IBM FlashSystem Reviews

It allows our organization to provide a more timely response to our customers.

The speed of the unit is its best feature. It performs very well.

I would like to see bigger modules. That's about the only thing that needs improvement.

So far, it's been very stable. There have been no issues.

It is very scalable.

I have used technical support and they have been very good.

We were having performance issues. We decided to find the lowest latency device and this was it.

I was involved in the initial setup and it was very straightforward.

We only evaluated EMC. This was a better performing product.

This is probably the best unit you're going to find out there.

The most valuable features are the virtual capabilities that you get from the system and being able to move your data between tiers. We use that feature and we also optimize that with the SAN.

It has helped improve our organizational functionality with the ease of replacement of hardware. We use it a lot for that, for swapping in and out of old hardware to new hardware.

I can't really think of any specific improvements which I would like to see.

Stability has been great. Every time that we had a failed drive or a failed piece of hardware, it's been no problem. The systems have stayed up, with no problems at all.

We haven't scaled it to the maximum. It does scale quite a bit more than we've actually ever used it.

Technical support has been great. As far as responding, we usually get a resolution, or we have somebody calling us from higher up in the chain.

We're an IBM shop, so we've always been on some kind of IBM platform.

The initial setup was straightforward. It's pretty simple.

I would tell them, "The ease of use of the system. If you have a small storage team, then this is the platform for you. It's really easy to manage, really easy to use, and it doesn't take a lot of training." The biggest key to deciding on the product is the support and replacement capabilities.

It is useful for SAP, landscape or banking systems. The product system is good.

The storage system is one of the best in the world.

The setup could be improved.

We have used this solution for 12 years and are using versions 5200, 5300 and 9000.

It is a stable solution.

It is scalable. We have more than 12 customers using IBM FlashSystem in my country.

I am satisfied because we have global technical support and other options. In addition, IBM has two specialized service centers based on the business partners' platform.

The initial setup is complex, and the deployment depends on the project. It could take two hours or two or three months. We usually work with integrators working with companies, service and business partners.

Our clients pay for software licenses or other advanced licenses they need, such as Metro Cluster. The licenses are usually annual.

I rate this solution an eight out of ten. I recommend this solution to others.

I find almost all the IBM FlashSystem features beneficial. The performance and the minimum latency IBM FlashSystem provide to the applications are good.  Parsing is the most valuable feature inside IBM Spectrum Virtualize software, which allows us to virtualize any third-party storage for IBM or non-IBM systems. A lot of features like replication/copy snapshots. All of them are very important and amazing, and we have benefited from them with most of the applications.

The generic functionality of IBM FlashSystem, IBM always dismisses using file share or sharing protocols inside their storage hardware, and they only focus on the block-level storage.

I have been using IBM FlashSystem for 10 years.

IBM FlashSystem is a stable solution.

I have found IBM FlashSystem to be scalable. However, with a specific type of FlashSystems scalability is limited. 

The local support for IBM FlashSystem is very weak. Most of the customers are suffering from the IBM support here inside Egypt.

The initial setup is easy. It is not complex at all.

I price of IBM FlashSystem is reasonable and competitive.

We provide this solution to many customers.

I rate IBM FlashSystem an eight out of ten.

We are using IBM FlashSystem as a storage system for core banking operations.

IBM FlashSystem has improved our company. We run multiple reports for management and it would take more than 12 reports sometimes and more than 18 hours to complete. With IBM FlashSystem the report takes two hours or less than a two-hour on a rotation. We can get our reports very quickly and this is something very valuable to our management.

The performance of IBM FlashSystem is very good. The new technology and high throughput have given us more confidence in the solution. The management of the system has improved and we can control the monitoring system alerts and multiple FlashSystems with the Enterprise Cloud Edition, which is free. The migration of recently stored data to a new flash is much easier. You can move your data because you can utilize it externally. Additionally, the front menu of the FlashSystem is very user-friendly and easy to understand.

I have been using IBM FlashSystem for approximately one year.

The solution is highly stable. We did not receive any errors in the two years since we have been using them. We had one occasion when we had to call IBM for a replacement flashcard, otherwise, we did not have and performance impact or any issue with the FlashSystem.

IBM FlashSystem is scalable as per our organization's requirements. We have also upgraded the capacity after two years and it is working fine and it was quite easy to add more capacity to the existing pool. We can use the same capacity to increase the existing two drives or for the new workload.

I work for medium to large enterprises which use this solution.

The technical support in my region is satisfactory but it could improve. Support is very important for customers and downtime is very critical for us. We would like onsite or complete technical support which can help us to minimize our downtime or if problems occur.

The initial setup was straightforward.

I did the implementation myself.

I rate IBM FlashSystem an eight out of ten.

We have a clustered network using an IBM 3650 for our server. Our environment is entirely in-house, and we are not currently running anything in the cloud.

We are planning to migrate from our current system, as the equipment is getting old.

The support is simply not there, so it needs to be improved.

This solution needs a management console where we are alerted to issues and can report them, or escalate them through email or another method. If something happens to our storage, for example, then we will be notified, and we can report it through the console. 

Stability-wise, this solution is fine. However, we have been having some trouble with our cluster breaking. 

This solution is scalable to an extent. 

We have been facing many issues with support. The main dealer here for IBM is not giving us any support. They are useless fellows, and if you raise any IBM issues they are not serious about them. We are fed up with this situation, which is why we are migrating.

The initial setup of this solution is complex.

We are currently in the stage of migrating our environment to a Huawei solution. It is similar to what we have now, being on-premises and nothing related to the cloud for the time being.

We were having too many support issues with IBM. Within the past couple of months, we were having physical server issues, including problems with the RAM.

My advice to anybody who is considering this system is not to do it. I do not recommend it. It is a big no.

The biggest complaint that I have about this solution is the support. It is important to have responsive support. We had a RAM issue, and the RAM is the heart of the server. I had to escalate the ticket and wait for thirty days. During that time, my server was totally down, which caused our productivity to suffer. It was a big disaster.

The hardware may be good, but I cannot rate this solution very high because of the support.

I would rate this solution a five out of ten.

Virtualization of external storage, while adding cache and speed to the external storage. You don't have to completely take out the datacenter of your old storage. Just add it to the Storwize, continue using it, but with added performance/speed.

It has saved money for our clients by not replacing all of their current storages (with new storages).

• The IP replication
• Events/log analysis tools

I've never used it myself for long periods of time, since as a system integrator and partner, I have only configured these systems for the end user. However, our clients have been using them since 2011, both Gen 1 and 2.

No.

No.

Since our company staff and I are an authorised IBM service partner with certifications in servicing Storwize V7000, all the technical support towards our clients have been done by ourselves. Only when some part fails have claimed it from IBM, and that went fast.

Yes, IBM DS5300. We switched because of the external storage virtualization.

It is pretty straightforward with a nice GUI. One has to know the basic concepts and terminology.

No special advice about pricing. 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. Even if you have hardware maintenance, they will not allow a download without this SW maintenance contract.

Yes, IBM SVC, which has essentially the same software, but it has no place for disk drives. Therefore, you must attach some storage to it.

Get the control box first, without any expansion boxes, and make sure you add at least three SSD drives, because this system has an auto tiering option. Thus, your frequently used data will be automatically placed on SSDs and be accessed faster by hosts. Data for shared folders, which is not so important, you can keep on older storages virtualized by the V7000, or put on bigger, cheaper, and slower disks.

Ease of use and the GUI are the most valuable features of this product. It's the same platform all over across the same product type.

The benefit of this product is how easy it is to use always. All this storage infrastructure can be done underneath one IBM Storwize product and this is how it has impacted our organization. For example, if they get the IBM Storwize V7000 then they can put the other to be decommissioned storage right underneath and they can get their work done on that.

There is a need for a little bit more of a drill down in the GUI part. There is a lot that they actually did, which is already available in the GUI but still, there's a lot that can't be done. So, I would like to see more improvements to be brought about in the GUI.

I've been using IBM Storwize for about 10 years, it is pretty good.

It is very stable. I see a lot of code upgrades being done on the system. Probably twice or three times in a year, they get new upgrades and code upgrades. That's pretty stable.

Scalability is neat as well. It can grow massively. We usually deal with SMB environments and it's pretty good for that environment.

Technical support has been good as well. Other than, maybe a few five or six different incidents in the past, they've been pretty impressive.

The setup was pretty straightforward.

For us, it's all about the commodity while selecting a vendor. In addition, the other important factors are their support level, infrastructure, how good they are, and what is their roadmap for keeping the product around.

Give it a try and look at the demos. You will like it and you will want to get it.

It's pretty good; I've been happy with it. I've worked with other infrastructures as well such as HPE, Dell, Logic and Nutanix but I like IBM Storwize.