IBM Storage FlashSystem vs. Pure Storage FlashArray

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Storage FlashSystem
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
IBM's FlashSystem is a flash array storage option.N/A
Pure Storage FlashArray
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Pure Storage in Mountain View, California offers all-flash array data storage promising affordability, high availability, and consistent performance.N/A
Pricing
IBM Storage FlashSystemPure Storage FlashArray
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Storage FlashSystemPure Storage FlashArray
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM Storage FlashSystemPure Storage FlashArray
Considered Both Products
IBM Storage FlashSystem
Chose IBM Storage FlashSystem
IBM Flash System is more compact, provides high performance and better serviceability than Pure
Chose IBM Storage FlashSystem
Works well for the application but it requires us to add components to increase resiliency.
Pure Storage FlashArray
Chose Pure Storage FlashArray
It's faster and more affordable.
Chose Pure Storage FlashArray
We tested Mixed Storage HDD and SSD with De and HP boxes. With HP and Lenovo Full SSD Enclosures.
Chose Pure Storage FlashArray
We liked the licensing more with the Pure Array and its performance at the time was better than others.
Chose Pure Storage FlashArray
Pure Storage FlashArray was selected for its ease of use. Aside from the GUI not being the most intuitive when you first get introduced to it, it holds up to that reputation. I do, however, enjoy other vendors approach to no expansion shelves. In the end, that ends up giving …
Chose Pure Storage FlashArray
The simplicity of management was the primary factor in the decisions.
Chose Pure Storage FlashArray
The 3D array is a big diference, the compression and deduplication are better, also the Active Cluster is included in price. The price is very competitive.
Chose Pure Storage FlashArray
Pure Storage was tested against 3 different arrays as we are a hospital system running EPIC we needed a system that could handle the large database load and still provide sub-millisecond latency. All systems came real close to the SLAs we were looking for, but in the end, Pure …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
IBM Storage FlashSystemPure Storage FlashArray
Enterprise Flash Array Storage
Comparison of Enterprise Flash Array Storage features of Product A and Product B
IBM Storage FlashSystem
8.6
111 Ratings
6% below category average
Pure Storage FlashArray
9.3
154 Ratings
2% above category average
Flash Array Performance8.9108 Ratings10.0154 Ratings
Flash Array Integration8.3109 Ratings9.0144 Ratings
Data Compression8.3107 Ratings8.0153 Ratings
Non-Intrusive Upgrades8.3103 Ratings9.9148 Ratings
Simplicity8.9110 Ratings10.0154 Ratings
Power Savings8.8106 Ratings9.0131 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM Storage FlashSystemPure Storage FlashArray
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Pure Storage FlashArray
Pure Storage FlashArray
Score 9.2 out of 10
Dell SC Series / Compellent (discontinued)
Dell SC Series / Compellent (discontinued)
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Pure Storage FlashArray
Pure Storage FlashArray
Score 9.2 out of 10
Dell VMAX
Dell VMAX
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM Storage FlashSystemPure Storage FlashArray
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(122 ratings)
10.0
(207 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.3
(5 ratings)
9.1
(25 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(11 ratings)
9.1
(16 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(5 ratings)
Performance
8.8
(11 ratings)
8.8
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(4 ratings)
9.3
(75 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.8
(3 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(6 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(3 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(4 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(5 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(5 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM Storage FlashSystemPure Storage FlashArray
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
For environments where high IO and read writes are performed the flash storage is very well suited . We also use this for another customer as a back end storage for high performance backups where we run multi stream data writes to it via 100G interface.
Read full review
Pure Storage
When you need speed, it's FAST, especially for MS SQL databases. If you are having bottlenecks, you can spend your time finding it in the code because it's not Pure Storage. Love the data reduction and duplication. We can store so much more on this unit than the base physical size. Love the data snapshots. When you need to complete copy your entire environment for testing etc. Nothing is easier, a few clicks and you are done. Extremely helpful for testing and training.
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Pros
IBM
  • Cyber resilience with the new functionality of immutable copies called sfaguarded copies
  • With the IBM FlashCore modules it allows us to have good levels of online compression of the information, besides that it is a hardware compression that would not affect the performance of the equipment
  • the virtualization of other storages that can be IBM or other brands
  • binary replication works great
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Pure Storage
  • The Pure Array does data reduction particularly well. We've seen a 7x reduction on some of our volumes.
  • It is easy to get used to the system after coming from other storage arrays.
  • It has some welcome additions such as a smartphone app that makes it easier to view your cases, etc.
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Cons
IBM
  • Drive firmware updates are a bit clunky, the update files have to be sourced manually
  • IBM has separate storage monitoring you need to set up to get good historical statistics.
  • If you need 8 16Gb ports you will not be able to expand with a SAS connector.
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Pure Storage
  • Reporting is too general. Being a tech nerd, I want to be able to see the nitty-gritty details. I also need to be able to define canned sets of reports for problem application systems.
  • Pricing is a bit higher then some of their direct competitors .
  • Seriously, I have nothing else.
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Likelihood to Renew
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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Pure Storage
It has so far been a very fast and stable product. We have had wonderful support when we have needed it and the account manager and engineer attached to our organization have been very responsive with any questions and concerns we have had.
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Usability
IBM
The low latency for best performance and improve productivity. This is very much suitable for all the usecases where data intensive processing need to be performed. The administration is very easy and logical. It helps to run the infrastructure at optimial cost and optimal performance. It offers great deal of virtualisation featurs and they are indeed very much powerful.
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Pure Storage
The install went smoothly, and the engineer explained every step along the way. The next couple of days he checked in to make sure that migration was running as planned. The user interface is designed with usability in mind. You don't need a dedicated "Storage Silo" to manage this product. For smaller IT departments that need to support many different workloads, this could not be a better feature
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Reliability and Availability
IBM
No answers on this topic
Pure Storage
We have never had an outage with Purestorage. Yes we have had 2 drives go out but replacements were installed so fast there wasn't any issues. We have had a NVRAM module replaced but were noticed from Pure they were sending a replacement because they were predicting a failure so pure was proactive preventing any issues. Knowing Pure is monitoring our device 24x7 gives us peace of mind.
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Performance
IBM
Even though the model is suited towards smaller or medium sized businesses, the speeds and performances seen via our benchmarks exceeded any requirements we initially had. The setup was quite simple and the additional features such as allowing for better hyrbid storage and containerization has improved the backend performance of our company immensely.
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Pure Storage
The corporation has a very diverse data load and when we migrate from a hybrid storage to pure all-flash, significant gains have already been observed. Latency always remains below 1 ms regardless of the load and volumetry used. Application performance also depends heavily on whether or not the code is more permormatic and network access infrastructure. The product has been meeting expectations
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Support Rating
IBM
IBM support ecosystem is robust and well organized, due to the advent of Watson based case management system IBM offers a decent support system for the customers and the users of its products.
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Pure Storage
Pure Support is timely and communicative. They are always ready to assist and very skilled at what they do, no matter the time of day. Even at 12:10 a.m. on New Years Day when your array has a hiccup that causes some errors in your environment, they will be on the phone with you in an instant. If they are unable to determine the cause right away, because things appear to be normal, they will take your environment's configuration, lab it up in their support environment and then research until they figure out what caused the problem. Even if it takes 3 months. True story.
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In-Person Training
IBM
No answers on this topic
Pure Storage
Excellent training and really you don't need that much. We received training at the Pure offices and also on site when the product was installed. Simple things like how to login to the GUI interface, how to setup users, how to create volume and mount it. How to make a snapshot, how to copy it and mount it. Really is pretty self explanatory on how to do things with the GUI interface. We were expecting complicated base on other vendor products, we got super simple.
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Online Training
IBM
No answers on this topic
Pure Storage
Great videos and documentation. There is a common theme with PureStorage, "Keep it elegantly simple". They have great support network and great support user groups. Documentation has been very helpful with providing auditors with methods and procedures on security and other ways the product works. Great documentation on setting PureStorage to be the most effective with VM's, SQL Server, and other products.
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Implementation Rating
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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Pure Storage
The install was very quick. The engineer that Pure sent said that if we started by 10 am we would be done by lunchtime, and he was not kidding.
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Alternatives Considered
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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Pure Storage
Pure Storage FlashArray came up as being the most cost-effective of the lot plus the extras added like call-home support were very welcome. The competitors' options were a lot more expensive and the call-home support added a lot more to the already high costs.
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Scalability
IBM
No answers on this topic
Pure Storage
The product suite scales well and the FA in particular can service any need for all but the most demanding file protocol environments
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Return on Investment
IBM
  • Flash System 5000 Built on a software foundation that delivers a 359% ROI.
  • IBM Flash System 5000 Gain the highest levels of availability to support mission-critical applications.
  • IBM Flash System 5000 benefits from [the] integration of modern data protection and rich cyber resiliency features.
  • IBM Flash System 5000 Enhance storage efficiency.
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Pure Storage
  • Thanks to the deduplication that is built into the product we are seeing great reduction in total space required by consolidating similar data types on the same array.
  • Our users are very pleased with the performance.
  • The replication allowed us to move our workload from to another data center with minimal downtime.
Read full review
ScreenShots

IBM Storage FlashSystem Screenshots

Screenshot of IBM-FS-900Screenshot of FlashSystem V9000Screenshot of IBM FlashSystemScreenshot of FlashSystem A9000