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IBM Storage FlashSystem vs. StarWind Storage Appliance (SA)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    IBM Storage FlashSystem

    Score8.9 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

    StarWind Storage Appliance (SA)

    Score9 out of 10
    N/AStarWind SA helps organizations with fixed compute platforms meet storage performance and capacity growth requirements by providing them with high-performance and scalable storage covered by 24/7 support. StarWind Storage Appliance is designed to handle high-performance or unpredictable data growth. It serves storage as a single namespace to different environments via multiple uplink protocols: iSCSI, SMB3, NFS, including RDMA-capable iSER and SMB Direct. As an all-flash hyperconvergence…N/A
    Pricing
    IBM Storage FlashSystemStarWind Storage Appliance (SA)
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM Storage FlashSystemStarWind Storage Appliance (SA)
    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 FlashSystemStarWind Storage Appliance (SA)
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    StarWind
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    54 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    51 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    54 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    45 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    46 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    IBM Storage FlashSystemStarWind Storage Appliance (SA)
    Enterprise Flash Array Storage
    Comparison of Enterprise Flash Array Storage features of IBM Storage FlashSystem and StarWind Storage Appliance (SA)
    Feature
    IBM Storage FlashSystem
    8.1
    157 Ratings
    9% below category average
    StarWind Storage Appliance (SA)
    9.6
    2 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Flash Array Performance9.0152 Ratings9.01 Ratings
    Flash Array Integration8.1148 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Data Compression7.7152 Ratings9.01 Ratings
    Non-Intrusive Upgrades9.1144 Ratings9.92 Ratings
    Simplicity8.4154 Ratings9.92 Ratings
    Power Savings6.2147 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    IBM Storage FlashSystemStarWind Storage Appliance (SA)
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Dell Compellent (discontinued)
    Score8 out of 10
    Dell Compellent (discontinued)
    Score8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Everpure FlashArray
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Everpure FlashArray
    Score8.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM Storage FlashSystemStarWind Storage Appliance (SA)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.5
    (157 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.6
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    8.8
    (23 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Availability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.3
    (21 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.1
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 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
    8.8
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM Storage FlashSystemStarWind Storage Appliance (SA)
    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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    StarWind
    It is well suited in data transfer and storage of files under secure environment. It has contributed to immediate Return on Investment with low cost performance. I totally recommend it to any company for its high speed performance under secure data channels. It does reliable reporting on data integration and analysis on daily basis pointing out areas that have challenging operations.
    Read full review
    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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    StarWind
    • Very cost-effective. You choose the hardware.
    • Very reliable and performant.
    • Excellent proactive support. They call us when there is an issue.
    • Very flexible. Can mix and match spinning disk and SSD depending on capacity and performance needs.
    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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    StarWind
    • Not sure what improvements are needed. The UI could possibly be more intuitive.
    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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    StarWind
    No answers on this topic
    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.
    Incentivized
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    StarWind
    No answers on this topic
    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.
    Incentivized
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    StarWind
    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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    StarWind
    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.
    Incentivized
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    StarWind
    No answers on this topic
    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!
    Incentivized
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    StarWind
    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.
    Incentivized
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    StarWind
    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.
    Incentivized
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    StarWind
    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.
    Incentivized
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    StarWind
    I have not been able to work with same featured product in our organization, however the performance of this platform has been excellent. The support center has been reliable and trustworthy giving us 100% support on daily basis when we deach them. It is affordable to any business enterprise that is ready to implement data storage and transfer programs. The maintenance and scalable cost is reasonable and and the services has been great.
    Read full review
    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...
    Incentivized
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    StarWind
    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.
    Incentivized
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    StarWind
    • It enabled us to upgrade our storage and switch from FC to iSCSI at a reasonable cost.
    • iSCSi is so much less expensive to maintain.
    • StarWind is upgradable and you never lose your investment.
    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)