IBM FlashSystem vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe comparison

IBM FlashSystem and IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. IBM FlashSystem is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.6, while IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.7. IBM FlashSystem holds a 7.6% mindshare in AFS, compared to IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of IBM FlashSystem users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

IBM FlashSystem series and IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe offer advanced storage solutions in the high-performance storage category. Based on the comparison, IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe stands out for its superior features despite a higher cost.

Features: IBM FlashSystem is valued for its reliability, ease of use, and integration capabilities. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is praised for its NVMe architecture, scalability, and speed, making it a standout choice.

Room for Improvement: IBM FlashSystem needs better management tools, enhanced documentation, and improved user interface. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe requires better scalability, enhanced customer support, and refined software updates.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM FlashSystem is praised for its straightforward deployment and robust customer service. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is easy to deploy but receives mixed reviews on customer service, with some users finding it less satisfactory compared to IBM FlashSystem.

Pricing and ROI: IBM FlashSystem offers a favorable setup cost and substantial ROI. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe has a higher setup cost but delivers strong ROI due to its advanced features and performance, justifying the higher initial investment.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM FlashSystem vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

December 2024

Download the complete report

Helped 824,053 peers since 2012

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 IBM FlashSystem is 7.6%, up from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is 0.5%, up from 0.5% 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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Mohamed-Hassan

Microfinance at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

Steady performance, responsive support, and high availability

If we add a shell, the scalability depends on a legacy protocol and not the IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe which is a setback. At the previous bank, I worked at we had approximately 9,000 users. We are using the solution at its full capacity. I rate the scalability of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe a seven out of ten.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."

"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."

"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."

"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."

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

"I use the tool for Oracle databases, Oracle virtual machines, and Oracle Linux databases. I'm on the storage side, not a database administrator."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The performance is very good and we use this product to enhance our core system."

"The performance monitoring feature is useful as it can report in 15 minute intervals by hour, day, week, month, or by a custom date range."

"Flash disk with Easy Tier option"

"Installing FlashSystem is very easy. It takes less than half an hour, and I can handle it all myself."

"Speed (IOPS/second) – It is most vital for applications that need low latency and high speed for transferring the data."

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

"The valuable feature is autoscalling."

"IBM products at the enterprise level are stable solutions, with a score of nine out of ten for stability."

More IBM FlashSystem pros

"It is a very stable solution."

"The most valuable feature is the speed."

"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."

"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."

"Its ease of use, performance, and hardware compression is very useful feature."

"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."

"The high performance and high availability improved our overall processes."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe pros

Cons

"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."

"The software layer has to improve."

"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."

"One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them."

"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."

"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."

"We need better data deduplication."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The only issue my team faced was transferring the data from the old system to IBM FlashSystem, which is an area for improvement in the solution."

"The array level RAID does not seem available."

"Customization features must be improved."

"It has room for improvement in the area of stability."

"Their technical support needs improvement in terms of reachability for the clients and response times. They should be more responsive and have more online platforms for support. They should make more technical information available online. There could be some kind of documentation community."

"Enterprise data storage needs improvement. They should create a feature for data and file storage."

"IBM should improve its data reduction development."

"In IBM FlashSystem, data reduction is an area with shortcomings where improvements can be made in the future."

More IBM FlashSystem cons

"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."

"The ZIO interface could be improved."

"The tool's architecture is complex. It also needs to add data utilization reports."

"IBM is currently not offering volume-based encryption or compression, while other brands or IBM's competitors are doing it."

"In the FlashSystem 5200, there were only four ports of 32 fiber channels for the architecture. This has been resolved in the new generation."

"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'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.""

"The support could be better."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."

"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."

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

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

"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."

"The product is expensive."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The tool is cost-efficient."

"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."

"I price of IBM FlashSystem is reasonable and competitive."

"Its price is very good."

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

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

"I find the pricing of the solution to be very reasonable."

"This solution is expensive compared to other solutions."

More IBM FlashSystem pricing and cost advice

"Compared to its competitors, IBM's offering is the most cost-effective."

"The solution is priced well."

"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."

"Price-wise, the solution offers excellent pricing to its users. In short, the prices offered by the solution are competitive compared to similar solutions."

"The price of the FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable."

"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."

"There are pricing options from the mid-rand to the high-range, of which the suitability depends upon the requirements."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

22%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

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 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

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

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 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

Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 48% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 23% of the time

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

HPE Primera vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 12% of the time

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

December 2024

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem

December 2024

Download IBM FlashSystem product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

December 2024

Download IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe product report

Also Known As

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

IBM Storwize

IBM FlashSystem 9100, FlashSystem 9100

Learn More

Pure Storage

IBM

Video not available

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.

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.

IBM FlashSystem 9100 combines the performance of flash and Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) end-to-end with the reliability and innovation of IBM FlashCore technology and the rich features of IBM Spectrum Virtualize - all in a powerful 2U enterprise-class storage system. Providing intensive data driven multicloud storage capacity, FlashSystem 9100 is deeply integrated with the software defined capabilities of IBM Spectrum Storage allowing you to easily add in the multicloud solutions that best support your business.

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

December 2024

Free Report: IBM FlashSystem vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM FlashSystem vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.

DOWNLOAD NOW

824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our IBM FlashSystem vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe report.

See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.

We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.