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Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.8
Pure FlashArray X NVMe's customer service is praised for responsiveness and knowledge, but some users report challenges with communication and coordination.
Sentiment score
8.2
Dell's support is responsive and knowledgeable, but some users face delays and suggest improvements, especially for new systems.
Sentiment score
7.1
IBM FlashSystem's customer service is praised for responsiveness and expertise, but support quality varies by region with some needing improvement.
Rather than Pure just saying it's Cisco's problem, call Cisco, they actually got on with a TAC engineer and talked us through it.
The guys in South Africa, and they're very, very good.
What I like about Pure Storage technical support is that when you enter a request, you immediately get a response.
If it's a serious issue, they respond in four hours.
With regard to post-deployment support, if we have any needs and call them, they respond within minutes.
I got an email within 15 minutes saying 'you had an unexpected node failure, and do you need help?'
 

Room For Improvement

Sentiment score
5.2
Users seek improved pricing, UI, analytics, replication, deduplication, AI features, and better backup, while expressing concerns over costs.
Sentiment score
4.6
Dell PowerStore needs improved features, stability, and integration, with enhanced analytics, user-friendliness, security, and cost-efficiency.
Sentiment score
5.0
IBM FlashSystem needs improvements in installation, speed, security, integration, support, cost, scalability, storage features, data reduction, and deduplication.
I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center.
We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency.
We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC.
Overall, they need to make the system stable.
If a customer finds out SSD is not supported, they will look for another option.
If you want to delve into where your I/Os are going, the reporting might need more in-depth information to make informed decisions.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Pure FlashArray X NVMe is highly scalable, offering easy expansion and reliable performance with some customization and cost limitations.
Sentiment score
7.2
Dell PowerStore provides scalable, flexible storage options, allowing efficient growth despite NVMe costs, with generally satisfied users.
Sentiment score
7.3
IBM FlashSystem is highly scalable, supporting various storage options, and easily upgraded without hardware replacement, suitable for diverse enterprises.
We also have an X90R2 with two petabytes of NVMe in it which fits in about six rack units of space.
We are able to push the X70 way past our current needs from a throughput and IOPS perspective – without any degradation on latency.
We have also performed storage and controller upgrades live with zero downtime.
The magic is that we could do that with the data in place, inside the frame, keeping the drive.
The design for scalability of the solution is perfect.
The most valuable features of PowerStore are its scale up and scale out.
 

Setup Cost

Sentiment score
7.8
Enterprise buyers view Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing as a mixed experience, balancing high costs with valuable long-term investment.
Sentiment score
5.9
Dell PowerStore's pricing is high but competitive, justified by features and performance, though flexibility could improve for larger setups.
Sentiment score
5.5
IBM FlashSystem offers competitive pricing with various models and discounts, often seen as providing good overall value.
While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits.
The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there.
We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees.
Dell is right there in the mix as far as providing the best price point, as well as meeting the performance requirements that we have.
There are a lot of solutions similar to PowerStore in regards to networking capacity and their prices are very cheap compared to PowerStore.
Likely the cost is $400,000 whereas IBM may be $250,000.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Pure FlashArray X NVMe is highly stable and reliable, with users experiencing minimal issues and rating it highly.
Sentiment score
8.1
Dell PowerStore is praised for its stability, reliable performance, effective failover management, and quick resolution of occasional software issues.
Sentiment score
7.6
IBM FlashSystem is highly praised for its stability, high performance, and minimal issues, especially the reliable 9000 series.
We have gone through multiple software upgrades, as well as completely non-disruptive hardware upgrades.
During the eight years, there have been no problems such as hardware failure or stopping.
There was one minor issue when the M70s were first released – but they have been 100% stable since.
We have not even had to call support since putting it into production.
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
I would rate the stability of Dell PowerStore a ten out of ten.
 

Valuable Features

Sentiment score
8.1
Pure FlashArray X NVMe excels in performance, reliability, and scalability, offering advanced features for efficient storage and management.
Sentiment score
8.3
Dell PowerStore delivers high performance, flexibility, and efficiency with seamless VMware integration and intelligent management for enterprise needs.
Sentiment score
8.3
IBM FlashSystem is valued for its high performance, ease of use, flexibility, reliability, scalability, and powerful storage features.
Going from a legacy vendor to Pure Storage, we saw reductions in MRP reports previously running at six hours going to 30 minutes.
The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance.
The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use.
One of the main characteristics of PowerStore is that it is like another piece of VMware, so you can run applications on top, applications that have direct access to the storage.
Dell's built-in intelligence is the best because it can also calculate how much data is needed for storage beforehand and if you need to add more drives or anything.
Another important feature is the power of this frame. It's very powerful. We have almost less than a millisecond of response time, all the time, even during backup windows.
 

Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
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Ranking in All-Flash Storage
16th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (7th)
Dell PowerStore
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (5th), NAS (2nd), Enterprise SAN (2nd), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (1st)
IBM FlashSystem
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
NAS (4th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

Paul Pearson - PeerSpot reviewer
Works well, is easy to implement, and has upgrade analysis capabilities
We love the product. Pure Storage works really well. The CAT tool and also the ability to upgrade the unit's place grades are great. It allows for in-place control or upgrades. It's a very simple implementation. They have a good tool to analyze upgrades. The stability is good. Technical support has been excellent.
Ken Boyer - PeerSpot reviewer
Reduces the footprint, is easy to use, and can handle heavy workloads
The systems I currently have in place are old, and their support is running out. They're at the end of their life cycle. One of the key improvements that PowerStore is going to bring is that it will enable me to shrink the physical footprint. I'll be going from 5 physical HP arrays, which are about 12 racks in size, down to 4 PowerStores, which can fit on one rack. As a result, I'll be able to shrink the footprint, save power, cooling, etc. I will also be able to improve the existing performance and longevity of the platform. When we put the PowerStore in for the Oracle database, it was previously on NetApp. The staff wanted to do snapshots but also clone, and then be able to clone from a clone to add it to another system. PowerStore enabled them to do just that. They not only got their performance back to where it needed to be from previously being on the NetApp array but also got some of the feature functions that they require for the application.
Abdul-Salam - PeerSpot reviewer
An easy GUI and simple provisioning but our model does not support compression
Depending on your use case, I recommend looking at models that include compression and deduplication features to ensure the required level of UI performance. We dedicate the solution to one particular application so we do not face performance issues. An environment with a shared storage array across multiple applications or databases may need high performance storage, more memory, and powerful controllers. I rate the solution a seven out of ten.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

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.
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
After implementation, there are limitations, such as the number of paths, file systems, and replication options. It f...
What do you think about Dell EMC PowerStore? Is it actually a new product?
PowerStore is flexible, scalable, simple, and performant with market-leading economics for a wide range of legacy and...
How does Dell's EMC PowerStore compare with its EMC Unity XT?
Dell EMC PowerStore is a unified storage platform that has the added benefit of being scalable. The automated managem...
What's the difference between DELL EMC Powerstore and Powermax NVMe?
Dell PowerStore is an all-solid-state midrange storage system. It has many internal elements taken from other Dell of...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
PowerStore
IBM Storwize
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Information Not Available
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerStore vs. IBM FlashSystem and other solutions. Updated: November 2024.
816,816 professionals have used our research since 2012.