IBM Storage FlashSystem vs. NetApp AFF A-Series

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Storage FlashSystem
ScoreĀ 8.9Ā outĀ ofĀ 10
N/A
IBM's FlashSystem is a flash array storage option.N/A
NetApp AFF A-Series
ScoreĀ 9.6Ā outĀ ofĀ 10
N/A
NetApp AFF A-Series All Flash Arrays are the company's flagship flash storage solutions.N/A
Pricing
IBM Storage FlashSystemNetApp AFF A-Series
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
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Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Storage FlashSystemNetApp AFF A-Series
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Detailsā€”ā€”
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM Storage FlashSystemNetApp AFF A-Series
Considered Both Products
IBM Storage FlashSystem
Chose IBM Storage FlashSystem
Single-badged solution.
NetApp AFF A-Series
Chose NetApp AFF A-Series
The IBM All Flash FAS was similar in performance and price, but we were already a NetApp shop. This made the decision easier to go with the NetApp AFF system so it would tie in with our SnapManager architecture, as well as keep the learning curve short.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
IBM Storage FlashSystemNetApp AFF A-Series
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
NetApp AFF A-Series
9.4
6 Ratings
3% above category average
Flash Array Performance8.9108 Ratings9.76 Ratings
Flash Array Integration8.3109 Ratings9.75 Ratings
Data Compression8.3107 Ratings9.65 Ratings
Non-Intrusive Upgrades8.3103 Ratings9.65 Ratings
Simplicity8.9110 Ratings9.16 Ratings
Power Savings8.8106 Ratings9.15 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM Storage FlashSystemNetApp AFF A-Series
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Pure Storage FlashArray
Pure Storage FlashArray
ScoreĀ 9.2Ā outĀ ofĀ 10
Pure Storage FlashArray
Pure Storage FlashArray
ScoreĀ 9.2Ā outĀ ofĀ 10
Enterprises
Pure Storage FlashArray
Pure Storage FlashArray
ScoreĀ 9.2Ā outĀ ofĀ 10
Pure Storage FlashArray
Pure Storage FlashArray
ScoreĀ 9.2Ā outĀ ofĀ 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM Storage FlashSystemNetApp AFF A-Series
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(122 ratings)
9.7
(7 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.3
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(11 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.8
(11 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM Storage FlashSystemNetApp AFF A-Series
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.
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NetApp
Easy interface and the accessibility of the features are effective and this solution functionalities on data migration and processing of different from other packages is amazing. NetApp AFF A-Series All Flash Arrays is the most secure platform for easy management of all the business and project data and the capacity planning tools and even the configuration options are the best and easy to use.
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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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NetApp
  • Protective multiple project and business data is excellent.
  • Solutions for data storage and data migration.
  • Providing useful and quality data reports is effective.
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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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NetApp
  • Cost is still prohibitive for performance.
  • Performance tuning at the Fabric Interconnect level.
  • Automation and scripting improvements in the PowerShell module.
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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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NetApp
No answers on this topic
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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NetApp
No answers on this topic
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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NetApp
No answers on this topic
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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NetApp
No answers on this topic
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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NetApp
No answers on this topic
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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NetApp
I have been an IBM and EMC storage customer. I used EMC CX and VMX series SANs. I have used IBM Shark SANs before that. Much has changed over the years. It is my experience that Netapp has shown a great deal more innovation with large leaps in technology, ease of use and an aggressive progress while the two other vendors that I have experience with are more tied to their legacy technologies.
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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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NetApp
  • ROI has been tremendous as it has come in handy in all the scenarios we were looking at
  • Users and admins both happy with the overall performance and management is happy that they got a good deal from reseller.
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ScreenShots

IBM Storage FlashSystem Screenshots

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