dell EMC VMax?
The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability. We've had to procure additiona...
What is your primary use case for Dell EMC VMax?
We use the solution for SAP ERP applications. We utilize both VMAX and PowerMax for different aspects of our operations.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?
The licensing cost for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe can be seen as a bit expensive compared to competitors. You can eith...
What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?
In terms of improvement regarding IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe, I can compare with other competitors, especially regardi...
What is your primary use case for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?
There are many advantages that we have with IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe against, for example, IBM full flash systems an...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
No data available
IBM FlashSystem 9100, FlashSystem 9100
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Information Not Available
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Find out what your peers are saying about Dell VMAX All Flash vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.