IBM FlashSystem Reviews

The hardware is the best feature of the product. We have not seen many drive failures. The V9000 all-flash is constructed well.

It has not made us more efficient from a deployment standpoint. That is why we have been migrating to a hyper-converged solution.

• The overall code.
• The ability to have built-in reporting to understand the health of the array.
• Stability within the code.
• Clear upgrade paths for the code.
• Support is horrible. It takes weeks to get simple answers. We had a LUN down and support refused to get on a WebEx without the array being completely down.

We have had the system for over two years.

We currently have about 1PB worth of storage that spans IBM Storwize V5000, V7000, and V9000. This is across two datacenters.

We had stability issues as stated elsewhere.

The V9000 can only hold two shelves of flash, at which point you need new controllers.

Technical support is the worst in the industry, as mentioned elsewhere.

We previously used EMC. We switched based on cost.

Setup is not difficult.

Not worth the money.

EMC was evaluated.

There are far better products with better support for less cost.

The hardware itself is good, but the code that runs on it is not good at all. We have LUNs that will just go offline, and support has no clear answer. Each result is a code upgrade that does not resolve the problem. There is no built-in historical reporting. That is a costly add-on for an already overpriced system.

We use the solution for our customers for data and backup.

It is simple to make an update. When I tried to make an update on IBM Storwize before, it was a little hard. It had a lot of errors. It has improved now. The ease of use is very important for me. Everything works fine. I don't have any issues with the system. It's easy to use, easy to set up, and it works fine.

Customization features must be improved.

I have been using the solution since it was IBM Storwize. I have been using it for 12 years.

I rate the tool’s stability a nine out of ten.

Our customers are medium and enterprise businesses. We provide IT services to our clients. We have 10 to 12 employees who can deploy the solution. Everyone in our organization uses the tool. We have 150 employees. I rate the tool’s scalability an eight or nine out of ten. It serves big capacities.

Since I have been working with the tool for 20 years, I have a good relationship with the support team. It's really easy to get support if I need it. Three to four years ago, when I upgraded the systems connected to the storage, the system went down because of a firmware version mismatch. We worked on it for half a year. The support team helped me through it.

Positive

I rate the ease of setup a ten out of ten. The initial setup is very simple. The implementation takes a day.

I rate the pricing a three out of ten. The tool is cost-efficient. The prices are good.

HPE is a competitor.

I have been working with IBM for 20 years. Many people are scared of cloud solutions. They do not want to use it, so they use the products on-premise. I recommend the tool to my clients. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Our primary use case for this solution is managing and supporting our workloads currently running on IBM FlashSystem. Additionally, we use it to run our ERPs.

We like how straightforward the IBM system is and the technical team's support.

IBM FlashSystems is lagging in optimizing storage technologies, which can be improved. For example, deduplication with Dell EMC and their storages are far ahead of the curve regarding data storage deduplication. Deduplication is when you remove all the data duplicates from your system and save more data in a smaller physical space. If there are any duplications in the entire storage, they should be removed, and data can be saved. There are two types of deduplication, inline and post-save deduplication. Inline refers to the data travelling from the system to the storage to be stored. The system removes the duplicated part and then stores it to save space. Another kind is that you store the data first and then remove the duplications, so you will need a larger area to read and write. The inline deduplication needs to have global deduplication enabled.

We have been using this solution for five years.

The solution is stable and has no issues.

The solution is scalable and has varying degrees of scalability. For example, if you have to buy a port and initial or entry-level storage, it can scale up to a certain level. After that, you'll have to change the box. If you need a forklift to pick up and bring in a new device regarding scalability, we usually plan for three to four years because technology changes fast. Hence, with five years of scalability, you will have no issues scaling that product to a certain level. 

I rate customer service and support ten out of ten.

Positive

IBM storages are straightforward. The only issue is the higher-end machines of the V9000 storage systems. There are two ways storage can be configured, and if you have multiple controllers in storage, you don't need to enable zoning between the two controllers. However, for IBM V9000 and above models, the controllers are also zoned through your zoning system. I rate the initial setup an eight out of ten.

We have no issues with the price as it is very competitive. So, if you want to buy high-end IBM storage, HP would go higher than IBM, so if it's a million-dollar storage and you have around 150 terabytes of hybrid or all-flash storage that you deploy, then it costs approximately 1.7 million dollars. This solution is the second most expensive in the market.

I rate the solution nine out of ten. The solution is good, but variable-length deduplication and global deduplication can be included.

We used the solution exclusively for block storage. Over time, it added compression features and now even NVMe. 

It's perfectly suited for an on-premise solution or for providing a base for cloud solutions, VMware workloads, IBM i-series, IBM AIX, IBM Power, Linux, and Windows compute. In other words, the complete server stack. It is something others actually can't offer. All of this can be operated from within the same solution. 

It definitely has a strong plus in environments where you actually have such different server solutions in place.

It's a really reliable, powerful platform. It's a mature product. It's like a BMW that evolves consistently. 

There is no need to change or buy another company's solution. It came with storage virtualization and options to move/migrate volumes around and migrates easily even before you actually have svMotion on VMware. 

It can be stretched. There is a Site Recovery Adapter. It has backup integration using flash copies. You can build a disaster recovery solution around it. IBM has its famous Redbooks where you can enter in the best practices. You name it, they've got it!

It offers separate IO Modules for connectivity additions, for compression to offload the CPU. 

It offers storage virtualization to ease migrations. You can build storage clusters and migrate data and easily configure partner relationships. 

The solution offers excellent performance! Flashcopies come in handy with backup solution integrations. The site recovery adapter for VMware Site recovery manager integration is great. Everything is working like a charm. 

I've used it in a banking environment in combination with VMware Site Recovery Manager and Site Recovery Adapter (SRA) - a wonderful combination. It saves you headaches building a recovery plan. Most of all, it works.

IBM's solution has come a long way and has had different milestones/features have been introduced. I would position the 7200 in the upper midrange class as it has lots of features - more than, for example, EMC Unity/VNXe. It doesn't lack anything, really. One could argue that NAS or S3 is not available to it, but I prefer other types of storage optimised for that job.

It is slightly more expensive, however, it all depends on your supplier. Licenses are volume-based. Larger companies with more TB usually are better off as the price per TB decreases the bigger you go. I would definitely recommend this platform!

I've known the predecessors of the IBM Flashsystem, being the Storwize 7200 (Gen 1 to 3) and SVC Front End Servers, from the time they were running on code 6.2 way back in 2011.

We have never ever had an incident with it making the infra go on its knees, nor did we have any datacorruption ever.

All storage solutions have bugs and all have their correctives that might not address an issue on the first occurance or under all circumstances. When the system is stressed and under some specific (nonetheless rare) conditions , the developped code might trigger a reboot of a controller node  to avoid data corruption. A system with 2 controllers is resilient enough on its own and a reboot of a node to prevent e.g. cache merge problems or alike is not harmfull.

To me, the need to evict a controller node and warm boot it is actually intentionally a safety precaution that avoids data corruption, something we all want to stay out as much as possible. It's as reliable as any other product in that respect. All solutions that I know off like DELL EMC Unity, Fujitsue DX-series or 3PAR Storeserv respond in the same manner to avoid datacorruption. I've seen it the most on the SVC (code 7.1/7.2 around 2012/2013  , but not on the  Storewize v7000 Gen1 to Gen2+ solutions, though I have to admit they all had about 40 to 50% of the load of the SVC.

You can build clusters with it and IO Groups.

IBM is able to deliver a support organization with well-trained people. IBM's redpieces/papers and solutions designs are published and offer real references. You can develop your own skills and become an expert or fallback on IBM Supreme Support if you feel less comfortable. 

Positive

We used IBM FastT/DS Storage (LSI Logic) with/without IBM SVC and IBM v7000 Gen1/Gen2/Gen3, shifting from legacy/traditional storage to storage virtualization.

It's quite intuitive. I always enjoyed that, whatever operation you initiated on its Webvinterface, it generated the command, and you actually see which command is being executed. I love it! It surely helps you get acquainted with the product. The setup with many modules and ports requires some design, as on any midrange solution. You get a nice template to initiate it and off you go.

I've done it myself after all the experience I've had. 

At the end of the lifecycle, the migrations and options you have mean that it doesn't require several storage solutions if you have mixed server solutions like Mainframe, i-Series, AIX, IBM PowerPC, VMware, Desktop Virtualisation, et cetera.

Also, the superb integration with VMware SRM and its Site Recovery Adapter makes it a seamless solution to make your infra resilient.

It's not as expensive as HPE Storeserv, however, it is more expensive than Netapp FAS or Dell Compellent. 

We looked at the Netapp FAS all-flash series, Dell Compellent, HPE StoreServ (7200/7400, 8200/8400, and 10500), and Dell EMC VNXe/Unity

It's a more complete solution and really up to mixed infrastructure and resiliency and has a lot to offer on scalability too

Most of the features for the reduction in data compression are useful. 

It is also very easy to use and administer. Its performance is also good.

They can include Amazon file system S3 protocol in the upcoming releases. It is a cloud file system. IBM FlashSystem doesn't have this feature in the box for high-end or mid-range. We have got requests for this from customers because we need to use S3 for EDI application storage. 

At the beginning of every year, IBM releases firmware. When I find any bugs in the firmware during the year, I am unable to find any information from IBM regarding the bug. I need to open a ticket, and the IBM engineering team makes a patch only for me. This patch is not public. By creating a customized patch for a client, they don't really solve the issue for everyone. If multiple users have the same bug, IBM should upload the patch on the official website so that we can download it.

IBM FlashSystem has a monitoring tool in the box, but it is not advanced. I need a more advanced tool for more advanced equations and monitoring. All top three storage vendors, that is, EMC, IBM, and Pure Storage, don't have a powerful monitoring tool. To monitor our box to show the statistics for I/Os and latency, I need to pay for extra software. The built-in monitoring storage is not mature enough to handle all requests and generate all reports that I need.

They can include the functionality to stretch a cluster natively without using any additional boxes. In addition, there are some features that EMC has integrated with the box. These features are not available in IBM FlashSystem.

I have been using this solution for six years.

It is stable. 

It is scalable. All projects in my company use the IBM FlashSystem. I am working on high-end storage, not mid-range. I can scale out or scale up. IBM has introduced FlashSystem 9200 to the market in which I can scale SAS disk, NVMe disk, and SSCM disk. I have three options on one box, which are not available with EMC or Pure Storage.

You can also scale out storage in EMC. In Pure Storage, there are issues in scaling. Pure Storage has different boxes like X70, X90, X50, and if I need to scale or upgrade the box, I need to change our controllers. Every Pure Storage box has limited capacity, whereas, for IBM storage, the capacity of the box is not limited.

The response of technical support is good.

I have used NetApp storage and EMC storage. NetApp storage is very poor and bad. EMC is a good competitor of IBM in the market now, and in terms of the number of customers, EMC is number one. User Interface is the main big difference between IBM and EMC. IBM FlashSystem is very easy and friendly comparatively. EMC is very complicated. 

EMC is also closed, whereas IBM FlashSystem is very open. It provides a lot of communication over the internet for administrating and implementing the storage. I am working on a customer project that has EMC storage, and the customer daily complains regarding EMC Unity or XtremIO.

IBM is integrated with the different operating systems by a native operating system multipath. EMC works with PowerPath multipath. Until recently, EMC didn't have these features in the box, and you had to pay for a multipath license. In new technology and operating system versions of EMC, a separate multipath license is not required.

The initial setup was very easy.

I implemented it. I have experience of ten years in implementing IBM storage. It is very easy to implement. 

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 work only on high-end storage. Before recommending a solution, I need to know about the workload, that is, application workload, backup workload, and database workload. IBM provides a free workload script that can be applied to any environment, such as Windows, Unix, or Linux. I need to see the I/O performance, and after which, I can provide the best solution for a customer from Pure Storage, EMC, or IBM. 

I would rate IBM FlashSystem a nine out of ten.

The solution is primarily a file infrastructure. It contains all the virtual machines for our company.

The solution is still new to us and needs to be explored more.

The documentation is excellent so far. 

The solution uses all flash. The connection to the server is a fiber connection. It's very fast. 

The possibility of expanding is very good. It offers very good flexibility.

The price point is pretty decent. 

The product is user-friendly. The setup process is easy.

We've found the solution to be very stable so far.

We need to spend more time with the solution in order to detect any shortcomings. So far, we haven't really seen any.

The design is a little old-fashioned and could be updated. The rack is very primitive and designed in an older style. 

I've only been using the solution for two months. It hasn't been that long just yet. It could be maybe less than that, as we just recently installed it and we decided to go for it about three months back. About one and a half months ago the implementation was completed and we started using it.

The stability of the solution is very good. We haven't detected any bugs or glitches. it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

The solution has the potential to scale quite well. If a company needs to expand it, it can.

However, it is a hardware, and you do need to take scaling into account early on. We can grow with the hardware we have and put on new drives, et cetera.

We have approximately 200 employees, and anyone that's connected to the network, those files are stored on this particular solution. Therefore, even if they aren't aware they are using the product, they, in fact, are.

Personally, I haven't directly dealt with technical support. That said, apparently, it looks like it is quite good. The support is proactive. My system is already connected to IBM tech centers. They can highlight predictive failures, for example. My assumption is that they are quite good, although I can't yet peak from personal experience.

We previously used Dell EqualLogic. We switched, as we had used it for close to six years and it needed to be replaced. Initially, we thought to replace it with another Dell EqualLogic product, however, after comparing different brands, we landed on this.  

The initial setup is definitely not complex. It's not difficult. They make it straightforward and user-friendly. A company should have no problems implementing it.

The price is quite good. We find it to be rather reasonable overall. When you compare it to other brands especially, the price is quite good.

We did look at other solutions, including and updated Dell EqualLogic and HPE.

We are just a customer and an end-user.

We are using the latest version of the solution at this point.

I'd recommend the solution. Everything is fiber from start to finish. I don't need to use a fiber switch. It's an expensive component. However, IBM says I don't need it and I can do I direct line from my own source. It's a supported solution. It's very good.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten so far.

It is block storage. We basically use it for the storage units.

The compression and deduplication features are the most valuable. 

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.

I have been using this solution for 14 to 15 months.

If you set it up correctly, it is very stable. After we configured it correctly, we didn't have any issues. I didn't have any issues after the first week of the configuration.

We haven't scaled it yet, but based on the documentation and specification, it is actually scalable.

I have been in touch with IBM support, and I did it a lot. Normally, they respond within an acceptable time with a sufficiently detailed answer. Around 90% of the time, you will get the answer straight back. In some rare cases, you need to ask them more. You send them a mail asking to clarify something or get more details about how to do a specific task, but normally, they provide a satisfactory answer.

We are a very large bank, and we have a lot of storage devices from multiple vendors. We have devices from Dell EMC, NetApp, and Pure Storage. Every product has its advantages and disadvantages. 

If you are targeting functionality, we get the most functionality from IBM FlashSystem, and then from Pure Storage, and then from Dell EMC boxes. If you are targeting performance, then Dell EMC will come first, then IBM FlashSystem, and then Pure Storage. If you are targeting compression deduplication that will generate more capacity, then Pure Storage will come at number one, IBM FlashSystem will come at number two, and Dell EMC will come at number three.

Its initial configuration is difficult. We went through the books and manuals, but we didn't do it correctly. Therefore, we had to start again from scratch. It took two or three attempts to do it correctly. 

We implemented it on our own. My team is managing all of the storage devices that we have, and there are six of us. IBM is responsible for its maintenance.

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.

I would advise others to get somebody to do it for you. Don't do it yourself, or read the book carefully. Our implementation was complicated, so we ended up doing it multiple times. Other colleagues I know in other institutes have much smaller systems than the one we bought. They implemented it in four hours. So, for complex and big implementations, either get an expert to do it for you or read the documentation multiple times before you start, which we didn't.

I would rate IBM FlashSystem an eight out of ten.

We usually use Storwize for SMB customers, when they need small but reliable storage and fast response times. The performance is great.

The virtualization feature shortens the time to convince customers, to sell the solution, and to implement it.

From the moment we first see a customer and tell him that we are capable of doing this, until we do it, is a relatively short time. It's not going to be a long-term project, one that is going to take time for migration.

The user interface is very mature and it's becoming more mature all the time. They made it very easy for the user, very friendly to work with.

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. This feature makes it much easier for us, as a business partner, to convince the customer that it can be done in a very short time, without any concerns about losing data or something breaking. That's one of the main features, and it works.

It helps me a lot when talking with potential customers who are stuck with all this data and, when they think of moving on to new systems, the first thing that bothers them is how to migrate all this information to a new system.

The other stuff that everybody sells today like tiering, which IBM calls Easy Tier, and FlashCopy, they have been around for years with the other vendors as well.

IBM gets a lot of input from the field, from system engineers, regarding what needs to be done and I believe they have a roadmap to try to constantly make the user interface more mature, as well as the options and tools. I trust they are doing good job on this.

I have looked at a few pages of a report I download and I saw a graph there regarding software-defined vendors. IBM is not in a good position on this graph. I know that they are working very hard on this, to make it much better and to get to a level where it's not only hardware but also software to provide a complete solution.

It's very stable as a single system or you can have it as a cluster for redundancy. We haven't had any issues, as far as I know, of it crashing or something that might make you suspicious about the reliability of the system. It is really reliable. The system engineers we work with have no doubt regarding any stability issues.

The scalability is fine, but it also depends on the type of customer. If they are a lower-level SMB and we can find out what their growth would be over the next year to two years, the availability of different models from Storwize makes us comfortable in telling customers that they can expand, without any doubt, for another three to four years. They don't need to worry about having to buy a new system in two years. Just upgrade and expand, that's all.

We have our own engineers trained by IBM and they are certified. I don't really recall many real issues. As I think back, there has been nothing critical where we had to ask IBM to contact their own labs to find a solution. Day-to-day, we have almost no need for IBM to show up for any problem or technical issues.

We are not in a good position to answer this question because we have worked with IBM for all these years. But I believe the way it came about was that we had a situation where we moved a customer from the competition to IBM Storwize. When we looked at the space it took, the performance, the pricing, the ease of working with it, and the migration - especially the migration, because when you want to move somebody from a different vendor to Storwize, people know it's hard work - it was easily done by Storwize and the software that comes with it.

As a business partner, when selecting a vendor the important criteria are the terms and conditions under which you can work with your supplier. In addition, it's the level of availability of the vendor when you need them, that they will respond immediately and are with you in the problem, hand-in-hand, to go solve the issues. One of the main issues is that you don't feel alone in the field, you have somebody with you. That is very important. If there is a problem, the customer also needs to be confident in who we are. We have a name and we are a business partner, but who is backing us up? When you go with a company like IBM, with all its experience, and with your own experience over all these years, that's a huge advantage.

I'm not involved in installation but, as far as I know, it's very straightforward, it's very easy. The main issue is that if you spend enough time on design, to find out what the customer really wants, that makes the implementation easier. That's where the emphasis should be. But as far as the system itself, the installation and putting it up, it takes no time. As far as I know, it's so easy.

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 to help convince customers. It benefits both the customer and us.

We also do sell HPE if we have to, but IBM is usuall the first choice because of the pricing and performance.HPE has tried to work with us a lot and we tried to work something out with them, but each time we went back to Storwize, as it fits our needs and it's much easier to work with.

There really aren't any others really on our list. The Infinidat we have in our data center is for our own usage and our own services that we have in the cloud system. It's not something that we go out and install.

IBM is really open and available to those who want to find out what kinds of solutions will fit their needs. More than that, if it becomes more serious, with potential, IBM can provide you almost everything you need to see in its labs, to show you that the numbers they talk about are not only on paper but in real life. They are real and they can get to these performance levels.

IBM does a lot of customer setups in their labs and they invite the potential customers in and show them. But it's not for everyone. When we have a real potential customer and they demand it, that's what we do for them.

There are no 10s in the market right now. Everybody is evolving. As far as where we see storage going, it's not only hardware, it's also software-defined, and everybody is trying to reach a higher and very comprehensive level. And that takes time. It's not IBM, they need others to get to that higher level so we can have a comprehensive solution. It's not because IBM is an eight out of 10 and somebody is a nine or 10. It depends on the solution and application. In some cases, they would rate a 10, in others you might only give them seven.