Whether they call it the V5000E or FlashSystem 5000, it's a great balance of performance and cost that is extremely hard to ignore
December 12, 2020

Whether they call it the V5000E or FlashSystem 5000, it's a great balance of performance and cost that is extremely hard to ignore

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

Modules Used

  • IBM Flashsystem 5000

Overall Satisfaction with IBM FlashSystem

We purchased 3 Storwize V5030E arrays over the last 2 years. It is servicing everything from our core ERP system to bulk file and backup storage. The biggest differentiator for us is the ability to connect the IBM S914 Power9 platform and run IBMi on external storage at a reasonable cost. This greatly increases our flexibility to back up and clone our production environment without it being a major event.
  • IBMi Support.
  • Inexpensive, performant all flash storage.
  • Good call home / proactive support.
  • Inability to add to storage to existing pools without destroying them first.
  • Detailed statistics on volume usage disappear when utilizing space saving options such as deduplication and compression.
  • We experienced a large uptick in orders during the pandemic due to suppliers changing to drop ship. This array helped us ensure that any ERP issues were simply not an issue related to storage, unlike our prior IBMi systems with DAS.
  • The cost difference versus the V7000 platform (which we also have) made it possible for us to acquire dedicated arrays for specific purposes, versus buying larger shared arrays and risking "noisy neighbor" performance issues.
  • We were able to significantly upgrade storage capacity and performance on our backups, compared to 3rd party maintenance options on our old backup array, with minimal cost increase (comparing 3 years of maintenance vs 36 month lease).
Having both the V5K and V7K, I can't see purchasing another V7K array. The V5000 has held it's own against the V7000, even when enabling features like deduplication that we had to leave off of the V7K for a variety of reasons. It's the same software, and essentially the same hardware, for a lot less money.
On one end of the spectrum, the support for IBMi is a crucial feature not available on non-IBM storage. On the other, the whole issue of not being able to expand a disk pool on the fly is kind of ridiculous for enterprise storage in 2020.

Being able to buy a reasonably priced all flash array that can be direct attached to a Power9/IBMi system is great. We also have one that is SAN attached, so you can go either direction with it.

IBM Storage FlashSystem Feature Ratings

Flash Array Performance
9
Flash Array Integration
9
Data Compression
7
Non-Intrusive Upgrades
7
Simplicity
8
Power Savings
9