IBM FlashSystem vs VAST Data comparison

IBM and VAST Data are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. IBM is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.5, while VAST Data is ranked #20 with an average rating of 10.0. IBM holds a 6.6% mindshare in AFS, compared to VAST Data’s 2.3% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of VAST Data users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

IBM FlashSystem and VAST Data are two prominent solutions in the data storage market. IBM FlashSystem seems to have the upper hand in deployment ease and customer service, while VAST Data leads in technological advancements and performance.

Features: IBM FlashSystem is praised for its reliability, high performance, and extensive integration capabilities. VAST Data is commended for its scalability, innovative architecture, and high throughput.

Room for Improvement: IBM FlashSystem users suggest enhancements in predictive analytics, reporting functions, and better analytics. VAST Data users point out room for improvement in documentation, support for more legacy integration, and perhaps more robust support services.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM FlashSystem deployments are straightforward, with robust customer support highly praised by users. VAST Data also offers smooth deployment but requires more technical expertise. Its customer service, though improving, does not match the levels of support found with IBM FlashSystem.

Pricing and ROI: IBM FlashSystem is noted for its cost-effective pricing model and good return on investment. VAST Data, while more expensive, is seen as delivering a higher ROI due to its superior features and performance.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM FlashSystem vs. VAST Data Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem vs. VAST Data

April 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 May 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem is 6.6%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VAST Data is 2.3%, down from 2.7% 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.

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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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Alan Powers

HPC CTO at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Stability-wise, a device that has been up and running for years

The failover capability and resiliency are some of the solution's valuable features. The big thing is resilience because it has richer coding in it, so multiple devices can't fail. Also, one can still access a number of CBoxes that can allow one to access their file system. Once a device fails, it fails the transparency of the end-user, and it just starts using another resource. The encryption capability, the snapshots, along with a whole bunch of features make the tool valuable. VAST Data keeps adding more and more features all the time.

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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

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

"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."

"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."

"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."

"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."

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

"The tool's valuable features are speed, security, data compression, and reliability. Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen. It helps us to save money and resources."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The pricing is reasonable."

"The initial setup is straightforward and can be done in an hour and a half by one person."

"I would recommend it to other users."

"The valuable features are high availability, compression, and a failover mechanism. It's a very highly available storage solution."

"The storage system is one of the best in the world."

"The feature I find most valuable, is the deduplication, because the nature of the data that we are using in our current environment, has a lot of replicated data."

"The speed and the ease of installation are the most valuable features."

"Ability to manage third-party arrays and virtualise them: One screen to control multiple arrays. Simplified administration."

More IBM FlashSystem pros

"This has been one of the most reliable storage systems that I have ever used."

"The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations."

Cons

"The software layer has to improve."

"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."

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

"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."

"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."

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

"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe 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."

"Cloud file sharing is an area that needs improvement."

"The price is very costly."

"The interface could improve in IBM FlashSystem."

"The product could be cheaper."

"GUI interface should be enhanced more as there is some issues in copy services."

"The data reduction pool feature sucks and is not recommended for use with heavy workloads."

"The solution is quite expensive. That's one of the downsides to using it."

More IBM FlashSystem cons

"The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement."

"The write performance could be improved because it is less than half of the read performance."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

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

"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."

"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."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

"The product is expensive."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The tool is cost-efficient."

"IBM V7000 has a new license and price structure which provides intuitive licensing based on the functions customers wish to enable and use the most."

"The price is a little bit high so is rated a six out of ten."

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

"The solution has good pricing, but it is not cheaper."

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

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

"If five is a good price and one is a high price, I would rate the price a two or three out of five."

More IBM FlashSystem pricing and cost advice

"We acquired VAST Data as a one-time, capital purchase."

"Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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 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 deduplication technology in IBM FlashSystem needs significant improvement. Other vendors like NetApp ( /products/...

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What do you like most about VAST Data?

The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VAST Data?

Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one.

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What needs improvement with VAST Data?

The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 31% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 18% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 7% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 23% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 8% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 8% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 8% of the time

NetApp AFF vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM FlashSystem Competitors

NetApp AFF vs VAST Data

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs VAST Data

Compared 10% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs VAST Data

Compared 10% of the time

Qumulo vs VAST Data

Compared 9% of the time

Databricks vs VAST Data

Compared 8% of the time

More VAST Data Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

May 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem

May 2025

Download IBM FlashSystem product report

Buyer's Guide

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

May 2025

Download VAST Data product report

Also Known As

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

IBM Storwize

No data available

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

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

Innovation to break decades of data storage trade-offs.

VAST Data

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

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

Norwest Venture Partners, General Dynamics Information Technology, Ginkgo Bioworks

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem vs. VAST Data

April 2025

Free Report: IBM FlashSystem vs. VAST Data

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