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IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe vs Pure Storage FlashArray 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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
17th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
27th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (11th)
Pure Storage FlashArray
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
4th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
211
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.5%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pure Storage FlashArray is 7.2%, up from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Pure Storage FlashArray7.2%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe1.5%
IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe0.6%
Other90.7%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at Lambda256
Supports efficient storage management through volume snapshots and offers reliable non-disruptive upgrades
I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, but it does not show the performance by 4K byte unit. It displays IOPS and bandwidth, but IOPS is about real use, and I want to know how many IOPS are currently running in 4K byte units. I cannot see that IOPS because most storage systems report their performance by 4K byte unit. I want to see Pure Storage performance by 4K byte unit to compare with other storage or other internal NVMe SSD.
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…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"I appreciate the performance."
"The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"It's easy to use, has good stability, and many features."
"The high performance and high availability improved our overall processes."
"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."
"It is a very stable solution."
"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."
"The FlashCore modules support more value to the architecture due to their unique characteristics."
"The storage serves the virtual environment. Most of our applications run in the virtual environment, and it serves nearly 30% of the bank's capacity."
"A key feature is that compared to storage systems that we've been familiar with over decades, IBM simply does not fail. The reason is that IBM is the only manufacturer that engineers its own flash module, and there is a key architectural difference from everything else that we have seen in the market. The difference is that the flash module has the computational capability, which allows reliability and capacity enhancements to be uploaded from the main controllers and run in each module. So, each of the flash drives becomes its own little storage system, and that is extremely effective architecture. In this field, with this type of system, IBM has made a statement. They've never had one of these modules cause an outage. So, the failure rates on these things are just in a whole different universe from what we were accustomed to."
"Performance, dedupe, and that it works well with database workloads are its most valuable features."
"The Direct FlashArray stands out as one of the best features in the market. The Pure1 storage management lets us see the details about utilization and everything else for all 40 storage boxes in one place."
"Technical support is excellent. I've had very good responses from technical support. We had a couple of cases where we needed support. Some of the communications were purely over email and some has been an actual call to the service desk."
"We like the speed. It's very low latency. In virtualization, you can mask lots of problems, and even in code you can mask lots of problems, with low latency. It's just pure speed and low latency."
"The predictive performance analytics is a very good feature, as our system is performing better than before."
"The solution is very reliable."
"The most valuable feature is that maintenance is free."
"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."
 

Cons

"We have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."
"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."
"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is currently at the end of its lifespan and will soon become obsolete in the markets."
"The solution's compression feature could be better."
"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.""
"Deduplication and compression should be improved."
"I'd like to be able to connect to tape drives behind the storage device to back up the tape if need be. We have all of our storage running in all-flash, and we make a copy on tape. Currently, when we want to hook up tape drives, we have to add some extra equipment, which is a little bit complex. We want IBM to add a feature where we could install a tape into the storage so that we can connect it through a single pane of glass. We'd like to have a feature in the IBM flash storage system so that we can connect backup tape drives through the IBM storage system and we can manage the backup tape from the storage system."
"The storage system itself should have built-in capabilities for different ransomware attacks."
"In the future, the limitation is upgrading the same storage by adding a shelf to the desk. There is a limitation in the backend connection between the storage and extended shelf."
"IBM is currently not offering volume-based encryption or compression, while other brands or IBM's competitors are doing it."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve the recent file storage capabilities because it is lacking a lot of features."
"It was a little costly. The price was ultimately higher than both of the other solutions that we evaluated. I'd say that's the only downside."
"Its price could be cheaper. It is not the cheapest one out there, but I'm not directly involved in the figures and negotiations."
"In the next release, I would like to see file-level encryption."
"I would like to see them develop the ability to integrate with more AWS services. There are increasingly more and more services coming out from AWS but there are also certain constraints where we can't move everything over to a cloud as well. We would like for things that are on-premise to be easily integrated with AWS."
"It would be nice to have a better view of the allocated capacity on their Platform as a Service solution because we have to do some manual calculations to understand how much we are going to pay every month to use the storage that is allocated."
"The connectivity needs improvement. You do not have the possibility to have a file and block connectivity at the same time on the same machine. It has limited ability to do so."
"It took us a year to get it to stabilize and to get the best out of Pure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"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."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing an eight."
"The price of the FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable."
"The solution's price is competitive."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"We lost a lot of customers because we couldn't compete on price with other vendors."
"Because the price is a bit higher than other products, the data reduction equalizes the price with amount of the data reduction."
"You get what you pay for. It is expensive, but it really works."
"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."
"The Evergreen Storage subscription is great, because then I get new controllers every three years."
"It is a cheaper solution."
"Because of the SSD, it is cheaper because I am not purchasing so many disks."
"I'm good with the licensing. Of course, pricing can always be less... It's actually not a bad pricing model, considering I don't have to rip-and-replace."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
6%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Recreational Facilities/Services Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business63
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise143
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could ...
What do you like most about IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?
The storage serves the virtual environment. Most of our applications run in the virtual environment, and it serves ne...
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...
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 do you like most about Pure Storage FlashArray?
We consume less physical storage because of the solution’s deduplication and compression.
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...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
IBM FlashSystem 9100, FlashSystem 9100
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Information Not Available
Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe vs. Pure Storage FlashArray and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,360 professionals have used our research since 2012.