IBM FlashSystem vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe comparison

"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."

"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

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

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."

"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."

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

"I rate the technical support from IBM as a ten."

"IBM FlashSystem is flexible, quick, and has a solid design."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is compression."

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

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

"The most crucial feature of IBM FlashSystem is compression."

"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."

"The most valuable feature in demand is virtualization and its support storage of virtualization features."

"The most valuable feature of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is the snapshot. We use it daily for all of the storage units."

"Good performance with a user-friendly UI."

"The solution is more available for IOPS warehousing, resolving issues, and reporting than other products."

"The most valuable features of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe are its steady performance and usefulness in high-traffic environments."

"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."

"The high performance and high availability improved our overall processes."

"It is a very stable solution."

"A key feature is that compared to storage systems that we've been familiar with over decades, IBM simply does not fail. The reason is that IBM is the only manufacturer that engineers its own flash module, and there is a key architectural difference from everything else that we have seen in the market. The difference is that the flash module has the computational capability, which allows reliability and capacity enhancements to be uploaded from the main controllers and run in each module. So, each of the flash drives becomes its own little storage system, and that is extremely effective architecture. In this field, with this type of system, IBM has made a statement. They've never had one of these modules cause an outage. So, the failure rates on these things are just in a whole different universe from what we were accustomed to."

"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."

"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."

"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."

"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."

"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."

"The deduplication technology in IBM FlashSystem needs significant improvement."

"They can include Amazon file system S3 protocol in the upcoming releases. It is a cloud file system. IBM FlashSystem doesn't have this feature in the box for high-end or mid-range. We have got requests for this from customers because we need to use S3 for EDI application storage. At the beginning of every year, IBM releases firmware. When I find any bugs in the firmware during the year, I am unable to find any information from IBM regarding the bug. I need to open a ticket, and the IBM engineering team makes a patch only for me. This patch is not public. By creating a customized patch for a client, they don't really solve the issue for everyone. If multiple users have the same bug, IBM should upload the patch on the official website so that we can download it. IBM FlashSystem has a monitoring tool in the box, but it is not advanced. I need a more advanced tool for more advanced equations and monitoring. All top three storage vendors, that is, EMC, IBM, and Pure Storage, don't have a powerful monitoring tool. To monitor our box to show the statistics for I/Os and latency, I need to pay for extra software. The built-in monitoring storage is not mature enough to handle all requests and generate all reports that I need. They can include the functionality to stretch a cluster natively without using any additional boxes. In addition, there are some features that EMC has integrated with the box. These features are not available in IBM FlashSystem."

"The technical support in my region is satisfactory but it could improve. Support is very important for customers and downtime is very critical for us. We would like onsite or complete technical support which can help us to minimize our downtime or if problems occur."

"IBM should improve its data reduction development."

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

"The product could be cheaper."

"The product needs to improve their scalability."

"Replication features need improvement. Currently, they are there in the product, but I'm not sure as to how it works exactly."

"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."

"There is a tool provided by IBM for repairing batteries which can only be utilized by those who have an IBM technical advisor under service contract. However, for individuals who do not have such a contract, the tool can be difficult to use and requires a zip file copy. I believe that it would be greatly beneficial if the tool were made more user-friendly and accessible for all individuals who need to repair batteries."

"I'd like to be able to connect to tape drives behind the storage device to back up the tape if need be. We have all of our storage running in all-flash, and we make a copy on tape. Currently, when we want to hook up tape drives, we have to add some extra equipment, which is a little bit complex. We want IBM to add a feature where we could install a tape into the storage so that we can connect it through a single pane of glass. We'd like to have a feature in the IBM flash storage system so that we can connect backup tape drives through the IBM storage system and we can manage the backup tape from the storage system."

"The efficacy of the GUI in IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe could be enhanced, and it would be beneficial to include a feature that can prevent 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."

"The tool's architecture is complex. It also needs to add data utilization reports."

"The support could be better."

"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."

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

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

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

"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."

"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."

"You purchase it as a bundle and the price is comparable."

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

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

"The pricing is competitive in our country."

"Overall the price of the solution is expensive and this includes the license."

"There are no licensing fees, it is a one-time purchase of the IBM FlashSystem."

"The price of IBM FlashSystem is reasonable."

"My customers got the IBM FlashSystem bundle offer. It was a one-time purchase for three years of service. The price would depend on the storage size and could reach between $25,000 to $55,000."

"The product has an average cost."

"The solution is priced well."

"The tool's pricing is competitive."

"The price of the FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable."

"The solution's price is competitive."

"It's a lot less costly than cloud storage. People get surprised by the cost of cloud storage, which is extremely expensive and four or five times the cost of storage on-premises. People don't realize what they're spending on storage until they start getting bills from Amazon, Microsoft, and others. This is a good way to reduce your cloud storage expenses."

"Price-wise, the solution offers excellent pricing to its users. In short, the prices offered by the solution are competitive compared to similar solutions."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing an eight."