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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

    TrueNAS

    Score9.1 out of 10
    N/ATrueNAS is a network-attached storage featuring all-flash and hybrid storage editions, from iXsystems headquartered in San Jose.

    $0

    per month

    Pricing
    IBM Storage FlashSystemTrueNAS
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM Storage FlashSystemTrueNAS
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    IBM Storage FlashSystemTrueNAS
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    Chose IBM Storage FlashSystem
    1. Cost effective and flexibility in choosing among wide range of portfolios
    2. Better virtualisation capabilities with hybrid model and on-prem setup
    3. Cloud management tools and softwares to manage easily.
    Incentivized
    iXsystems
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    54 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    39 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    51 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    37 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    54 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    39 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    45 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    36 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    46 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    37 Answers
    Features
    IBM Storage FlashSystemTrueNAS
    Enterprise Flash Array Storage
    Comparison of Enterprise Flash Array Storage features of IBM Storage FlashSystem and TrueNAS
    Feature
    IBM Storage FlashSystem
    8.1
    157 Ratings
    9% below category average
    TrueNAS
    -
    Ratings
    Flash Array Performance9.0152 Ratings00 Ratings
    Flash Array Integration8.1148 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data Compression7.7152 Ratings00 Ratings
    Non-Intrusive Upgrades9.1144 Ratings00 Ratings
    Simplicity8.4154 Ratings00 Ratings
    Power Savings6.2147 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    IBM Storage FlashSystemTrueNAS
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    DiskStation
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Dell Compellent (discontinued)
    Score8 out of 10
    DiskStation
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Everpure FlashArray
    Score8.2 out of 10
    DiskStation
    Score8.8 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM Storage FlashSystemTrueNAS
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.5
    (157 ratings)
    9.9
    (39 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.6
    (6 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    8.8
    (23 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Availability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.3
    (21 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.1
    (6 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    8.2
    (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
    8.8
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM Storage FlashSystemTrueNAS
    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
    Read full review
    iXsystems
    We have many TrueNAS units deployed and they've served us well everywhere. Our most common use case is using it as storage backing for virtual machines. We have Proxmox talking to it, as well as having it acting as the hypervisor. We've never lost data with it, even when faced with multiple disk failures. We've also always found the performance to be robust and able to handle the needs of our clients. Our clients range from libraries, to medium sized enterprises and we've always been able to make it work, and work reliably.
    Incentivized
    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
    Read full review
    iXsystems
    • iSCSI Datastores for virtualization.
    • NFS store for unix storage or backups over networking.
    • Very fast performance, sometimes outclassing SSD arrays even in NFS.
    • The ZFS filesystem has given use much greater flexibility.
    • Using their newer servers we could in theory scale to any height of required storage.
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    iXsystems
    • more graphical interface to admin features like plugins, jails, list are well but a tiles aproach will be better
    • allow bulk upload/download/update to Groups or user accounts from SMB shares.
    • some script language template featured to create/config/change/delete storage pools /dataset or shares .
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    iXsystems
    The software has been amazing. It has saved me a lot of headache in the past few years. Also, it's nice to knowing that if any of our current Synology devices were to die I can have an iSCSI system up and running very shortly. I didn't give a 10 score because I find their support to be rather slow and pedantic. They test many things when the answer is right in front of them. The compute sytem (not storage) we purchased from them came with pcie gen4 nvme's. They didn't work, but rather than believe me about the spec's in the motherboard manual saying the onboard was pcie3 ONLY they shipped me 2 replacements until I showed them an old pcie3 device worked just fine. The part that rather frustrated me was the machine was claimed to have been tested / burnt in. How can this be true if the server won't even boot up into the BIOS?
    Read full review
    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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    iXsystems
    The software is fairly straight forward and if you mess up the network interfaces you can login locally at the console and fix any issues that you may have had with VLANS etc denying you network access. There was a little bit of annoying issues when setting up multiple network interface cards. Rather than keeping one interface setup with DHCP, when you add a second one with a new network it disables the first. Which makes it impossible to login again. However if you wait it will revert. I learned after works that you need to set up the network cards and then go back and setup the first one again and THEN test / apply. After that it was pretty good. The summary of the devices is very nice to. You get an accurate snapshot of how well your system is doing as soon as you login
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    iXsystems
    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
    Read full review
    iXsystems
    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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    iXsystems
    The support was responsive for opening cases. However I found solutions to simple problems took far too long. When we had a bad power supply and we had another with the exact same firmware version they should have sent replacement for both. We had to file another case for the other PSU that started dyeing the same week. They also had to do a lot of troubleshooting to replace the fans that were not behaving as they should. I'm not a home user. I know when certain things are failing and the silly hoops the jump through made it frustrating. However, once we finally got the problem identified we had parts shipped out via advance replacement which was nice.
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    iXsystems
    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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    iXsystems
    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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    iXsystems
    The implementation went well after we got the boot drive working properly. The device was setup exactly as i asked with the hardware except for the boot drive. The reason I chose 9 instead of 10 was the boot drive put us back about a week for the part to arrive. I ended up using a personal drive to show them that they were wrong sending use the gen4 drives.
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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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    iXsystems
    I chose TrueNAS (upgrading from FreeNAS) because of the small footprint, ease of use, and reliability of the ZFS file system. The file sharing protocols supported as well as the intuitive interface all make TrueNAS a great choice for business and hobbyists alike.
    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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    iXsystems
    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
    Read full review
    iXsystems
    • Using a TruNAS integrated solution has reduced support overhead compared to using custom hardware.
    • Being cheaper than full flash storage arrays, this unit allows for a good balance of speed with its use of SSD-based caching drives.
    • The reliability of the hardware/software integration means I spend less time troubleshooting and more time doing business. Coming from a custom-built solution it is apparent that IX Systems has done some extensive testing.
    Read full review
    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)