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Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
4th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
215
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell PowerStore
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
185
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (4th), NAS (2nd), Enterprise SAN (1st), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (1st)
IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
28th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (13th)
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
reviewer2304864 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vmware Windows Senior Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Resilience has supported proactive management and secured audit readiness across multiple sites
The resilience in Dell PowerStore benefits my company from an auditing perspective because we know we have that resilience in place. I see Dell PowerStore playing a bigger role in the future because we are starting to use it more, and that is pushing it. The biggest return on investment for me when using Dell PowerStore is scalability. Scalability is key. I can amplify that scalability is the biggest return on investment because we have redundancy between two sites; if something goes down, we have to manage it, but we want to do it proactively.
MohammedIsmail - PeerSpot reviewer
Datacenter Manager at Tracker Connect
Enhanced storage performance and an easy setup with compression challenges
We use IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe as a storage device in the IT industry The features I find most valuable include its use for storage and performance. The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best. Furthermore, support from the partner could also be improved as it's been…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup was straightforward in the way that it was a database vacuum storage."
"It's simple, powerful, and ready to use."
"One of the lesser sung advantages was when we started running our interface engine on Pure Storage; the ability to process messages and pass them through in our organization skyrocketed purely because of a disk that I owned which we were getting out of Pure Storage."
"There was a dramatic improvement in operating costs just as a result of the environmentals and space, let alone the cost of the unit itself."
"The most valuable feature is that maintenance is free."
"The solution helps to simplify storage."
"My favorite feature about Pure Storage FlashArray is definitely the simplicity; in one word, it's simple to install, simple to upgrade, simple to maintain, and simple to manage."
"I never have to worry about its performance impacting the firm."
"Since the deployment of Dell PowerStore, the key benefit compared to 3PAR has been financial, with the financial cost almost half the price compared to HP, and from a features and storage perspective everything is satisfactory, with excellent support and hardly any complaints."
"PowerStore is easy to use, powerful, reliable, and highly customizable to customer's needs."
"The platform's reliability and built-in replication between disk systems have made our customers happy. It has worked consistently well over the years."
"When compared to Pure Storage, Dell PowerStore's cost was quite attractive."
"That's the value Dell creates; you invest less, and you get a better ROI."
"Dell PowerStore is designed for large enterprises that require storage solutions with high availability and disaster recovery capabilities, and I believe Dell PowerStore is the best solution for this purpose."
"Dell PowerStore's compression and deduplication technologies are a big help for our organization. It's saving us a lot of storage compared to what we were previously using."
"The solution is stable."
"The technical support is good."
"It's easy to use, has good stability, and many features."
"The FlashCore modules support more value to the architecture due to their unique characteristics."
"IBM FlashSystem is an excellent product."
"It is a high-performance product that serves our requests well."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its upgrades, as we don't have to do much homework because of its different controllers."
"There are many valuable features of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMele I have found to meet my needs. Specifically, the maintenance cycle is a standout feature of this solution. The main component of the IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is the maintenance of the batteries, which have a predetermined and reliable four-year life cycle. This is in stark contrast to other solutions that may use spinning disks, which can fail unexpectedly, causing unwanted downtime and maintenance. Having a predictable maintenance cycle is a significant advantage and has made this solution a preferred choice for me."
"IBM FlashSystem provides the same software on each box, including virtualized solutions."
 

Cons

"It is a bit expensive."
"With scalability, I have run into a little problem with our last upgrade. There were some undocumented limitations to the number of drives that our controller could run on."
"I'd like to see a move towards individual VMs for what the performance of each VM is in a VD infrastructure."
"We would like to be able to connect to data tape for backup, specifically to the LTO backups."
"It goes at about 95 percent, so we have had some performance issues. It is hard to clear them."
"Its price could be cheaper. It is not the cheapest one out there, but I'm not directly involved in the figures and negotiations."
"We did have one hiccup with the integration of vCenter. When we were installing Pure Storage, we were using vCenter 6.7, which defaults to the HTML5 Web Client."
"In the configuration, which we brought in or tested it in, it has a very limited config as far as the array goes. That said, it still did more than our anticipation."
"PowerStore's management console could be improved."
"The upgrades themselves are running fine, but after the upgrade is when we have a problem. With the update to 1.4, we had a head crash. They told us, 'This is a known issue. Please upgrade to 2.' We upgraded to 2 and, one week later they told us, 'Yeah, there are some issues in 2.0.0. You can lose data. Please upgrade to 2.0.1.' Overall, they need to make the system stable."
"There are certain shortcomings with the technical support team of Dell PowerStore, where improvements are required."
"Having all the services consolidated makes it hard to scale."
"I have realized nothing exemplary from using Dell PowerStore, except hat the user interface is clunky, and we've had issues with that."
"The setup is very simple, but it's costly."
"It was very new when we first deployed it a year ago. Even just the upgrade processes and knowing what to expect, as well as documentation, could be more robust."
"Some of the data metrics we get out of Pure from a support perspective online are a little bit more robust than the Dell PowerStore metrics, but it's not a negative against Dell."
"IBM is currently not offering volume-based encryption or compression, while other brands or IBM's competitors are doing it."
"The ZIO interface could be improved."
"I would like to have replication functionality built directly in the product, rather than having to use a separate device for this."
"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."
"IBM's support is not good. I experienced a big problem where I opened the console IBM Storage and would see that something was broken. I called the call centers, and I said, "I have a problem. My drive is not working." They want me to give them the serial number, I gave it to them and they told me "I cannot find your product. Your product is not here.""
"We're not satisfied with the deduplication and compression for our volumes."
"IBM's support is not good. I experienced a big problem where I opened the console IBM Storage and would see that something was broken."
"The pricing should be more competitive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Once you purchase Pure Storage FlashArray it is all-inclusive, you receive all the licenses needed."
"When we bought the unit, we bought per capacity. So, the licensing is per capacity, and the only thing that we have to buy every year or every three years is maintenance. Included in that maintenance is the upgrade of the controllers every three years at no cost to us."
"The cost has room for improvement."
"It's expensive, but you get what you pay for."
"It could always be lower, but it's okay."
"Because of the SSD, it is cheaper because I am not purchasing so many disks."
"The pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray is reasonable."
"We implemented Pure Storage FlashArray nine years ago when it was new to the market and obtained it at a preferential price."
"As compared to others, PowerStore is cheaper."
"We are happy with the pricing that we get from Dell."
"I rate the price of Dell PowerStore a seven out of ten."
"Dell PowerStore is more expensive than Dell EMC Unity All Flash. Dell PowerStore's performance metrics were way higher than what Dell EMC Unity All Flash offered."
"The rate is always too high. Nobody likes paying for it. I have not seen a client yet who says that the price should be higher. Initially, people look at it, but when they see what the benefits are, it is a no-brainer. We can give them good pricing at the outset."
"It is easy to work with Dell from the licensing perspective."
"The pricing structure and licensing model of Dell PowerStore are very good and I like it. We chose it because it was reasonably priced and met our requirements"
"The solution is expensive."
"Compared to other solutions, the cost of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable, with a one-time payment of around $70,000. However, additional support is available for $25,000 for three years. The overall maintenance cost is steep."
"The tool's pricing is competitive."
"The product has an average cost."
"Price-wise, the solution offers excellent pricing to its users. In short, the prices offered by the solution are competitive compared to similar solutions."
"The solution's price is competitive."
"The price of the FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable."
"Compared to its competitors, IBM's offering is the most cost-effective."
"The price of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is less than Dell. For upgrades, the Dell solutions are more expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Marketing Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business64
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise151
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise37
Large Enterprise90
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?
The tool is expensive, though I do not know the specific licensing costs.
What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?
The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best. Furthermore, support from the partner could al...
What is your primary use case for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?
We use IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe as a storage device in the IT industry.
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
PowerStore
IBM FlashSystem 9100, FlashSystem 9100
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
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Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerStore vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,646 professionals have used our research since 2012.