IBM FlashSystem vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800 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 #19 with an average rating of 8.5. IBM holds a 6.7% mindshare in AFS, compared to NetApp’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

IBM FlashSystem and NetApp NVMe AFF A800 are high-performance storage solutions. IBM FlashSystem is preferred for pricing and support, while NetApp NVMe AFF A800 has an edge in features despite higher costs.

Features: IBM FlashSystem offers efficient data reduction capabilities, high performance, and scalability. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 provides superior throughput, low latency, and comprehensive data management features.

Room for Improvement: IBM FlashSystem could improve its integration processes and analytics capabilities. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 users suggest enhancements in software updates and reducing complexity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM FlashSystem is noted for its straightforward deployment process and responsive customer service. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 has mixed feedback on customer service with some indicating longer response times.

Pricing and ROI: IBM FlashSystem is viewed favorably for its better pricing and quicker ROI. NetApp NVMe AFF A800, despite higher costs, offers long-term value due to its extensive features.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM FlashSystem vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800

January 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

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 NVMe AFF A800 is 1.0%, up from 0.9% 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.

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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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Tanveer Rahman

Chief Technical Office at Novotel Ltd.

A scalable solution that serves as a storage for the cloud services opted by organizations

My company uses NetApp NVMe AFF A800 as storage for our cloud The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O. The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better. I don't expect to see additional…

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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

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."

"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."

"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."

"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."

"I appreciate the performance."

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

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

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

"IBM FlashSystem is a flexible solution with plenty of features."

"It's very easy to manage."

"The most valuable features are deduplication and compression."

"The solution allows for easy migrations from previous products or vendors via its embedded storage virtualization function."

"High availability and enhanced security; Proven dependability; Data compression with hardware acceleration; Advanced copy services features are all in this product."

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

"IBM's technical support do excellent work."

More IBM FlashSystem pros

"During the use cases of the solution, its reliability and suitability are the best."

"NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is easier to use than some other solutions and the UI is very good to use for day-to-day activities. Overall, the solution has good technology."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O."

"Low latency is the most valuable feature."

"The product can be scaled vertically as well as horizontally."

"We find the product to be very flexible."

"You can easily scale up, and scale-out."

"Over the eight years, we've been using NetApp with ONTAP, we've never lost a bit of data, and we've only experienced a few minutes of downtime in that entire time."

More NetApp NVMe AFF A800 pros

Cons

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."

"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."

"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."

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

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

"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."

"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"In the next release having the next level of high-speed performance would be great."

"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."

"Product support is restricted to IBM only. It must be decentralized to IBM partners as well."

"IBM FlashSystems is lagging in optimizing storage technologies."

"Events/log analysis tools."

"The product needs to improve their scalability."

"The interface of this solution could be improved."

"The deduplication and compression ratio is not very good. It's not reaching a very high ratio."

More IBM FlashSystem cons

"The technical support has room for improvement."

"Sometimes, it takes a while to get somebody competent on the other end of the line. They do have engineers in multiple time zones around the world. However, their level-one support is not always the best."

"The product’s UI could be better."

"The support can take a few days to have a response. However, the response that we do receive is very informative."

"Increasing the RAM, and including physical cords would be beneficial."

"The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better."

"Stability is an area with a certain shortcoming where the solution needs to improve"

"The initial setup is complex."

More NetApp NVMe AFF A800 cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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 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."

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

"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."

"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 product is expensive."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"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 price of IBM FlashSystem is reasonable."

"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."

"I would rate the pricing of this solution a four out of five."

"There are no licensing fees, it is a one-time purchase of the IBM FlashSystem."

"If five is a good price and one is a high price, I would rate the price a two or three out of five."

"The price is a little bit high so is rated a six out of ten."

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

More IBM FlashSystem pricing and cost advice

"Though NetApp NVMe AFF A800 may seem like a highly-priced product, it is not extremely expensive."

"The solution is expensive."

"Considering the requirements and the situation, I don't feel that this is an expensive product."

"There are licenses for the use of this solution, such as commercial licenses."

"I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

22%

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

15%

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.

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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.

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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 ...

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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...

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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 NVMe AFF A800?

The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp NVMe AFF A800?

Though NetApp NVMe AFF A800 may seem like a highly-priced product, it is not extremely expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp NVMe AFF A800?

The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better. I don't expect to s...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 34% 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 15% 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

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Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 26% 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

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM FlashSystem Competitors

NetApp ASA vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 33% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 20% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 18% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 13% of the time

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Compared 8% of the time

More NetApp NVMe AFF A800 Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

January 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem

February 2025

Download IBM FlashSystem product report

Buyer's Guide

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

February 2025

Download NetApp NVMe AFF A800 product report

Also Known As

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

IBM Storwize

No data available

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

Your data is a gold mine. Get the most out of it - faster - with AFF A800. Designed for NVMe media, further accelerated with NVMe/FC connectivity to the host, AFF A800 all-flash systems deliver an incredible sub-200 microsecond latency. Providing more than 11.4M IOPS and 300GB/s throughput in a single cluster, AFF A800 redefines the limit of what’s possible with artificial intelligence and deep learning.

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800

January 2025

Free Report: IBM FlashSystem vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM FlashSystem vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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