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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

"The initial setup is very straightforward. You simply plug it in and turn it on."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is its speed."
"Access speed and power consumption are most valuable."
"We saw a vast improvement when we switched over to using the Pure Storage model over the XtremIO."
"The most valuable feature is its upgradeability."
"As soon as we introduced our first Pure Storage FlashArray, the first benefit we saw, from our very first benchmarks, was that our production databases simply ran twice as fast with no other changes."
"The console is simple to use. It has good performance. It is easy to install, understand, and manage, with a good ratio of deduplication and compression. It is doing its job."
"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerStore is the metro cluster because we have two data centers and high availability."
"The biggest improvement we found when moving into Dell PowerStore was the deduplication and compression."
"My company finds particular features within Dell PowerStore valuable, primarily the cost benefits for the performance that we get out of the platform."
"We assess the workload performance offered by Dell PowerStore as perfect."
"The PowerStore's compression ratio is even higher than the Unity system."
"The most valuable features of Dell PowerStore are the resilience, scalability, flexibility of expansion, and ease of managing the entire solution including the servers and storage."
"I rate Dell PowerStore a 10 out of 10."
"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerStore is the all-NVMe flash storage."
"It's easy to use, has good stability, and many features."
"The solution is more available for IOPS warehousing, resolving issues, and reporting than other products."
"The most valuable features of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe are its steady performance and usefulness in high-traffic environments."
"It's easy to use, has good stability, and many features."
"What I like about the product are its high availability, maximum efficiency in performance, and its ability to handle a high level of I/O operations."
"It is a very stable solution."
"IBM FlashSystem is an excellent product."
"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."
 

Cons

"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve the recent file storage capabilities because it is lacking a lot of features."
"It doesn’t provide enough information on performance analytics. For example, Nimble Storage has Infosight, which provides data; Pure Storage doesn’t have an equivalent."
"Historical analytics would be useful. At the moment, they don't have any type of application built for historical analytics."
"Some services could be inserted directly into the SAN, so Pure Storage could complete with the HyperFlex."
"I wish they could collaborate more with the other vendors internally, instead of us opening cases with Cisco, HPE, VMware, etc."
"In the next release I would like to see integration into other third-party player providers like Google."
"The price of the solution can improve."
"The support for NFS protocols right out-of-the-box need improvement. I'm used to other storage vendors who have NFS support right out-of-the-box, and Pure Storage doesn't seem to have anything."
"One thing they need to work on is creating an app sync or the Metro Cluster functionality. Currently, it requires a different hop as we have to add multiple switches to build that functionality for replication from one data center to another. If that could be bundled in a base Dell PowerStore by default, it would be great."
"It would have been beneficial to have someone from the support team do a warm handoff to clarify who to contact for future assistance."
"If I could improve anything about Dell PowerStore, there are a couple of in-the-weeds features that I would want to see, such as the size of snapshots to know when we can expire some of them."
"I would say it needs easier or increased compatibility with other storage solutions for easier application, such as Dell's own PowerVault. They don't communicate or talk to each other, and they don't replicate to each other, which makes it harder to mix and match."
"There seems to be a lack of a price range in the small company, small medium company segment."
"Scalability can be improved as it meets our requirements currently, but in the longer run, scalability might be a concern."
"There are many vulnerabilities that we cannot mitigate related to the administration interface."
"The price of Dell EMC PowerStore could be better, it is a bit expensive."
"The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best."
"I would like to see IBM products become more affordable because they can be quite expensive, which limits their accessibility to a broader customer base."
"Deduplication and compression should be improved."
"The ZIO interface could be improved."
"The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best."
"Other vendors have included a block and file system. IBM doesn't include a file system."
"We're not satisfied with the deduplication and compression for our volumes."
"In the FlashSystem 5200, there were only four ports of 32 fiber channels for the architecture. This has been resolved in the new generation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have an Evergreen Storage subscription, which I think is a great feature."
"There are no licensing fees aside from the support."
"Cost-wise, it's been very effective."
"We have 16 or 18 arrays. We like to do the three-year support model so that we get Evergreen and therefore, we get free upgrades. We pay around more than 1.5 million dollars."
"I would rate the pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray a five out of ten. It is expensive but not too much."
"It is light years beyond anything else with the same price point."
"It's priced higher than the market."
"The price was more favorable than Dell EMC."
"The pricing is good. There's no need to pay for a license; it's all-inclusive."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"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."
"Licensing is very simple. Everything is included in the basic license. There are no concerns about having to pay to add a feature. Everything is there."
"Dell PowerStore is affordable and the license is just a face license which is great."
"The price is high compared to the Tunisian market."
"We are currently using Dell PowerStore for our smaller storage and there is no competition for pricing."
"Dell PowerStore is not a cheap solution."
"The tool's pricing is competitive."
"The product has an average cost."
"Compared to its competitors, IBM's offering is the most cost-effective."
"The price of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMele can be considered affordable when taking into account the operating system that is required for it to function properly. This operating system, which is licensed by IBM, may carry a higher cost, but it is worth the investment for larger corporate entities, such as insurance companies, Fortune Five companies, and banks, who make up a significant portion of their target market. The FlashSystems are designed for larger corporations and multinational enterprises, and may not be the most cost-effective solution for smaller businesses."
"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 price of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is less than Dell. For upgrades, the Dell solutions are more expensive."
"The price of the FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable."
"It's a lot less costly than cloud storage. People get surprised by the cost of cloud storage, which is extremely expensive and four or five times the cost of storage on-premises. People don't realize what they're spending on storage until they start getting bills from Amazon, Microsoft, and others. This is a good way to reduce your cloud storage expenses."
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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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Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerStore vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
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