IBM FlashSystem vs IBM System Storage DS5000 Series comparison

IBM FlashSystem vs. IBM System Storage DS5000 Series

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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

IBM FlashSystem

Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

110

Ranking in other categories

NAS (4th), All-Flash Storage (13th)

IBM System Storage DS5000 S...

Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

6th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of IBM FlashSystem is 19.8%, up from 16.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM System Storage DS5000 Series is 1.0%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

Featured Reviews

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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Gustavo Rosello

Technological Infrastructure Manager at Mercado Argentino de Valores S.A.

Provides solid hardware and ROI to users

Companies or groups of business units are growing fast. We have perhaps between four and five more people than what it was two years ago, so the systems are increasing, and now we are working with RPA in some of our processes for automation, especially wherever it is mandatory in the financial branch, like a common investment fund and the investment in action or where there are other products. Our market is directly related to small business. We are working with companies where data translation is needed or where invoices, specifically credit invoices, the negotiation of cheques, or a doc that shows receipt of money, which you can sell at a future date. We have a sub-warehouse that has a back office in the cloud to use all operations related to creditors so that the company can increase its share in the markets. I think that we may need something on-premises in the future. The trends indicate that users are returning to on-premises systems because of the high cost of public clouds. We are looking for a better data center. In Argentina, hardware costs are high, but now, it is a great investment. We are slowly planning to expand the tool. In the USA, when it comes to object-first devices, there is a cost of 48,000 USD for 128 TB, but in Argentina, the cost is 64,000 USD for 84 TB. In Argentina, we have a lot of taxes, and the government is in the process of reducing these taxes, but now we have a situation associated with our economy. Out of 100 companies, only two are seeking employees. We are waiting for the recovery of the economy, but everything here is expensive apart from the salaries.

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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

"Virtualization of external storage, while adding cache and speed to the external storage."

"Flash disk with Easy Tier option"

"The most valuable features in IBM FlashSystem are IOPS, performance, duplication, and compression."

"The most valuable features are deduplication and compression."

"The price-performance ratio is most valuable."

"The Flash core models offer amazing performance."

"Data deduplication is one of the most valuable features of this solution."

"The most valuable features are flexibility and performance."

More IBM FlashSystem pros

"The solution offers an excellent price-performance ratio, including SSDs and compression capabilities. This results in faster performance and potential space savings due to compression."

"IBM System Storage DS5000 series enhances clients' data handling capabilities through improved security, fast systems, and added value features."

"The IBM System Storage DS5000 Series can be integrated into various platforms such as IBM, Intel, Linux, and others. It provides flexibility in integration wherever storage is required."

"We use it for applications, databases, media, files, etc."

"The solution is stable. I rate its stability a nine out of ten."

"You can easily virtualize and share the storage."

"I also like all the software features you get from the IBM System Storage DS5000 Series such as the SVC (SAN volume controller). You can put the code on the controllers, and it really gives you the advantage because you'll have HyperSwap."

"I like that it's stable, and I am satisfied with it. We have had some issues, but that is normal in IT. IBM System Storage DS5000 works fine most of the time."

More IBM System Storage DS5000 Series pros

Cons

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

"IBM FlashSystem 5300 needs improvement in its deduplication and compression features."

"They can improve its initial configuration. The initial configuration is currently very difficult. There are multiple choices or alternative ways to configure based on the use case and what you are targeting out of the device, that is, more capacity or more performance. These multiple alternatives cause a lot of confusion. They should increase the processing part of the nodes. Currently, you can cluster up to eight nodes. From my experience and the workload that I am facing in my environment currently, I would like to see either a bigger or stronger node or a larger number of nodes that can be clustered together. We formally communicated to them that we need to see either this or that, and they are working on something."

"Sometimes the performance is effective but it gets resolved in the process."

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

"GUI interface should be enhanced more as there is some issues in copy services."

"The solution's infrastructure technology level could be PCI Express 5 instead of PCI Express 4 for the next version."

"The pricing needs to be more competitive."

More IBM FlashSystem cons

"If you decide to expand the IBM System Storage DS5000 Series by adding an extension frame to the controller, you won't have the ability to incorporate flash storage models directly. Instead, you'll need to work with SSD which may be slightly slower."

"The product should improve its support."

"IBM is not always as agile as other competitors when it is about cloud integration and user interfaces. They're not renewing themselves very often. They have been slow to evolve from the old GUI. The user interface should be improved, especially regarding performance analysis, which has always been a little bit weak as compared to other solutions. As a global solution, it lacks the feature for containing integration object storage. Even though they have now started to offer this feature, it is quite young and not as developed as some other vendors. There are also no mass possibilities at all. They have a lot of competition in the mid-range segment. They need to have a NAS gateway or something like that. It doesn't specifically need to be integrated into the controllers that are keys to the gateway."

"The price of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"Improving software installation and licensing retrieval would make using IBM System Storage DS5000 series easier for customers."

"IBM talks about integration when we talk about Safeguarded Copy. It integrates with QRadar, but it seems as though IBM still is too separate, that is, the way IBM is measured on software and hardware."

"IBM System Storage DS5000 is expensive when compared to other vendors."

"I find the solution isn't so easy to understand. A user must be quite knowledgeable in the product. It isn't like HPE 3PAR, which you can use quite easily without too much storage experience."

More IBM System Storage DS5000 Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price depends of the technology that our customers need. The price can come at a lower cost but this may increase as storage is added."

"Our customers would like IMB FlashSystem to be less expensive."

"The pricing may be a bit higher than other brands. If you compare the IBM FlashSystems in midrange with Dell EMC in midrange, IBM costs a bit more, but I prefer IBM because it has more specs that I can benefit from."

"Regarding licensing make sure you add at least three years software maintenance from IBM at the beginning, because you will not be able to download firmware updates or any fixes/patches without this."

"This solution is expensive compared to other solutions."

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

"For a yearly license, it is about $100,000. There are no additional costs. The entire system is included."

"The pricing is reasonable."

More IBM FlashSystem pricing and cost advice

"It is a competitively priced solution. The cost can vary depending on whether it is purchased from the hardware or the software departments."

"It's an expensive solution."

"We mounted all the virtualization with less than 1,50,000 USD. We are negotiating to get the tool for 800,000,000 Argentine Pesos. The tool is expensive, but it is worth the money."

"Compared to other vendors, I think it's expensive."

"Its price is fair. IBM is quite fair in price when you compare it with others. We also use Hitachi internally, and Hitachi is always a little bit more expensive. NetApp is also a bit more expensive. So, IBM has good positioning in terms of price."

"This product is priced well. The ratio between cost and productivity is very high and we're happy with it."

"The basic functionalities of the product are provided within the normal license, but users can opt for some optional features from IBM's licensing model."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM FlashSystem?

It is simple to make an update.

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 banking, often use the latest devices as they are upgrading, indicating they do not ...

What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem?

The GUI needs some improvement. An additional function that could be helpful is reducing the time it takes to delete volumes, especially if they are compressed or deduplicated.

What do you like most about IBM System Storage DS5000 Series?

The solution is reliable.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM System Storage DS5000 Series?

The price fits well with the proposal of this equipment. Although IBM is not cheap, the cost fits well with the propose.

What needs improvement with IBM System Storage DS5000 Series?

There are some functions that can only be used in prompt mode. If these functions could be shown in the graphical interface, it could be better.

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Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs IBM FlashSystem

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More IBM FlashSystem Competitors

No data available

Product Reports

IBM FlashSystem

Download IBM FlashSystem product report

IBM System Storage DS5000 Series

Download IBM System Storage DS5000 Series product report

Also Known As

IBM Storwize

System Storage DS5000 series

Overview

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

DS5000 storage systems are equally adept at supporting transactional applications such as databases and online transaction processing (OLTP), throughput-intensive applications such as high-performance computing (HPC) and rich media, and concurrent workloads for consolidation and virtualization. DS5000 series storage systems can support service level agreements (SLAs) for the most common operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, UNIX, Linux and Apple Macintosh.
With drive-level encryption, DS5000 series storage systems support affordable data security with no performance penalty. The DS5000 storage system’s multiple replication options, drive-level encryption, and persistent cache backup can help ensure that any data in cache is captured and safe in the event of a power outage.

IBM

Sample Customers

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

Engine Informštica

IBM FlashSystem vs. IBM System Storage DS5000 Series