Huawei OceanStor vs IBM FlashSystem comparison

Huawei and IBM are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Huawei is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.8, while IBM is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.5. Huawei holds a 2.2% mindshare in AFS, compared to IBM’s 6.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Huawei users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of IBM users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

IBM FlashSystem and Huawei OceanStor compete in the data storage solutions category. IBM FlashSystem is preferred for its pricing and support, whereas Huawei OceanStor is chosen for its superior features.

Features: IBM FlashSystem offers performance, reliability, and easy integration. Huawei OceanStor includes advanced data protection, high scalability, and rich functionalities.

Room for Improvement: IBM FlashSystem needs more scalability flexibility, better reporting tools, and enhanced adaptability. Huawei OceanStor would benefit from a more intuitive configuration process, reduced complexity for new users, and easier management.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM FlashSystem provides straightforward deployment and robust customer service. Huawei OceanStor requires a steeper learning curve, indicating IBM offers a smoother deployment experience, whereas Huawei's support may need to be more accessible.

Pricing and ROI: IBM FlashSystem is cost-effective with satisfactory ROI. Huawei OceanStor requires higher upfront investment but delivers strong ROI through its extensive capabilities. Each product appeals differently based on user priorities for initial setup costs versus long-term return.

To learn more, read our detailed Huawei OceanStor vs. IBM FlashSystem Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Huawei OceanStor vs. IBM FlashSystem

March 2025

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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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Huawei OceanStor is 2.2%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem is 6.7%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature

One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.

Read full review

ChukwuemekaOnyemelukwe

Infrastructure Administrator - Server, Storage & Virtualization at MicroAccess Ltd

Uses a proprietary technology with simple interface and has easy deployment

If you are not generating a substantial amount of data, the available storage space might suffice, making scalability less of a concern. However, if your data generation increases and you require more storage, Huawei OceanStor offers solutions to expand your storage capacity. Expanding storage resources can involve additional costs and configuration efforts. Acquiring more storage solutions and ensuring their integration with your existing setup might require a significant investment of time and resources. While this process can be complex, it allows for seamless scalability as your data storage needs grow. I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

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Raanan Sitton

Vice President Sales at BELOCAL LTD

Offers cost-effective storage for small companies with budget constraints

IBM FlashSystem 5300 is offered at a very low cost in Israel, which is advantageous for small companies. However, other features like deduplication and compression do not perform effectively. The price sensitivity makes it a viable option for clients with budgetary constraints, as it allows us to secure deals based on the cost rather than advanced performance.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."

"FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle."

"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"Huawei is much cheaper compared to Dell, offering a competitive price that makes companies consider their options."

"The performance and ease of management are the most valuable features."

"It is easy to implement or install the tool."

"If your virtual machine that resides on it completely fills the storage space, thanks to it's built-in function of all-zero data space reclamation, you just have to ask to System Engineer to run a zero-free on hosts (thin provisioned) and you will get more space instantaneously."

"The solution works well for non-critical applications that do not require a heavy workload. The tool's all features are valuable."

"OceanStor can be used as NAS and SAN storage at the same time, with both file and block features in the same box."

"Huawei OceanStor is easy to manage."

"The most valuable feature of Huawei OceanStor is the hybrid applications."

More Huawei OceanStor pros

"I would recommend it to other users."

"The performance of the All-Flash System is very good. There is more enhanced performance and data production in the solution, which I appreciate."

"This solution is very stable."

"No queuing and high ops, speed, and performance."

"IBM FlashSystem is a powerful effective storage solution. Additionally, it is user-friendly, anyone can use it."

"The most valuable features are, of course, the virtualization of the storage, the performance, and the compression."

"They have a virtualization feature and, even if you do not want to buy that feature, you can have it as a trial for two to three months. If you have another brand of storage from another company, you can use this tool to transfer all your data from the old system to the new Storwize system, which really shortens the migration time."

"We are a 100% satisfied with the stability of the solution."

More IBM FlashSystem pros

Cons

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."

"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."

"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."

"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."

"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."

"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."

"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."

"I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The management is not a good feature in all of Huawei products. It's not easy or simple. Huawei has some problems with management and handling storage information from one interface."

"The overall price of the solution should be reduced."

"The user interface is not so user friendly."

"The technical support has been a let down for us. It's something the company has to work on. We haven't been satisfied with their level of service."

"CFS integration is one area where OceanStor has some room for improvement. The CFS on OceanStor is dedicated, so it's not integrated with the existing active directory domain."

"Its data replication features work slowly for nodes."

"Technical support could be more helpful."

"Configuration complexity and the tools available."

More Huawei OceanStor cons

"A big area for improvement is that the data reduction pool feature is not recommended for use in a production environment because it has stability and performance issues."

"The initial setup is complex."

"The customer's expectations are what they get on the cloud, they're expecting even in the on-premises deployments, going forward."

"The GUI needs some improvement. An additional function that could be helpful is reducing the time it takes to delete volumes, especially if they are compressed or deduplicated."

"It could be easier to implement."

"The GUI for monitoring performance metrics could provide better visibility. For example, it doesn't let me segregate the IOPS per volume."

"We use some open-source tools for monitoring, such as Grafana and it should be bundled along with IBM FlashSystem."

"I think the only thing the developers can look at, is that it is limited to 25 gigabytes currently. In the next release they might want to increase that."

More IBM FlashSystem cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."

"The product is expensive."

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"Huawei's prices are very good compared to those of its competitors."

"The product is cheap."

"Pricing is very fair."

"The pricing depends on the features the customer wants, such as storage, RAM, and processors, but in general, Huawei is much cheaper compared to Dell and Cisco."

"This product value matches its price."

"Overall, the solution's pricing was cheaper."

"Huawei OceanStor is a cost-effective storage solution."

"It's roughly affordable."

More Huawei OceanStor pricing and cost advice

"The cost is pretty high in terms of licensing. We pay at least $100,000 USD in licensing fees for the storage."

"The price of IBM FlashSystem is reasonable."

"They've been much more aggressive in the last five, six years than they were before that."

"The cost of the IBM FlashSystem is lower than the HPE solution."

"I find the pricing of the solution to be very reasonable."

"Our customers would like IMB FlashSystem to be less expensive."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"For a yearly license, it is about $100,000. There are no additional costs. The entire system is included."

More IBM FlashSystem pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

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What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...

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What do you like most about Huawei OceanStor?

Huawei OceanStor has the capability of SSDs, high-performance disks, and higher disk support.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Huawei OceanStor?

Huawei OceanStor's pricing is very aggressive, making it highly competitive.

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What needs improvement with Huawei OceanStor?

Huawei currently lacks a solution for high-performance AI, unlike other companies like DDN, WekaIO, or IBM BlueStore....

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What do you like most about IBM FlashSystem?

It is simple to make an update.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem?

Many factors affect purchasing directly from IBM, often involving a multi-step process. Customers, especially in bank...

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What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem?

The GUI needs some improvement. An additional function that could be helpful is reducing the time it takes to delete ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 32% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 7% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs Huawei OceanStor

Compared 23% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Huawei OceanStor

Compared 21% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Huawei OceanStor

Compared 14% of the time

HPE StoreOnce vs Huawei OceanStor

Compared 6% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Huawei OceanStor

Compared 5% of the time

More Huawei OceanStor Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 24% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 8% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 8% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 8% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 2% of the time

More IBM FlashSystem Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

March 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Huawei OceanStor

March 2025

Download Huawei OceanStor product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem

March 2025

Download IBM FlashSystem product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

OceanStor Dorado V3 All-Flash Storage System, OceanStor 18000 V3 Series Storage Systems, OceanStor 6800 V3 Storage System

IBM Storwize

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

Pure Storage

OceanStor Dorado V3 is the industry's first all-flash storage that puts NVMe into commercial use. It is specially designed for enterprises' mission-critical businesses, meeting the most-demanding performance and reliability requirements of databases, VDI, server virtualization, and SAP HANA.

Huawei

IBM FlashSystem products are enterprise computer data storage systems that store data on flash memory chips. Unlike storage systems that use standard solid-state drives, IBM FlashSystem products incorporate custom hardware based on technology from the 2012 acquisition of Texas Memory Systems. This hardware provides performance, reliability, and efficiency benefits versus competitive offerings.

IBM

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Piraeus, Clinique Univeritaires Saint-Luc

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

Buyer's Guide

Huawei OceanStor vs. IBM FlashSystem

March 2025

Free Report: Huawei OceanStor vs. IBM FlashSystem

Find out what your peers are saying about Huawei OceanStor vs. IBM FlashSystem and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

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