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IBM FlashSystem vs IBM XIV comparison

IBM FlashSystem and IBM XIV are both solutions in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category. IBM FlashSystem is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.5, while IBM XIV is ranked #10. IBM FlashSystem holds a 19.8% mindshare in MS, compared to IBM XIV’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of IBM FlashSystem users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of IBM XIV users who would recommend it.
IBM FlashSystem
Read 110 IBM FlashSystem reviews
  • 1,461 Views
  • 1,109 Comparison Views
91% willing to recommend
IBM XIV
Read 6 IBM XIV reviews
  • 139 Views
  • 70 Comparison Views
85% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

IBM XIV and IBM FlashSystem are solutions in the storage category. IBM FlashSystem offers superior performance, making it more appealing for users prioritizing speed and capacity, whereas IBM XIV balances cost with benefits due to advantageous pricing and support.

Features: IBM XIV offers robust data reduction, consistent data replication, and is highly reliable in performance. IBM FlashSystem provides high-speed capabilities, extensive scalability through NVMe technology, and superior throughput, highlighting its focus on performance.

Room for Improvement: IBM XIV could enhance its scalability and data access speeds. Improvements could also include better integration capabilities with newer technologies. IBM FlashSystem might consider simplifying its deployment process and provide a more cost-effective entry point. Enhanced ease of use and streamlined management features can also be areas for refinement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM XIV is known for its straightforward deployment and responsive customer service, providing rapid and easy integration. IBM FlashSystem, while requiring a more complex setup, delivers detailed technical assistance and thorough documentation to support deployment decisions.

Pricing and ROI: IBM XIV stands out as a budget-friendly option, aligning well with mid-range storage needs, offering a steady return on investment. Conversely, IBM FlashSystem demands higher initial costs but provides notable performance returns over time, making it appealing as a long-term investment option.

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To learn more, read our detailed IBM FlashSystem vs. IBM XIV Report (Updated: March 2025).
Buyer's Guide
IBM FlashSystem vs. IBM XIV
March 2025
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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 XIV
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
10th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
6
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 XIV is 1.2%, up 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 - PeerSpot reviewer
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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Ajith Kandaramage - PeerSpot reviewer
Good value for money but issues with modular scaling
IBM XIV's most valuable features are NVME, especially when it comes to de-duplication, compression, and responsiveness I've been using IBM XIV for two and a half years. IBM XIV is stable. IBM XIV's scalability is adequate for our requirements, but because it's modular, you can't scale to larger…
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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

"At the FlashSystem level, customers are especially fond of multi-tier and distributed rate systems, particularly the dynamic rate six arrays."
"The FlashSystem 900 consistently delivers performance below 1ms for read/write. This performance is essential for an effective SVC stretch-cluster configuration across two datacenters, and presenting active-active storage to the customer."
"They have a virtualization feature and, even if you do not want to buy that feature, you can have it as a trial for two to three months. If you have another brand of storage from another company, you can use this tool to transfer all your data from the old system to the new Storwize system, which really shortens the migration time."
"I would recommend it to other users."
"The solution allows for easy migrations from previous products or vendors via its embedded storage virtualization function."
"This solution is very stable."
"The most crucial feature of IBM FlashSystem is compression."
"The performance of the solution is noteworthy."
More IBM FlashSystem pros
"Installation is amazingly easy."
"IBM XIV's most valuable features are NVME, especially when it comes to de-duplication, compression, and responsiveness."
"The performance and robustness of the systems are very good."
"Very easy to produce reporting data (Snaps). Very easy and fast for provisioning devices and Remote mirroring."
"Hands down, this is the easiest storage platform on the market to manage."
"As it spreads, a chuck of 1MB across the board means using all available spindles on the backend."
 

Cons

"In the next release having the next level of high-speed performance would be great."
"The price is very costly."
"Product support is restricted to IBM only. It must be decentralized to IBM partners as well."
"I would like to have a larger disk. Right now, you can get 57 terabytes in a shelf. Once they get the larger disk and you get larger capacities, it'll be even better."
"They don't offer subscription-based payments."
"The support could improve by allowing you to speak to someone when you call rather than them calling you back. However, once we do have contact with one of their technicians they are excellent."
"We had issues when attempting to do a flash, we hope to resolve it soon."
"I think the only thing the developers can look at, is that it is limited to 25 gigabytes currently. In the next release they might want to increase that."
More IBM FlashSystem cons
"I encountered stability (performance) issues during enclosure or disk rebuild. Also some power supply issues due to malfunctions of ​circuits. Sometimes "internal" Snap sessions hang and consume pool capacity."
"I would rather have a web GUI served directly from the unit, and a CLI accessible directly through SSH."
"IBM XIV's scalability is adequate for our requirements, but because it's modular, you can't scale to larger requirements."
"This product was not a good fit for our organization as we have a ton of latency sensitive applications and XIV was not able to keep up with IO + latency demand."
"The change form synchronous mirroring to asynchronous (and vice versa) without reconfiguration from scratch would be helpful."
"Until the drive is replaced, the pool_resizing is locked."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is a little bit high so is rated a six out of ten."
"The cost of the IBM FlashSystem is lower than the HPE solution."
"I find the pricing of the solution to be very reasonable."
"I price of IBM FlashSystem is reasonable and competitive."
"This is an expensive product and if the price were reduced it would be better."
"I would rate the pricing of this solution a four out of five."
"Among IBM, Dell EMC, and Pure Storage, IBM is the cheapest. The price is also based on our location, the size of our entity, and our regular annual purchases from them. We are a very big IBM customer, so we normally get very high discounts. We are not a big customer of Pure Storage. We don't buy that much from Pure Storage per year. Everything is included in the price. There is no extra license for different functions."
"The integration is already included in the license cost of IBM FlashSystem. The integration is very easy. You get the IBM storage core with all software, firmware, and upgrades. EMC provides the features in the box, but they are not free for customers. There is a licensing cost for features. We have yearly licensing, but IBM has also provided a new option where you pay as you go. They provide a big box, and I pay, for example, for 10 terabytes. If I exceed 10 terabytes, IBM will charge for the new storage after 10 terabytes. It is a good opportunity in the market for using the storage as a cloud and paying as you go."
More IBM FlashSystem pricing and cost advice
"No-license-required policy, unlike others where you need a license for everything. Just pay once and forget about licenses."
"Licensing is straightforward."
"We have a five-year total cost of ownership where we pay an initial amount and then annually for maintenance."
"If you are going to use the product behind an SVC, IBM will price the units lower, since you are likely not to use any of the advanced copy services."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
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.
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 banking, often use the latest devices as they are upgrading, indicating they do not ...
See all answers
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.
See all answers
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Comparisons

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Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem
Compared 24% of the time
Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs IBM FlashSystem Logo
Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs IBM FlashSystem
Compared 8% of the time
Pure Storage FlashArray vs IBM FlashSystem Logo
Pure Storage FlashArray vs IBM FlashSystem
Compared 8% of the time
HPE Alletra Storage vs IBM FlashSystem Logo
HPE Alletra Storage vs IBM FlashSystem
Compared 8% of the time
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs IBM FlashSystem Logo
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs IBM FlashSystem
Compared 6% of the time
More IBM FlashSystem Competitors
No data available
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
IBM FlashSystem
March 2025
IBM FlashSystem reportDownload IBM FlashSystem product report
Buyer's Guide
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
March 2025
IBM XIV reportDownload IBM XIV product report
 

Also Known As

IBM Storwize
XIV
 

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

IBM XIV is a high-end, grid-scale storage system that excels in tuning-free consistent performance, ease of use and exceptional data economics, including inline, and IBM Real-time Compression. IBM XIV is ideal for hybrid cloud, offering predictable service levels for dynamic workloads, simplified scale management, including in multi-tenant environments, flexible consumption models — and robust cloud automation and orchestration through OpenStack, RESTful API and VMware. It offers security and data protection through hot encryption, advanced mirroring and self-healing and investment protection with perpetual licensing.

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
Celero, NaviSite, Technische Universit_t Mªnchen, Netflix Inc., Muhr und Bender KG, Pelephone Communications
Buyer's Guide
IBM FlashSystem vs. IBM XIV
March 2025
Free Report: IBM FlashSystem vs. IBM XIV
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