IBM FlashSystem vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays comparison

IBM and NetApp are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. IBM is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.3, while NetApp is ranked #28 with an average rating of 9.3. IBM holds a 6.7% mindshare in AFS, compared to NetApp’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

IBM FlashSystem and NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are leading contenders in the all-flash storage market. While NetApp EF-Series has a slight edge due to advanced features, IBM FlashSystem often satisfies users with pricing and support.

Features: IBM FlashSystem is praised for strong data reduction capabilities, efficient performance optimization, and cost-effectiveness. NetApp EF-Series is noted for high-performance levels, robust data protection features, and advanced integration functionalities.

Room for Improvement: IBM FlashSystem users suggest improvements in scalability options, firmware updates, and user interface. NetApp EF-Series reviewers recommend enhancing integration support, reducing management complexity, and streamlining the deployment process.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM FlashSystem is viewed as easy to deploy with solid customer support. NetApp EF-Series users find the deployment process straightforward but express mixed feelings about customer service experiences.

Pricing and ROI: IBM FlashSystem users often mention cost-effectiveness and good return on investment. NetApp EF-Series users recognize a higher initial setup cost but accept it due to long-term benefits and ROI satisfaction.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM FlashSystem vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

January 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 838,713 peers since 2012

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

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, 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 6.7%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 0.6%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature

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. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.

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

Tayo Olubanke

Managing Director at GCET

Offers flexibility and top-notch technology

You can go to bed peacefully if you have a NetApp. If you have NetApp within your data center, you get to know about power failure if you are using it. Your NetApp will still come alive. Even if it does not come alive, I can say that it is not like other tools when it comes to dealing with power failure. The tool is affordable, and the technology is top-notch. It is the only technology that has software for what we call inline compression and deduplication. All the products under NetApp are aiming to use AI. I know that you can achieve whatever you want to do with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. I rate the tool a nine 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

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."

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

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

"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."

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."

"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."

"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"Flash disk with Easy Tier option"

"IBM FlashSystem is flexible, quick, and has a solid design."

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

"The GUI is very easy and performance is also good."

"The compression and deduplication features are the most valuable."

"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."

"The initial customer technical support was efficient and effective."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is SCM (Storage Class Memory), which has the lowest latency value in the storage industry."

More IBM FlashSystem pros

"The main advantage of this solution is performance."

"Having the option of such high-speed storage in the data center is what makes it valuable."

"This storage solution is both stable and scalable, and it works for our needs."

"The solution allows us to segregate one storage unit from another."

"The hardware and software of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are easy for us to use."

"I would have to say performance at this point, because the application it is based on is so diverse."

"Rapid deployment, easy integration management and cloning of areas."

"The management software is very good."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pros

Cons

"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."

"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."

"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."

"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."

"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."

"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."

"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"If you want to expand, you cannot expand the disc enclosure. You have to buy a total individual node. Sometimes, this is difficult because we are just looking for capacity and not a node."

"This product lacks some of the options we wanted. For example, expansion was difficult and it required a lot of patching to be done."

"There is room for improvement in the troubleshooting part, specifically related to IBM Spectrum for Insight. Customers are uncomfortable with remote access, which affects automated remote support."

"The solution is not easy to use and could improve."

"The product needs to improve their scalability."

"They don't offer subscription-based payments."

"The solution is quite expensive. That's one of the downsides to using it."

"When you provision a datastore auto-format takes a long time"

More IBM FlashSystem cons

"I would like to see higher-capacity drives, as they come out; I have heard that 15 TB are out on a different NetApp series. Getting those on the EFs would be nice."

"I've observed an issue when creating a new storage solution with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays."

"The initial setup phase of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is not straightforward and needs improvement."

"There could be better integration with some of our Cisco products."

"The management interface, while very reliable, it seems a little old now and could maybe use a little modernization."

"We have used IBM previously. We found that the storage from IBM was poor and we chose NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays because it can scale very easily."

"Things like the FlexClones, SnapVault, SnapMirror, all of that. Some of it's available on the EF series, but we like what we have in the FAS system."

"I’d like to see bigger, faster, better hardware, of course. I think that is the way the hardware is trending anyway; bigger, faster CPU, better software, fewer bugs, all that stuff. T"

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"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."

"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."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

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

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"This solution is expensive compared to other solutions."

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

"This is an expensive product and if the price were reduced it would be better."

"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 pricing has been very competitive for the last few years. IBM got to the point where they changed the pricing model and we feel very comfortable with the pricing. It's very competitive. Over the last two years, IBM has been coming up with all kinds of interesting promos, especially for the SMB systems. That makes it very competitive price-wise and in terms of performance..."

"The total storage capacity vs price is still quite high for the IBM Flash Array."

"Pricing can be considered as per market competition."

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

More IBM FlashSystem pricing and cost advice

"They provide licenses upon purchase, so there's no need for additional licenses. Regarding additional expenses apart from the standard licensing fees, such as for support or maintenance, there aren't any. Updates take around twenty to thirty minutes, including rebooting the systems, and we haven't faced any problems with the NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. We utilize various other storages like Fujitsu, IBM, and Dalian SIP, but the NetApp EF-Series stands out as we've had no issues throughout the entire year of usage."

"Price-wise, NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is costlier than Dell. You have to buy a lot of licenses separately."

"The pricing of this solution is competitive with other vendors here in Egypt."

"Its cost-effectiveness is a major selling point. Compared to other storage vendors, the EF-Series offers excellent value for its price. It's truly a leading product in the industry."

"The price point for EF is considerably lower than the alternatives."

"Cheaper pricing is always good. NetApp has been doing everything the right way. They've been figuring out things really well, going in the right direction."

"This solution is not available to many users because the cost is very expensive."

"Adding more capacity will increase the cost."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays 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

838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

21%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

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?

Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...

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?

The GUI needs some improvement. An additional function that could be helpful is reducing the time it takes to delete ...

See all answers

What do you like most about NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to rene...

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. I want NetApp's supp...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 33% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% 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 9% of the time

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% 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

HPE Alletra Storage vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 7% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM FlashSystem Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 34% of the time

NetApp AFF vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 16% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 11% of the time

Dell XtremIO vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 9% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 9% of the time

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

February 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem

February 2025

Download IBM FlashSystem product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

February 2025

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays report

Download NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays product report

Also Known As

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

IBM Storwize

NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series

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.

Pure Storage

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

The NetApp EF560 all-flash array is an all-SSD storage system for applications that demand extremely high levels of performance and reliability. Requiring just 2U of rack space, the EF560 all-flash array combines extreme IOPS, microsecond response times, and up to 12GBps of bandwidth with leading, enterprise-proven availability features.

NetApp

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

RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

January 2025

Free Report: IBM FlashSystem vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM FlashSystem vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our IBM FlashSystem vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays 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.