Dell SC Series vs IBM FlashSystem comparison

Dell Technologies and IBM are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #27 with an average rating of 8.8, while IBM is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.6. Dell Technologies holds a 0.9% mindshare in AFS, compared to IBM’s 7.6% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of IBM users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

IBM FlashSystem and Dell SC Series are two prominent products in the storage market. While IBM FlashSystem is appreciated for its performance, Dell SC Series stands out due to its extensive features.

Features: IBM FlashSystem is known for its speed, efficiency, and reliability. Dell SC Series offers versatile functionality, extensive integration options, and a comprehensive feature set giving it an edge over IBM FlashSystem.

Room for Improvement: IBM FlashSystem users suggest improvements in manageability, reporting tools, and software tools. Dell SC Series needs better upgrade processes, reduced complexity, and enhanced system updates.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM FlashSystem is straightforward to deploy and supported by strong customer service. Dell SC Series has a more complex deployment process but offers comprehensive support services.

Pricing and ROI: IBM FlashSystem is cost-effective with a favorable ROI, justifying its initial setup cost. Dell SC Series is more expensive but considered a worthwhile investment due to its advanced features and long-term benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell SC Series vs. IBM FlashSystem Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series vs. IBM FlashSystem

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.7%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell SC Series is 0.9%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem is 7.6%, up from 7.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Paul Pearson

Storage and Backup Architect at Concentrix

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.

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Steven McClendon

Data Center Server & Storage Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Superior platform with excellent snapshots and cost-saving auto-tiering

I'm a big fan of the SC Series platform. Its feature set is superior to some of the other platforms. The snapshots on SC are excellent, allowing for multiple snapshot schedules for any one system. The auto-tiering functionality intelligently moves new data to the highest performance tier and then progresses it down to less expensive tiers over time, providing cost savings for customers.

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Raanan Sitton

Vice President Sales at BELOCAL LTD

Offers cost-effective storage for small companies with budget constraints

IBM FlashSystem 5300 is offered at a very low cost in Israel, which is advantageous for small companies. However, other features like deduplication and compression do not perform effectively. The price sensitivity makes it a viable option for clients with budgetary constraints, as it allows us to secure deals based on the cost rather than advanced performance.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."

"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."

"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

"The solution is scalable."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"It has good dedupe and compression. Also, the built-in data migration capabilities are pretty good, as is the federation. When we started migrating the workloads from different storage platforms, like NetApp and XtremeIO, it helped us in moving to that direction."

"It has been one of the most stable products in our data center."

"We replicate between SAN to SAN for a lot of features and supportability. It also helps us when we want to upgrade to a newer SC Series or move the data from one data center to another."

"Its leading feature is the price-performance ratio, which is very good."

"It's very scalable, especially with federation. If you outgrow the number of spindles that a unit can support, depending on the model, you can go into federation."

"The user interface is good, I would rate it a nine out of ten."

"Technical support is very good. I do use it from time to time and it's always excellent."

"Connecting it up, you can run it within a few hours."

More Dell SC Series pros

"Most of the features for the reduction in data compression are useful. It is also very easy to use and administer. Its performance is also good."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is compression."

"When it comes to the interface of the solution we did not encounter any challenges. Additionally, the solution has good documentation."

"The solution is very easy to configure and use."

"User friendly management interface."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"No queuing and high ops, speed, and performance."

"The valuable feature is autoscalling."

More IBM FlashSystem pros

Cons

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."

"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."

"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."

"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."

"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."

"The software layer has to improve."

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"While the price is competitive, in the next release it would be better if they could reduce the fees."

"There's always room for improvement in the operating code."

"The configuration could be easier in Dell EMC SC Series."

"Licensing, especially on the storage line, could use some simplification. It's not terrible, but, for example, with the Isilon series, they've gone to completely a la carte. A la carte is very difficult to traverse, as to what you need. It would be more beneficial, at least from my point of view as a customer, if they did it more like car companies do, where there are package lines"

"Compellent comes in the form of a component that's not true of a unified storage platform."

"We can definitely see a need for it being a multi-controller system for customers who want to scale beyond the current capability. That's always a downside. A lot of the new systems are scaling vertically, they scale out, and the Compellent, of course, is controllers with shelves under it, so you don't scale out with it, unless you add another one. But if you do, they don't talk to each other, like some of the other solutions that we sell."

"It would be helpful if the solution offered higher performance, at least on the back end."

"If Dell SC Series could have supported the protocol NVMe over TCP, that would have been great. It does not."

More Dell SC Series cons

"Customization features must be improved."

"The price is very costly."

"There is room for improvement in the troubleshooting part, specifically related to IBM Spectrum for Insight."

"The GUI for monitoring performance metrics could provide better visibility. For example, it doesn't let me segregate the IOPS per volume."

"Include an option to upload the support package to the IBM ECuRep when opening an IBM PMR."

"One area for improvement is in the GUI, where host clusters are not properly dealt with. With Hypervisor host clusters, all hosts must see the same volumes in the same order. Using the concept of a “host-group” has been around (even with IBM) for many years, so why not with the V7000?"

"The solution's pricing is a bit high so there is room for improvement."

"This solution could be improved by offering greater amounts of storage."

More IBM FlashSystem cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."

"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"This product is too expensive compared to others, and I don't see any value in using it."

"We have the basic license for the use of this solution and it is a permanent license. The overall cost could be less, it is expensive."

"There are costs involving the solution, vendor fees and product safety which are additional."

"Support typically depends on the array. It can range anywhere from $7,000 to a couple of hundred thousand dollars."

"It is one of the most cost effective systems for us. We have been able to run it longer than most, getting the most benefit and money out of it."

"It's a very affordable solution."

"The SC Series was priced fairly. I wouldn't call it either expensive or cheap because we had a very tight budget, so if they were able to fit in that type of budget, they met our expectations."

"We have found it to be affordable. Comparing the cost with other hardware, it seems to be right in line with the compute and the storage that we get with it."

More Dell SC Series pricing and cost advice

"The price of IBM FlashSystem is a little high because you pay a premium because the solution is from IBM. We had paid for the SLA prior to using the solution."

"Pricing can be considered as per market competition."

"Overall the price of the solution is expensive and this includes the license."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"The total storage capacity vs price is still quite high for the IBM Flash Array."

"The solution requires a license and could be less expensive."

"We have no issues with the price as it is very competitive."

"The cost is pretty high in terms of licensing. We pay at least $100,000 USD in licensing fees for the storage."

More IBM FlashSystem pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

24%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

University

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell SC Series?

I find this version to be more budget-friendly compared to products from other vendors. This aspect greatly benefits ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell SC Series?

I've always found the pricing of Dell SC Series very good. I believe the product is being phased out because the pric...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell SC Series?

If Dell SC Series wasn't being phased out, adding an NVMe tier and secure snapshots like those on the PowerStore plat...

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM FlashSystem?

It is simple to make an update.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem?

Many factors affect purchasing directly from IBM, often involving a multi-step process. Customers, especially in bank...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem?

There is room for improvement in the troubleshooting part, specifically related to IBM Spectrum for Insight. Customer...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 36% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell SC Series

Compared 64% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell SC Series

Compared 13% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell SC Series

Compared 10% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell SC Series

Compared 5% of the time

More Dell SC Series Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 25% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 8% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 7% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 6% of the time

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM FlashSystem Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

December 2024

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series

December 2024

Download Dell SC Series product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem

December 2024

Download IBM FlashSystem product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

SC Series Storage, Compellent

IBM Storwize

Learn More

Pure Storage

Dell Technologies

IBM

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

Dell EMC SC Series arrays provide a unified platform for the ultimate in performance, adaptability and machine-driven efficiency. SC Series software delivers modern features that help you meet aggressive workload demands using the fewest drives necessary. With an open, future-ready design, SC Series storage integrates seamlessly with applications and infrastructure, enabling you to scale on a single platform and add capabilities without forklift upgrades.

IBM FlashSystem products are enterprise computer data storage systems that store data on flash memory chips. Unlike storage systems that use standard solid-state drives, IBM FlashSystem products incorporate custom hardware based on technology from the 2012 acquisition of Texas Memory Systems. This hardware provides performance, reliability, and efficiency benefits versus competitive offerings.

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric

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

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series vs. IBM FlashSystem

December 2024

Free Report: Dell SC Series vs. IBM FlashSystem

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell SC Series vs. IBM FlashSystem and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.

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