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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
7.4
Number of Reviews
213
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
184
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

"I am very satisfied with this solution and I would recommend it to others."
"Technical support is very good."
"The management is simple in Pure Storage FlashArray."
"It's extremely stable and has good performance."
"The pricing of Pure Storage is all-inclusive; it is very fair, very easy, and the solution is a lot easier to install than the Dell EMC product."
"The solution is easy to scale. I'm running two environments right now, so I need to scale. I'm running a part technology. I've got an A-side and a B-side."
"We were actually able to do multiple upgrades, including head upgrades and moving between the platforms, M20 and M50, over the years. We have never once lost a ping and have never had an outage due to an OS upgrade or a complete head upgrade."
"The job of support for the storage engineers dramatically changed. We know more quickly the automation of the provisioning. We can now focus on things that bring more value to the company than just managing storage."
"This solution is very useful to us as we use it internally for all of the services that we need, we use it as a lab and we showcase new technology to the customers and how it can help them going forward."
"The user interface is really simple to get behind and makes it really easy to expand and utilize the tools."
"The resilience in Dell PowerStore benefits my company from an auditing perspective because we know we have that resilience in place."
"Benefits of Dell PowerStore compared to Unity 400 and 650F, which we were previously using, are significant: we benefit from extensive deduplication for non-database applications, which saves us a considerable amount of costs, and the performance has improved dramatically due to advancements in technology, such as TLC disks and NVMe technologies."
"The best features in Dell PowerStore are that it's easy to manage; for the customer user interface, customers can start learning and provision everything, and manage the system easily."
"You can add compute and capacity independently. We have sized the solution based on our current needs, but in the future we can choose to increase capacity if we grow our activity in the market. And if we have more business in our monetary system, we can increase compute. The ability to choose what we increase is a good feature."
"The most valuable feature is the unwavering performance."
"I assess customer service and technical support as very good."
"Its ease of use, performance, and hardware compression is very useful feature."
"The FlashCore modules support more value to the architecture due to their unique characteristics."
"IBM FlashSystem provides the same software on each box, including virtualized solutions."
"It's easy to use, has good stability, and many features."
"The features I find most valuable include its use for storage and performance."
"It is a very stable product. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten because we did not face any issues in the last three years."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is one of the leading storage systems in the world...I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten."
"The technical support is good."
 

Cons

"I'd like to see a move towards individual VMs for what the performance of each VM is in a VD infrastructure. I can see the overall volume, but I would love to see things in a more granular level on the VM side."
"It is way in excess of what we need. If anything, we could see a bit more speed. I'm just comparing it with what some of my colleagues who are implementing their own systems do."
"The price of the solution can improve."
"They're also talking about a phone home centralized analytics database being used as a centralized management console with a list of new cloud features, but this doesn't seem finalized."
"The integration capabilities could be improved."
"The problem is that we can only make a few groups, around five or six groups. I like groups and we need a lot of them. We had to put all the information in only a few groups and cannot make a more detailed separation of them."
"I would like some performance analytics which go deeper than today. It should be specific to some hosts and applications."
"It is way in excess of what we need. If anything, we could see a bit more speed."
"We'd like to see some improvements on the security side."
"The service user is only used with the CLI and cannot log into the GUI, which is not a good feature because you cannot perform any maintenance from the GUI."
"It was very new when we first deployed it a year ago. Even the upgrade processes and knowing what to expect, as well as documentation, could be more robust."
"When comparing compression and deduplication technology in Dell PowerStore with Pure Storage, there is room for further improvement."
"The data resiliency and cybersecurity features of Dell PowerStore are just normal and would be considered medium; we need additional components such as cybersecurity vault for increased resilience."
"The biggest area in PowerStore that needs improvement is the overall visibility within the ESX environment."
"Dell PowerStore should offer more cybersecurity and warehouse data security."
"If I needed more capacity, it quickly moves out of Dell PowerStore into something else. If I needed something more, I would prefer to stay in the Dell PowerStore ecosystem."
"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 FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is currently at the end of its lifespan and will soon become obsolete in the markets."
"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.""
"Other vendors have included a block and file system. IBM doesn't include a file system. And yet, it's very necessary for all organizations' networks to have file systems. We have other systems for the file system, however, ideally, we would like to have one system with these features."
"There is a tool provided by IBM for repairing batteries which can only be utilized by those who have an IBM technical advisor under service contract. However, for individuals who do not have such a contract, the tool can be difficult to use and requires a zip file copy. I believe that it would be greatly beneficial if the tool were made more user-friendly and accessible for all individuals who need to repair batteries."
"The pricing should be more competitive."
"The storage system itself should have built-in capabilities for different ransomware attacks."
"The solution's compression feature could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is very reasonable when compared to other solutions."
"My organization has a yearly license, but I believe that Pure Storage FlashArray has capacity-based licenses as well. I'm definitely happy with the pricing."
"Our costs are around $100,000."
"The price-to-performance is good. I looked at Pure about three to four years back, but the price-to-performance wasn't right for us. Now, it's right."
"The price was more favorable than Dell EMC."
"The price of Pure Storage FlashArray could always improve. They are still more expensive than some alternative offerings. Cost is always a concern and when there is a battle they tend to be more expensive."
"The cost has room for improvement."
"Because of the SSD, it is cheaper because I am not purchasing so many disks."
"With compression, we were able to have a solution within our company's budget. We include a clause in the contract with Dell that states if the compression ratio is not met, we will adjust the workload accordingly."
"If we use the 500 or 1000, the licensing and pricing are reasonable. PowerStore can compete with any vendor and the price isn't that expensive."
"We are happy with the pricing that we get from Dell."
"Dell PowerStore is not a cheap solution."
"We are currently using Dell PowerStore for our smaller storage and there is no competition for pricing."
"We purchased it with a five-year warranty."
"The pricing rates at seven out of ten as it is considered overpriced. Entry-level models are reasonably priced, starting around $30,000 for a base model with 6 drives. However, upgrades become costly - adding 6 additional drives can cost another $30,000."
"The solution’s pricing is always too high."
"The price of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is less than Dell. For upgrades, the Dell solutions are more expensive."
"Compared to its competitors, IBM's offering is the most cost-effective."
"The solution's price is competitive."
"There are pricing options from the mid-rand to the high-range, of which the suitability depends upon the requirements."
"The tool's pricing is competitive."
"The solution is priced well."
"Price-wise, the solution offers excellent pricing to its users. In short, the prices offered by the solution are competitive compared to similar solutions."
"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."
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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 Enterprise146
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business58
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?
I don't really know much about the pricing for Pure Storage FlashArray in terms of the absolute cost. Regarding Everg...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Despite liking Pure Storage FlashArray, there is room for improvement in automation. Pure Storage FlashArray needs to...
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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