We use this solution for database system storage in our organization.
System engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Flexible, good performance, and scalable
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features are flexibility and performance."
- "The Data Reduction Pools (DRP) support could be better."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are flexibility and performance.
What needs improvement?
The Data Reduction Pools (DRP) support could be better.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for many years.
Buyer's Guide
IBM FlashSystem
September 2025

Learn what your peers think about IBM FlashSystem. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: September 2025.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have found the solution to be scalable.
We have approximately 1,000 users using the solution in my organization.
How was the initial setup?
The installation is straightforward. The solution is delivered with an operating system, which can be updated in about half an hour.
What about the implementation team?
We did the implementation ourselves.
We have 10 technicians that do the maintenance for the solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution requires a license and could be less expensive.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend this solution to others.
I rate IBM FlashSystem a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

Hybrid IT Enterprise Executive at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Reliable, easy to install, and well documented
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is reliability."
- "Cloud file sharing is an area that needs improvement."
What is our primary use case?
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.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is reliability.
What needs improvement?
Cloud file sharing is an area that needs improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been selling this solution since it was released.
We sell the whole model, the entire line.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
IBM FlashSytem is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This solution is very scalable. We have no issues with the scalability of the IBM FlashSystem.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is complicated.
The technical support can be improved. it should be more automated.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward.
It is well documented.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
You purchase it as a bundle and the price is comparable.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate IBM FlashSystem a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Buyer's Guide
IBM FlashSystem
September 2025

Learn what your peers think about IBM FlashSystem. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Senior Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Good price, good performance, and useful for data reduction
Pros and Cons
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
We use it for data reduction technology. We are using this solution on-premises, and we are also providing services to customers.
What is most valuable?
I like most of the features. Its speed, performance, and availability are valuable. We are implementing the data reduction technology the most.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for three or four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
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.
How are customer service and technical support?
Their technical support needs improvement.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very simple.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Its price is very good.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution. I would rate IBM FlashSystem an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Deputy Chief Technology Officer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Flexible and easy to configure but not very stable
Pros and Cons
- "The installation is nice and easy."
- "The pricing needs to be more competitive."
What is our primary use case?
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.
What is most valuable?
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.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've basically been using the solution for ten years or so.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
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.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have about 100 users on the solution currently.
How are customer service and technical support?
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.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We are actually in the process of changing solutions. We're going to switch to Lenovo's DE4000.
How was the initial setup?
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.
What about the implementation team?
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.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
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.
What other advice do I have?
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.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Senior System Administrator at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
A stable product with good support for our production system data
Pros and Cons
- "The maintenance service and support from IBM is very good."
- "It could be easier to implement."
What is our primary use case?
We use the FlashSystem to store our company data that is used in production systems.
What is most valuable?
The maintenance service and support from IBM is very good.
What needs improvement?
It could be easier to implement.
This is an expensive product and if the price were reduced it would be better.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using the IBM FlashSystem for a few years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
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.
What do I think about the scalability of the 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.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support from IBM is very good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not use another similar product prior to this one.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is quite complex. To get it in place and configured took about one week.
What about the implementation team?
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.
What other advice do I have?
In summary, this is a good product and I absolutely recommend it.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Director Technical at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Reliable protection that is easy to scale with no limitations
Pros and Cons
- "Over the years, it has become increasingly user-friendly."
- "The customer's expectations are what they get on the cloud, they're expecting even in the on-premises deployments, going forward."
What is our primary use case?
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.
What is most valuable?
The V5000, and the V7000, both are equally good.
Over the years, it has become increasingly user-friendly.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
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.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's very, very stable, and we have never had issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
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.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
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.
How was the initial setup?
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.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
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.
What other advice do I have?
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.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. partner
CEO at a government with 1-10 employees
Good storage system and that has a good ability to create and modify LUNs
Pros and Cons
- "The ability to create LUNs and modify them are the most valuable features of this solution."
- "Enterprise data storage needs improvement. They should create a feature for data and file storage."
What is our primary use case?
I am using the private deployment model.
What is most valuable?
The ability to create LUNs and modify them is the most valuable feature of this solution. It has a very good storage system.
What needs improvement?
Enterprise data storage needs improvement. They should create a feature for data and file storage.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using IBM Storwize for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It has good scalability abilities.
How are customer service and technical support?
They have good technical support. IBM has offices in Ukraine that have knowledgable engineers. They speak Ukrainian.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was easy, understandable, and straightforward. It's a very good product.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price is fair.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate it a nine out of ten. Engineers think that Dell EMC has better storage than Storwize.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner.
Systems Administrator at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Good deduplication and compression features and has a good interface
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features are deduplication and compression."
- "The ease of installation should be improved. We had issues with the configuration model."
What is our primary use case?
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.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are deduplication and compression.
The interface is also good.
What needs improvement?
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.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We did not have any issues from the client saying that Storwize had stability issues. We didn't have any issues with it.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support was okay. We had their support remotely and also from the local support stream.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price is good. We are also IBM partners and the give big discounts for the same product.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate it an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner.

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Updated: September 2025
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