Dell VMAX vs. IBM Storage FlashSystem

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Dell VMAX
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
Dell VMAX All Flash is the latest iteration in the former Symmetrix series of enterprise flash array storage, available in the Dell VMAX 250F edition, or the Dell EMC VMAX 950F edition.N/A
IBM Storage FlashSystem
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
IBM Storage FlashSystem, an all-flash storage array, delivers ~2 PB of effective capacity per single rack unit. Engineered with unique FlashCore Modules, it offloads data services including compression, encryption, deduplication, and ransomware threat detection ensuring optimum performance and resiliency.
$14,200
Pricing
Dell VMAXIBM Storage FlashSystem
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Dell VMAXIBM Storage FlashSystem
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsEntry-Level IBM Storage FlashSystem: For any organization looking for an all-flash array with features that are both enterprise conducive and budget friendly, the small to entry level offering prices from IBM begin at $18,400. Mid-Range IBM Storage FlashSystem: For businesses wanting to take advantage of an enterprise-quality flash array for critical workloads (such as SQL databases, SAP, ERP, CRM, etc.), list prices start at $104,600. High-Performance IBM Storage FlashSystem: Organizations seeking a storage array with the ability to run multiple instances of critical applications that are both performance intensive and capacity sensitive, can find IBM prices starting at $368,500. Contact IBM for configuration and pricing details.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Dell VMAXIBM Storage FlashSystem
Features
Dell VMAXIBM Storage FlashSystem
Enterprise Flash Array Storage
Comparison of Enterprise Flash Array Storage features of Product A and Product B
Dell VMAX
9.8
9 Ratings
9% above category average
IBM Storage FlashSystem
8.8
151 Ratings
2% below category average
Flash Array Performance9.89 Ratings9.4147 Ratings
Flash Array Integration9.69 Ratings8.5143 Ratings
Data Compression9.89 Ratings8.5146 Ratings
Non-Intrusive Upgrades9.98 Ratings9.4139 Ratings
Simplicity9.98 Ratings8.3148 Ratings
Power Savings9.98 Ratings8.4141 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Dell VMAXIBM Storage FlashSystem
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

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Medium-sized Companies
Pure Storage FlashArray
Pure Storage FlashArray
Score 8.5 out of 10
Pure Storage FlashArray
Pure Storage FlashArray
Score 8.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Pure Storage FlashArray
Pure Storage FlashArray
Score 8.5 out of 10
Pure Storage FlashArray
Pure Storage FlashArray
Score 8.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Dell VMAXIBM Storage FlashSystem
Likelihood to Recommend
9.7
(9 ratings)
9.4
(150 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
7.6
(6 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(22 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.4
(21 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(2 ratings)
9.1
(5 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(3 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Dell VMAXIBM Storage FlashSystem
Likelihood to Recommend
Dell Technologies
Dell EMC VMAX All-Flash Storage is a very powerful storage that easily manages huge data transactions with high IO processing speed. This Storage is well suited for critical production environments because response times are much better. This storage enables direct data backup. It's always up and running during updates because it creates a redundant connection from the controller.
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IBM
Top choice for IBMi integration. In general, it's a very good solution for quite a lot of customers. If you need a 3 site replication solution (HA + DR) maybe it's not the best solution, unless you use SVC. FlashCore Modules have very powerful compression rate, while mantaining good performance: high IOPS rate and really low latency
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Pros
Dell Technologies
  • It creates a fully redundant connection from multiple controllers that are always up even during updates.
  • Once setup there is little to no adjustments that need to be made to the storage array. All that's needed is volume updates.
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IBM
  • Extremely fast storage
  • Scales up as needed. Add flash core modules easily and increase volumes very quickly.
  • Applying firmware updates to IBM Storage FlashSystem is very easy to do and can be done without any downtime.
  • Replication policies are very versatile and also easy to setup.
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Cons
Dell Technologies
  • Initial configuration are bit difficult need some experience resource to manage it.
  • We faced issue with vendor support during major impact.
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IBM
  • Definitely we need to be able to extend a volume that is part of a mirror pair or Policy-Based Replication(PBO) on the fly.
  • Expansion of mirrored volumes/volume groups should resynchronise only the changed data (Almost like making use of change-volumes) and not trigger a full resync.
  • Please allow us to select downloading drive microcode also from Fix Central directly onto the flashsystem like with updates.
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Likelihood to Renew
Dell Technologies
No answers on this topic
IBM
As flash technology evolves rapidly, vendors should [adapt] to the changes and onboard them in their products. IBM is a bit slow in adopting advanced technology in [its] portfolio. Even though the current product is good, my decision is purely based on how the transformation of the product [is] being produced and supplied to [the] end-user.
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Usability
Dell Technologies
No answers on this topic
IBM
The integration into our SVC and the midrange systems are very well working. We do use cross site replication and global mirror which in turn is easy setup and the consistency groups are well maintained. The storage does global mirroring but also internal cross room replication as well. The integration of cloud object storage also helps in tiering the overall system.
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Reliability and Availability
Dell Technologies
No answers on this topic
IBM
IBM Flashsystems is always available for me, it is fiberchannel storage without the fuzz of what iscsi brings. It is a very reliable storage system, I have almost never issues with this system. The only things which go wrong are the updates because the old updates which have been staged on the disks are not properly cleaned in my opinion.
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Performance
Dell Technologies
No answers on this topic
IBM
Latency and throughput have been excellent. The compression is done natively on the NVME modules so we do not see an impact there. the distributed parity does not seem to impact write speeds at all. We have found database performace has increased quite a bit over our old hybrid storage solution.
Having a single tier of performance makes it easy to set up SLAs for workloads.
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Support Rating
Dell Technologies
The best part about this array is that once you have it configured it is pretty much done. There is little to no other configurations to be done other than normal volume adjustments. Support is great as they understand this array very well. The updates are very hands-off and are done solely by support. You contact them and then there are no other changes done on the end-user's side.
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IBM
Sometimes the knowledge of the support agent is quite limited and the support always has to route through the level 1 agent to screen all the informtion provided. Then its esclated to the next level support with the all collected data . The logs are always uploaded along wiht the case but still its reviewed at the lower level and then escalated / handed over to the next level if its complex issue to solve.
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Online Training
Dell Technologies
No answers on this topic
IBM
THe training is often selfpaced and easy to follow if you have worked previously with other storage products. The content is clear and contains all the information needed for an admin to learn. However the troubleshooting part is not always included and this is dependent on forums or other sources where the information is not accessible very easily.
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Implementation Rating
Dell Technologies
No answers on this topic
IBM
I was amazed by the way IBM Flash storage provides a huge amount of storage within the limited footprint, it helped us to replace big fat storage arrays, which aided in the process of moving towards lower hardware, carbon, and energy consumption footprint. We can comfortably say that Flash helped us to host applications fast with a blazing speed and user transactions are quite quick.
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Alternatives Considered
Dell Technologies
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IBM
For the past six months, we have been utilizing this technology in our projects to manage a massive workload and produce swift business outcomes on a crucial production database. The IBM FlashSystem 7200, which offers high performance and compression, has so far been a great experience for us. The results and functionality of this product have delighted our consumers.
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Scalability
Dell Technologies
No answers on this topic
IBM
We have been able to scale this storage system whenever there has been requirement for additional capacity and performance. with the help of deduplication we have been able to build quite a robust environment.
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Return on Investment
Dell Technologies
  • Dell EMC VMAX All Flash Storage provides the hybrid cloud solution
  • Dell EMC VMAX All Flash Storage provides the great storage capacity with data security
  • Data Migration from other storage, data compression, stability
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IBM
  • the compression in line means the IBM flashcore allow us to store much more information with less capacity, we can store much more with fewer disks
  • virtualization allows us to extend the useful life of old equipment that we already had separated, as I said, I use them as a repository for backups
  • With the implementation of the new functionality of immutable copies with SafeGuarded Copies, the information is much more secure for possible attacks
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ScreenShots

IBM Storage FlashSystem Screenshots

Screenshot of IBM FlashSystem 5300Screenshot of IBM FlashSystem 9500Screenshot of IBM FlashSystem 7300Screenshot of IBM FlashSystem 5000