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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    IBM Storage FlashSystem

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/AIBM 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.N/A

    NetApp FAS Storage Arrays

    Score9.5 out of 10
    N/ANetApp's FAS series systems offers a storage array system for enterprises.N/A
    Pricing
    IBM Storage FlashSystemNetApp FAS Storage Arrays
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM Storage FlashSystemNetApp FAS Storage Arrays
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    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 FlashSystemNetApp FAS Storage Arrays
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    NetApp
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    55 Answers
    90%
    Would buy again
    9 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    52 Answers
    80%
    Delivers good value for the price
    8 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    55 Answers
    90%
    Happy with the feature set
    9 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    98%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    45 Answers
    88%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    7 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    46 Answers
    90%
    Implementation went as expected
    9 Answers
    Features
    IBM Storage FlashSystemNetApp FAS Storage Arrays
    Enterprise Flash Array Storage
    Comparison of Enterprise Flash Array Storage features of IBM Storage FlashSystem and NetApp FAS Storage Arrays
    Feature
    IBM Storage FlashSystem
    8.2
    158 Ratings
    8% below category average
    NetApp FAS Storage Arrays
    -
    Ratings
    Flash Array Performance9.0153 Ratings00 Ratings
    Flash Array Integration8.3149 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data Compression7.8153 Ratings00 Ratings
    Non-Intrusive Upgrades9.1145 Ratings00 Ratings
    Simplicity8.8155 Ratings00 Ratings
    Power Savings6.6148 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    IBM Storage FlashSystemNetApp FAS Storage Arrays
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Dell Compellent (discontinued)
    Score8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    Everpure FlashArray
    Score8.2 out of 10
    HPE 3PAR StoreServ
    Score7.3 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM Storage FlashSystemNetApp FAS Storage Arrays
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.1
    (158 ratings)
    10.0
    (15 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.6
    (6 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    8.8
    (23 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    Availability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.3
    (21 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.1
    (6 ratings)
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Configurability
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    5.1
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.9
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM Storage FlashSystemNetApp FAS Storage Arrays
    Likelihood to Recommend
    IBM
    IBM Storage FlashSystem is the only good option. It is possible to do with other brands but not with the same compatibility and support. So in the IBM i world, there is not that much options if you want reliable products, performance and compatibility with overall system: IBM Storage FlashSystem product is the one. You may need to adjust performance to your needs and IBM has a complete range of systems for entry (FS5X00), mid-range (FS7X00) or high-end (FS9X00). In IBM i world, IBM Storage FlashSystem is the best, but knowing the product, I would probably recommend it for other platforms. And many of my customers are using it as a cross-technology platform (mainly virtualization on x86 like VMWare).
    Incentivized
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    NetApp
    It is very easy to use with NFS. Creating new volumes and mounting to servers such as ESXi or Linux is a breeze. It does also support CIFS but it is far less intuitive and requires much more effort. Replicated data is also very simple and robust in the form of SnapVaults or SnapMirrors. This data is either immediately or periodically replicated to a peer FAS in the cluster for retention.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    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.
    Incentivized
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    NetApp
    • The selling point for NetApp FAS is the application and data protection integration capabilities they provide.
    • We have been able to use NetApp FAS in a variety of use cases with a standard set of management tools.
    • NetApp FAS has evolved over the years from just NAS to also include block protocols. At this time they support almost all industry standard protocols.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    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.
    Incentivized
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    NetApp
    • Deduplication job runs at certain times and creates a large CPU overhead for the system
    • Management of a volumes, disk groups, LUNs, etc. is a burden to manage and is not efficient with storage capacity
    • Upgrades are complicated and not "non-disruptive"
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    NetApp
    It just works! We've used NetApp FAS Storage Arrays systems since 2011 and have had fantastic results, in particular since 2016 as performance has drastically improved. Tools are great/user friendly, command line capabilities are very strong ... it is simply very effective at what it does!
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    Usability
    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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    NetApp
    It does have a really nice and easy to use web interface to do pretty much anything you need with it. It was very simple to configure our volumes and luns and connect them to our VMWare environment using the interface. It has options to rename, shrink, grow, and other things with our luns and volumes. It was nice and easy to read graphs to see where you stand on your storage usage at a glance.
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    Reliability and Availability
    IBM
    Yes. The last really issues I've seen in the environments of my customers were back in the "Storwize" era of systems. Issues with code updates or sometimes rarely failing critical components. BUT: since every component is at least dual redundant even back in that day real outages were very rare. And today in the "FlashSystem Era" the systems are so reliable and available even during code updates there are no complaints. I think the 5 or 6 9s are completely achieved.
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    NetApp
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    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.
    Incentivized
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    NetApp
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    IBM
    I would rate the overall support for IBM Storage FlashSystem with a 10. The response times have consistently been fast, and the support engineers always come prepared with relevant questions and practical solutions. They demonstrate a deep understanding of the product and our use case, which means issues are typically resolved quickly and without unnecessary back-and-forth. This level of support has been especially valuable for our SAP environment, where uptime and quick resolution are critical.
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    NetApp
    NetApp support in Brazil is managed by its partners. We know in other countries, such as the US and NO, they have support directly from Netapp. We have a very good NetApp partner working with us since the beginning, on both the implementation and daily support. Very few cases needed to be escalated to NetApp support, most of the cases are handled and satisfyingly closed by the partner.
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    In-Person Training
    IBM
    Very good traning by experienced personnel. I attend instructor led sessions on IBM TechExchange and STUs before as well as IBM workshops for FlashSystems at IBM Böblingen which I helped to prepare and improve after piloting them. Absolutely nothing to complain about FlashSystem training in Germany or USA. So: all good here!
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    NetApp
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    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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    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
    Our initial deployment was handled by pro services. Most later deployments were handled in-house. All went very smoothly. Documentation made it relatively easy to set up new systems which allowed us to do it in-house. When using pro services they were professional and comprehensive.
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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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    NetApp
    NetApp stacked nicely and gave enterprise-level usability for snapshot-based backups. Our previous RPO was several hours. It was selected prior to me arriving at the company, but It was selected for the hardware refreshes due to its compatibility with several other vendors, like CommVault and VMware.
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    Scalability
    IBM
    I'm using cognos - especially cognos reports - as a part of IBMs Storage Intelligence software to manage datacenters and report storage and overall resource consumption to my customers. The software is reliable and - my customers who are using cognos in their businesses - say that they are very satisfied about the scalability of cognos. I can give it only an 8 rating because of the quite heavy resource footprint...
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    NetApp
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    IBM
    • Easy of use is a key aspect, as we do not have dedicated storage staff.
    • Our RPO has lowered near to Zero, using PBR as replication and this is key for us.
    • DR plan testing has become easier and less time-consuming, allowing us to conduct tests more frequently.
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    NetApp
    • The speed of file recovery is the biggest positive impact. Recovering from a ransomware attack in minutes is something you can certainly brag about.
    • Integration with products like Exchange and SQL can certainly speed up normal day to day processes. Not just in backup recovery situations either.
    • Redundant paths make migrations and updates very easy with no downtime.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    IBM Storage FlashSystem Screenshots

    Screenshot of Flash Core Module 5th GenScreenshot of IBM FlashSystem 5600Screenshot of IBM FlashSystem 5600 (rear)Screenshot of IBM FlashSystem 7600 and 9600Screenshot of IBM FlashSystem 7600 and 9600 (rear)