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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

"FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle."
"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."
"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"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."
"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."
"The tool's valuable features are speed, security, data compression, and reliability. Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen. It helps us to save money and resources."
"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."
"The most valuable features of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe are its steady performance and usefulness in high-traffic environments."
"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."
"Good performance with a user-friendly UI."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is the snapshot. We use it daily for all of the storage units."
"The solution is more available for IOPS warehousing, resolving issues, and reporting than other products."
"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."
"The security operating system is its most valuable feature because it's very simple, easy to use, and operate. You don't have to do very serious training to operate this equipment. It's user-friendly and pretty straightforward."
"The deduplication and compression rates are beyond impressive."
"It solved many problems and provided unexpected features that improved our business execution, making us more agile internally."
"The most valuable feature is that maintenance is free."
"The scalability is good."
"The tool has reduced our power consumption."
"Pure Storage FlashArray offers numerous valuable features, such as low latency and high throughput."
"I have seen a huge increase in speed and performance on our databases."
 

Cons

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."
"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."
"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."
"We need better data deduplication."
"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."
"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."
"It is on the expensive side."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is an expensive solution, and its pricing could be improved."
"The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best."
"The tool's architecture is complex. It also needs to add data utilization reports."
"The ZIO interface could 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."
"IBM is currently not offering volume-based encryption or compression, while other brands or IBM's competitors are doing it."
"The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best."
"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."
"I would like to see a Nagios monitoring plugin which watches the health and performance of the system. The only one available just checks volume capacity."
"It would be beneficial to have a health check command that can be run from the CLI to ensure that all hardware components are functioning properly rather than having to enable remote access and connect to support for a health check."
"I would like FlashArray to add reports that help us forecast our predicted resource needs based on current usage."
"Its price could be cheaper. It is not the cheapest one out there, but I'm not directly involved in the figures and negotiations."
"Most of our upgrades have not been as smooth as they should have been."
"I would like to see additional features like performance monitoring, configuring alerts, and the customization of alert thresholds."
"What it needs to do is work a little closer with solutions, like VMware, so it understands the particular workloads that are on it. Today, it does not understand the applications which are running against it."
"We would like to integrate it more with our backup solutions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"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."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
"The product has an average cost."
"The solution's price is competitive."
"The solution is priced well."
"There are pricing options from the mid-rand to the high-range, of which the suitability depends upon the requirements."
"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 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."
"For us, as the customer, it reduced the price of the management."
"Once you purchase Pure Storage FlashArray it is all-inclusive, you receive all the licenses needed."
"The pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray is reasonable."
"Pure Storage has not helped to reduce our HANA licensing costs."
"The solution could be cheaper."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"They have a standardized fee; it's been the same price for 10 years straight. I am happy with the price — I think it's good."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
6%
Marketing Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
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 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...
 

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: February 2026.
883,011 professionals have used our research since 2012.