IBM FlashSystem 5000 Review
July 21, 2021

IBM FlashSystem 5000 Review

Zakarieya Abderoef | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • IBM Flashsystem 7200
  • IBM Flashsystem 5000

Overall Satisfaction with IBM FlashSystem

The IBM FlashSystem 5000 is being used by mission critical applications with low latency storage requirements. This is especially useful for systems such as SAP Business Intelligence (BI). Its also important to note that the IBM FlashSystem 5000 is certified by SAP for their SAP HANA Tailored Data Centre Integration (TDI) deployments. At the time of writing this review the following IBM FlashSystem models (with restrictions) are certified by SAP TDI includes the IBM FlashSystem 5010(H)/5030(H)/5100(H) which serves up to 4/18*/26* HANA nodes and the IBM FlashSystem 5015/5035/5200 which serves up to 4/18*/26* HANA nodes.
  • Offers NVMe-accelerated performance which is way faster than SATA SSDs
  • The FlashSystem 5000 offers all-flash and hybrid options
  • The FlashSystem 5000 provides the highest levels of availability to support mission-critical applications offering an IBM's six 9s availability design.
  • Installation should be simplified a bit as it can become a bit complicated to install
  • Enabling encryption and compression has the potential to affect performance
  • Pricing seems a bit higher than competitor models. This can be mitigated if you work with an IBM Gold Partner or higher that can secure better discounts.
  • Flash systems generally use less power and cooling than traditionally disk based storage saving on power and cooling costs
  • The system has a smaller footprint and thus require less rack space in the Data Centre.
  • The system has compression features to extend the storage capacity at no additional costs
IBM FlashSystem 5000 is marketed as an entry-level to midrange storage system and therefore is ideally suited for these situations. The IBM FlashSystem 7200 the next step up from the FlashSystem 5000 and provides higher scalability and more performance.
IBM FlashSystem 5000 is well suited for most environments that requires a high performance storage system. Since the price of flash has decreased significantly over the past years, it can also be used to replace legacy disk based storage systems as part of a company's storage upgrade or refresh plan. If you have a tight budget, then the FlashSystem 5000 can be configured as a hybrid solution to decrease costs a bit. You can then make use of the Easy-Tier functionality to ensure that the data is automatically kept or moved the right type of storage to maintain application performance.

IBM Storage FlashSystem Feature Ratings

Flash Array Performance
9
Flash Array Integration
9
Data Compression
9
Non-Intrusive Upgrades
7
Simplicity
6
Power Savings
9