IBM FlashSystem Reviews

We use IBM FlashSystem as part of our core system to enhance performance.

This product will improve your performance and it has helped us with that.

Also, in prior systems where we had mechanical drives, there would have been at least a couple of drive failures. With this solution, no drive failures have been experienced so far.

Compare to our previous system, space utilization has definitely been reduced. Our old system used two racks, whereas this solution sits in a single rack and initially took up 2Us. Post-upgrade, it is 8Us but even so, compared to what we had, it is a considerable energy saving. Also, when we upgraded, it helped us to mitigate a lot of our legacy issues present with the old hardware.

The performance is very good and we use this product to enhance our core system.

The reliability is better than it is with mechanical drives.

This is a compact system, and it has a lot of pieces built into it. For everything is included for us to be able to replicate to a DR site. 

This product lacks some of the options we wanted. For example, expansion was difficult and it required a lot of patching to be done. It's not a seamless process because you need to do multiple modifications or alterations. There is a lot of effort required by the customer in order to expand the hardware.

Further expansion of our model is not feasible. As new models are released, expansion becomes difficult and you have to switch to a new model when you want to upgrade. This means that you have to migrate data between models. We want something where you can use for at least five years, where you can expand the hardware without the inconvenience of changing models. Ideally, the operating system and other applications would not be affected when expanding.

It would be helpful if the solution had built-in safeguards against security threats and malware, such as ransomware. Anything that can be utilized to enhance data integrity would be helpful. 

I have been working with IBM FlashSystem for three years.

The stability of the IBM FlashSystem is excellent.

There was no downtime when we patched the system, which is good because we wouldn't want our core system to go down.

In our experience, scalability is not very easy. This may depend on our systems so it might not be universally true but definitely, for us, scalability was a problem. IBM came out with a newer version and told us that "To scale, you'll have to either switch over to a new version or buy an additional controller."

So, scalability on that particular model was not feasible. There may be better models but the model that we purchased was not easily scaled.

We have 800 users and there are four engineers who manage our IT products.

We do not plan on expanding our use of this product in the future because our plan includes moving to the cloud.

The IBM technical support is excellent. When we had a hardware issue, they were able to fix it within the SLA period. They have back-to-back support for resolving any hardware problems.

When it comes to managing hardware, they're excellent.

We have worked with systems from Dell and HPE and we have found that more maintenance and patching needs to be done on products by those vendors, as compared to IBM.

This is important to consider because if you don't have a high-availability system then you are going to end up with downtime when patches are implemented.

The initial setup was complex because we had to move a lot of data from our old system to the new one. It wasn't difficult because of the hardware, but rather, due to our pre-existing setup. The fact that we had to migrate a lot of data was the source of the complexity.

It took at least one and a half years because we had to deploy while the system was still running. At the same time, the deployment was dependent on the systems that we had running. This is why it took so long to complete.

An integrator assisted us with our deployment and our experience with them was excellent. They've been supportive and they successfully helped us to migrate all of our data.

This product is part of our core systems, and we have definitely seen a return on investment.

The cost is pretty high in terms of licensing. We pay at least $100,000 USD in licensing fees for the storage. We have multiple types of storage, not only flash. We have the older versions of other storage and other versions of IBM flash as well.

In addition, we have a maintenance contract for this product when the warranty support period expires.

This is definitely a product I can recommend based on its performance and reliability. I don't know whether it is cost-effective compared to other similar products because we are an IBM shop from end to end. We chose IBM because the products have been well suited for our setup, and the performance and reliability are excellent.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use this solution for application and database coding.

This solution is really user friendly. It also offers good performance and is highly reliable. 

This solution could be improved by offering greater amounts of storage. 

I have been using this solution for three years. 

This is a stable solution. 

This is a scalable solution.

We switched to using IBM because we wanted an AI based solution. 

The entire hardware implementation was done by IBM.

I would recommend this solution to others because it is reliable, high performing and user friendly.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

We use this solution for SAN storage.

This solution is user-friendly, convenient and reliable.

This solution is expensive compared to other systems. The interface of this solution could be improved.

I have been using this solution for 13 years. 

This solution is very stable. 

This solution is scalable. We have 400 users using it.

The support for this solution has fast response times.

Positive

We previously used Dell EMC and switched to this solution because the support, product and performance are of a higher standard. 

The initial setup is complex. Deployment took six months. 

This is an expensive solution compared to other similar solutions.

I would advise users of this solution to ensure they have the correct licensing and continue to maintain the product while using it.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

The IBM FlashSystem is the primary storage for files and data in our organization.

The most valuable features are deduplication and compression, which together, enable you to have more space.

Performance is a major advantage of this storage.

When you add more flash drives or more NVMe, that is the bottleneck or shortcoming with this type of storage. When you fill the first enclosure, you won't be able to add more NVMe until you add more SAS drives.

The security features can be improved such that the encryption does not affect performance in any way.

I have been using IBM FlashSystem for about four years.

The stability is very good.

We have approximately 1,500 people who are directly or indirectly accessing the data that is residing on this storage.

The technical support is pretty good, especially the local team in Pakistan. Normally, the response time is very good.

This is the first flash storage system that we have used. Prior to that, we were using a hybrid Dell EMC storage.

The initial setup is not very difficult. I would say that it is similar to the way other storage systems are set up. I believe that it took one week for our deployment, which included testing.

We have three administrators who take care of the different applications and data that are hosted on this storage. We don't perform maintenance on a daily basis. We may extract some stats for the performance and for evaluating capability. However, when it comes to maintenance, we probably work on it once or twice a month.

Before purchasing this product, I recommend that everyone should do a PoC because there are multiple flash drive systems now available. All storage vendors are now making flash drives because it is a new technology that replaces existing hybrid systems. I would suggest doing some analysis and some R&D because Huawei, for example, is doing well. EMC is also top of the line, with IBM. There are slight differences in features, however, so it is important to do a comparison before making any decision.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Our entire company uses the solution for block storage. The solution is easily administered and maintained by four technicians. 

The solution has a very compact physical footprint that is high performance and easy to administer.

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

The solution has a low number of NVME host attachments at 16 per IO group over the fiber channel. This is magnitudes lower than competing products. 

The 8.5 release for the 7300 and 9500 Flash Systems no longer allows IO group migrations. The replacement volume mobility is not as seamless as IO group migrations.

The Kubernetes CSI driver and the open-stack cinder driver still rely on SSH instead of native APIs for configuration changes. This reduces the limit of outstanding configuration changes that can be submitted to storage in bulk. 

The solution has not yet adopted Swordfish APIs and its SMI-S APIs are legacy and depreciated. Swordfish's are vendor-independent APIs made by the Storage Industry Association that allow you to manage storage no matter your vendor. These new generation APIs were released after ten years but IBM has not yet jumped on board. With a multi-vendor environment like ours, implementations are easier with universal APIs. 

Redhat Enterprise Linux clones such as CentOS, AlmaLinux, or Rocky Linux are not supported. All are binary compatible and should be supported because they are fundamentally the same product with different branding. 

It would be helpful to have a public page listing the minimum supported firmware levels for HBAs from different vendors. We have run into bugs with fiber channel cards that were solved with firmware updates. It was a laborious process to cross-reference vendor information so it would be helpful for IBM to provide recommended baselines for firmware. 

I have been using the solution for four years. 

The solution is scalable within reason. We lease it based on a four-year forecast and then return it when the lease term ends. The solution can scale up a bit but we haven't really changed configurations during our lease terms. 

Technical support is very proactive and we receive alerts when they are visiting the data center or asking for permission to change a part. We are alerted to part failures before we even have a chance to find them in logs. 

I rate technical support a ten out of ten. 

Positive

The setup is quite straightforward and easy. 

The rack mount took thirty minutes because we had to cable the device. Deployment took about ten minutes. 

I implemented the solution because it is an easy product to set up. It is a pleasure to occasionally get out of the office and assist the data center. 

Previously, integrators helped with installations but weren't utilized much. 

The pricing is competitive in our country. In some countries, IBM is the most expensive vendor but that is not the case for us. 

We also negotiated a 60% discount directly with IBM because we are the largest consumer of enterprise hardware in the country. 

Each solution has its pluses and minuses. Pure, Dell EMC, and all other products have room for improvement. 

IBM is a good vendor with an excellent product, but the software side of the company still needs improvement. 

I rate the solution a seven out of ten. All top-tier solutions have room for improvement so I never rate them higher than a seven. 

The most valuable features of IBM FlashSystem are performance and security.

The interface could improve in IBM FlashSystem.

I have been using IBM FlashSystem for approximately four years.

IBM FlashSystem has high availability.

The scalability of IBM FlashSystem has been good.

The technical support from IBM FlashSystem is very good.

We have not used other solutions other than IBM FlashSystem.

The initial setup of IBM FlashSystem was easy.

The price of IBM FlashSystem is a little high because you pay a premium because the solution is from IBM. We had paid for the SLA prior to using the solution.

If someone wants a robust, scalable, and consistent behavior for their site, then they should use IBM FlashSystem.

I rate IBM FlashSystem a nine out of ten.

We are using IBM FlashSystem for Oracle E-Business Suite backups.

IBM FlashSystem is a powerful effective storage solution. Additionally, it is user-friendly, anyone can use it.

We use some open-source tools for monitoring, such as Grafana and it should be bundled along with IBM FlashSystem.

I have been using IBM FlashSystem for approximately two years.

IBM FlashSystem is stable, we have not found any issues.

The solution is scalable.

The solution can be used for any size of business.

I have not needed to contact the support.

The implementation is very simple.

The price of IBM FlashSystem is reasonable.

IBM FlashSystem is very simple and plug-and-play. I would recommend it.

I rate IBM FlashSystem a nine out of ten.

For me and for the operations team, the ease-of-use of the GUI is the most valuable feature. It's really easy to understand. It's really easy to do tasks. That's what I like most. The performance is really good. From an operations perspective, definitely the ease-of-use stands out. Compared to other products and other vendors, it's much, much easier.

Time to value. You finish things a lot quicker. I can provision the storage a lot faster and find problems a lot quicker. The fact that I can SSH in and do CLI commands where some of these other vendors don't let you do it is a big deal. I can write custom scripts and do things a lot quicker. The ease-of-use is a lot better with this product.

There's always room for improvement. Adding deduplication would allow us to get more bang for our buck, basically.

Overall, stability is really, really good. We ran into some issues with compression, but it was because we were trying to overload it. So if we don't do that, it runs really, really well.

We have it architected to keep it at a certain level. But if we needed to, we could scale it pretty easily because it's virtualized storage. There's a lot of flexibility with it.

Technical support is really good. Because we're a bigger company, they get to us a little bit quicker. There's more on the line for IBM, so they really treat us well. It's been pretty good. We get good feedback quickly.

We needed the performance of the applications. Payroll applications are very I/O intensive and flash systems are a perfect fit. It makes sense.

I was involved in the setup and it was easy. I've done those for years.

We looked at pretty many vendors. Anybody you could name, we looked at them. We have multiple vendors in the environment, not just IBM. But for our really critical, high performance apps, we put it on the V9000.

Just be careful if you're going to try to use compression, because of the specific issues we've had. If it's a high performance computing environment, just keep it thick provisioned. Get the best performance from it. Don't try to save and then screw up the user experience.

If something fails, it's not going to bring down the application. V9000 is redundant through and through, so it's a great product.

When selecting a vendor, stability, ease of use, and resiliency are the most important things.