IBM FlashSystem Reviews

I am an IBM reseller and I sell this solution to our clients. I have a lot of knowledge of this solution.

Our clients use this solution for database performance.

The most valuable feature is reliability.

Cloud file sharing is an area that needs improvement.

I have been selling this solution since it was released.

We sell the whole model, the entire line.

IBM FlashSytem is very stable.

This solution is very scalable. We have no issues with the scalability of the IBM FlashSystem.

Technical support is complicated.

The technical support can be improved. it should be more automated.

The initial setup is straightforward. 

It is well documented.

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

I would rate IBM FlashSystem a nine out of ten.

We use it for data reduction technology. We are using this solution on-premises, and we are also providing services to customers.

I like most of the features. Its speed, performance, and availability are valuable. We are implementing the data reduction technology the most.

Their technical support needs improvement in terms of reachability for the clients and response times. They should be more responsive and have more online platforms for support. 

They should make more technical information available online. There could be some kind of documentation community.

I have been using this solution for three or four years.

It is stable.

We are only using one box or enclosure for now. We don't have experience with scaling the systems. Our companies here don't need big systems for now.

Their technical support needs improvement.

The initial setup is very simple.

Its price is very good.

I would recommend this solution. I would rate IBM FlashSystem an eight out of ten.

The solution is like a storage device that is for our old organized cloud infrastructure. We are using it as storage for all our databases, for the data we are preparing for in developing our own applications, or for running some infrastructure services. 

The solution is very flexible.

It's a very fast product. It's not slow in any way.

The product is very, very easy to configure.

The installation is nice and easy.

The stability of the solution isn't great. We have had a lot of issues with discs over the years.

There should be better integration with utilization platforms.

The pricing needs to be more competitive.

I've basically been using the solution for ten years or so.

It isn't really stable per se. We've had some problems over the years. We experienced some problems with the backplane, from what I recall. There were issues switching the discs. We had a lot of issues with discs. Of course, the problems didn't really happen in production.

We have about 100 users on the solution currently.

We've dealt with technical support in the past and we were satisfied with their level of service. However, we no longer pay for support. We have enough knowledgeable people in house to handle everything.

We are actually in the process of changing solutions. We're going to switch to Lenovo's DE4000.

The initial setup was not complex at all. It's pretty straightforward and easy to handle.

The deployment was very fast as well and may have only taken about a day or two.

We had a team of three that handled everything. They don't just handle the storage, however. They're handling the servers and network as well.

We didn't need to use a consultant when we were implementing the solution. We did everything in-house and with our own internal teams.

We initially paid for licenses and support for I don't remember how many years. Later on, if you want to extend the support you needed to pay for the license. However, due to the fact that we are rather experienced, we decided we didn't need to renew the support.

Currently, on the market, I see a lot of different vendors who are offering the same functionalities or even better options for the same or less money. They should try to be more competitive.

Overall, I would rate the solution at a six out of ten. If it was less expensive and a bit more stable, I would likely rate it higher.

We use the FlashSystem to store our company data that is used in production systems.

The maintenance service and support from IBM is very good.

It could be easier to implement.

This is an expensive product and if the price were reduced it would be better.

We have been using the IBM FlashSystem for a few years.

This is absolutely a stable product. However, we will probably not continue to use it in the future. One of the reasons for wanting to switch is the price. Also, technology is evolving and we will probably adopt a hyper-converged solution.

This storage solution is scalable. It is used in production and not directly linked to users. It runs various routines and batches, although the developers and IT interact with this. Together, this is about 50 people.

Technical support from IBM is very good.

We did not use another similar product prior to this one.

The initial setup is quite complex. To get it in place and configured took about one week.

We deployed with the help of an integrator.

There are three administrators who handle the routine maintenance and the hardware is well maintained by IBM.

In summary, this is a good product and I absolutely recommend it.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We are solution providers. We deploy solutions around VMware. Typically we deploy data protection, and disaster recovery of workloads in the cloud, and on-premises.

If I need to know about a platform or the base platform on which I'm working, I try to read up on their model. We are also storage integrators and solution providers.

The primary use case is for storage, enterprise workloads, and databases.

The V5000, and the V7000, both are equally good.

Over the years, it has become increasingly user-friendly.

There is always room for improvement, but IBM is less interested in on-premise storage or on-premises solutions going forward. 

They're highly focused on the cloud. I don't see IBM being a very major player, the way that they used to be because they are moving away from this and are trying to move all their customers to the cloud.

Nothing really comes to mind for needing improvement. Some years ago, there would have been an answer to what could be better about this product, but nowadays, virtually all of the companies are meeting all of the features.

More and more, we would like to see how it's easier for the solutions to be bought by the customer more on a pay-per-use basis. That is certainly an improvement.

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

They want to pay-per-use and not own and get stuck with what they're buying. 

They want flexibility.

IBM does that in a few products, but then more and more you see the business model changing towards that. We'd like to see that in all IBM products.

We have been a services and deployment company for more than 30 years.

We've worked across the board with the various solutions across various vendors.

It's very, very stable, and we have never had issues.

It's extremely scalable. There are no limitations, because of the profile of the customers they work with. 

Most of their boxes are highly scalable to meet that requirement and the scaling is pretty straightforward. 

There's no rip and replace. It's a very scalable tool.

Previously, I had experience with Hitachi SAN.

The suitability of either solution depends on the use case. If you talk about modular storage virtually from any company, they will have solutions which more or less do the same thing. 

There will be a competing model at each bracket of requirements. When you talk about storage hardware, you can't really say which is better, or which is worse. 

You can talk about reliability and support, or you can talk about how good it is in a particular geography. But, this is not like Mercedes Benz is a good car and the Fiat is not, it doesn't work like that.

We find the initial setup to be fairly straightforward because we understand the technology.

We do this as service delivery, so we understand that we have trained ourselves in it.

It can take half a day to get the initial things up and running.

In today's world, nothing is reasonable because the customer's budgets are thinking on a daily basis. 

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

They are more realistic.

My basic advice is to work with partners who really understand what they're talking about. Anybody who sells one of these boxes doesn't necessarily have the capability to supply or support them. Be very clear that you're dealing with organizations that have the experience to actually deploy and support you. 

That would be what is critical. Because it's not something that we just rack it up and switch it on and it works. There are many things involved. 

Also, initially, before purchasing, the sizing is very critical. There has to be enough time spent on performance metrics, analyzing the workload requirements, and things like that.

Before the purchase and after the purchase and the deployment, there needs to be quite a bit of involvement. This is why I would advise the customer to work with partners of IBM or Hitachi. 

Whoever you're talking about, and who has experience. Not somebody who just comes and says, "I'll do anything, and for the price, I'll give you the best deal." 

The best deal is not always the best deal. 

Once you buy it and it doesn't work for you, ultimately you are paying more.

I would rate IBM XIV and eight out of ten.

Most of the features for the reduction in data compression are useful. 

It is also very easy to use and administer. Its performance is also good.

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.

I have been using this solution for six years.

It is stable. 

It is scalable. All projects in my company use the IBM FlashSystem. I am working on high-end storage, not mid-range. I can scale out or scale up. IBM has introduced FlashSystem 9200 to the market in which I can scale SAS disk, NVMe disk, and SSCM disk. I have three options on one box, which are not available with EMC or Pure Storage.

You can also scale out storage in EMC. In Pure Storage, there are issues in scaling. Pure Storage has different boxes like X70, X90, X50, and if I need to scale or upgrade the box, I need to change our controllers. Every Pure Storage box has limited capacity, whereas, for IBM storage, the capacity of the box is not limited.

The response of technical support is good.

I have used NetApp storage and EMC storage. NetApp storage is very poor and bad. EMC is a good competitor of IBM in the market now, and in terms of the number of customers, EMC is number one. User Interface is the main big difference between IBM and EMC. IBM FlashSystem is very easy and friendly comparatively. EMC is very complicated. 

EMC is also closed, whereas IBM FlashSystem is very open. It provides a lot of communication over the internet for administrating and implementing the storage. I am working on a customer project that has EMC storage, and the customer daily complains regarding EMC Unity or XtremIO.

IBM is integrated with the different operating systems by a native operating system multipath. EMC works with PowerPath multipath. Until recently, EMC didn't have these features in the box, and you had to pay for a multipath license. In new technology and operating system versions of EMC, a separate multipath license is not required.

The initial setup was very easy.

I implemented it. I have experience of ten years in implementing IBM storage. It is very easy to implement. 

The integration is already included in the license cost of IBM FlashSystem. The integration is very easy. You get the IBM storage core with all software, firmware, and upgrades. EMC provides the features in the box, but they are not free for customers. There is a licensing cost for features.

We have yearly licensing, but IBM has also provided a new option where you pay as you go. They provide a big box, and I pay, for example, for 10 terabytes. If I exceed 10 terabytes, IBM will charge for the new storage after 10 terabytes. It is a good opportunity in the market for using the storage as a cloud and paying as you go. 

I work only on high-end storage. Before recommending a solution, I need to know about the workload, that is, application workload, backup workload, and database workload. IBM provides a free workload script that can be applied to any environment, such as Windows, Unix, or Linux. I need to see the I/O performance, and after which, I can provide the best solution for a customer from Pure Storage, EMC, or IBM. 

I would rate IBM FlashSystem a nine out of ten.

The IBM FlashSystem is the primary storage for files and data in our organization.

The most valuable features are deduplication and compression, which together, enable you to have more space.

Performance is a major advantage of this storage.

When you add more flash drives or more NVMe, that is the bottleneck or shortcoming with this type of storage. When you fill the first enclosure, you won't be able to add more NVMe until you add more SAS drives.

The security features can be improved such that the encryption does not affect performance in any way.

I have been using IBM FlashSystem for about four years.

The stability is very good.

We have approximately 1,500 people who are directly or indirectly accessing the data that is residing on this storage.

The technical support is pretty good, especially the local team in Pakistan. Normally, the response time is very good.

This is the first flash storage system that we have used. Prior to that, we were using a hybrid Dell EMC storage.

The initial setup is not very difficult. I would say that it is similar to the way other storage systems are set up. I believe that it took one week for our deployment, which included testing.

We have three administrators who take care of the different applications and data that are hosted on this storage. We don't perform maintenance on a daily basis. We may extract some stats for the performance and for evaluating capability. However, when it comes to maintenance, we probably work on it once or twice a month.

Before purchasing this product, I recommend that everyone should do a PoC because there are multiple flash drive systems now available. All storage vendors are now making flash drives because it is a new technology that replaces existing hybrid systems. I would suggest doing some analysis and some R&D because Huawei, for example, is doing well. EMC is also top of the line, with IBM. There are slight differences in features, however, so it is important to do a comparison before making any decision.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

I am using the private deployment model. 

The ability to create LUNs and modify them is the most valuable feature of this solution. It has a very good storage system. 

Enterprise data storage needs improvement. They should create a feature for data and file storage. 

It is stable. 

It has good scalability abilities. 

They have good technical support. IBM has offices in Ukraine that have knowledgable engineers. They speak Ukrainian. 

The initial setup was easy, understandable, and straightforward. It's a very good product. 

The price is fair. 

I would rate it a nine out of ten. Engineers think that Dell EMC has better storage than Storwize. 

We use the on-prem deployment model. Our primary use case for this solution is for backup for the solutions. We sell this solution to customers. 

The most valuable features are deduplication and compression. 

The interface is also good.   

The ease of installation should be improved. We had issues with the configuration model. 

In the next release, there should be and flash and caching features. Customers also have problems accessing their files from the storage. That's what they usually complain about. This is something they should improve. 

The main issue is the speed in terms of accessing the data. That is the customer's big complaint. They also complain about the speed of the hard drive.

We did not have any issues from the client saying that Storwize had stability issues. We didn't have any issues with it. 

Technical support was okay. We had their support remotely and also from the local support stream.

The price is good. We are also IBM partners and the give big discounts for the same product. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

We are running private clouds for various customers on top of VMware with IBM on the storage layer

Performance is not a problem anymore and the space available is enough for about 5 years of operations. Wa are now busy with cross dc failover which will use the capabilities of this system extensively.

A valuable feature of this solution is the metro/global mirror for synchronous/asynchronous copying of data between data centres.

ISCSI/ISER Bandwidth is at 25gbps. Would be nice if that can keep track with the bandwidth currently available in new dc networking deployments.

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

The system can be expanded with additional trays. Current we have about 2,000 users on the system. They are mostly end users, database administrator, and developers. 

We are happy with the technical support.

We used hyper-converged storage in the past and the reason we switched was because the reliability was not as good as we had hoped with the bigger workloads.

The initial setup was straightforward and it took us about two days to implement it. We did everything ourselves.

The biggest lesson we've learned so far is that hyper-converged storage is good for smaller workloads, but the re-syncing after a failure will be a problem for big workloads.

The IBM System is top-notch and offers all the features we need to keep going for another 5 years.