1. Home
  2. Enterprise Flash Array Storage Solutions
  3. IBM Storage FlashSystem Reviews
  4. User Review of IBM Storage FlashSystem
Reliable and cost effective Flash of IBM
November 12, 2021

Reliable and cost effective Flash of IBM

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

Modules Used

  • IBM Flashsystem 7200

Overall Satisfaction with IBM FlashSystem

It is mainly targeted to cater to the needs of high-end IOs from different applications across the organization. Mainly focused on delivering mission-critical servers with low latency disk access. This helps us to reduce a significant amount of time while running jobs on various applications across different domains. The storage has been deployed to use across different divisions in the company.
  • Performance is the crucial element to be highlighted, as it delivers the best in class industry performance.
  • Guaranteed compression ratio, one of the leading in [the] industry we got a 2:1 guaranteed and it achieved as per the commitment.
  • Reliability is one of the main elements which works really well, even being a storewide family product it delivers [the] best reliability features.
  • [The] footprint is key, as it helped us to reduce our organization's 2 racks storage capacity into a 2U rack space.
  • Better GUI interface
  • Currently, [the] performance of FS7200 can't be monitored through TPC/SC, this should be considered to include in [the] future.
  • IBM primarily lacks in designing its products physical looks, should have designed more intrusive and attractive design. A first impression of the product creates [an] impressive opinion.
  • There is a significant improvement for OLTP applications.
  • Jobs run/execution time reduced by around 70%.
  • Saving significant amount of cost in cooling and power.
  • Savings on spending management/administration cost, as the product is straightforward to maintain with in-house engineers.
Well suited: 1. High-end applications, especially in banking or core oil-related applications where latency is the key in delivering optimal results 2. It addresses the needs of [a] large footprint in the datacenter, even an SME can manage the physical capacity in a limited IT space. Less appropriate: 1. There should be a cost-effective version of Flash in [the] IBM portfolio, which helps SMB to consider/opt within their budget. 2. Marketing, as the product has not been widely marketed by IBM. This is one of the areas which needs improvement.

IBM Storage FlashSystem Feature Ratings

Enterprise Flash Array Storage
9.2
Flash Array Performance
10
Flash Array Integration
8
Data Compression
10
Non-Intrusive Upgrades
10
Simplicity
7
Power Savings
10

Using IBM FlashSystem

5000 - Mainly core applications such as internal employee payroll, [a] crucial oil-related application which is primarily used for exploration, the discovery of oil using seismic data.
2 - Majorly managed/administered by skilled staff who are trained on Storage/SAN technologies and have [been] hands-on for quite some time. But this particular model can be managed by a staff intermediate skill on storage/SAN.
  • OLTP Applications
  • Oil discovery
  • Seismic data analysis
  • In-house applications
  • N/A
  • Planning to use as staging space to [speed up] the backups as the environment is already equipped with high-speed data transfer from servers to storage.
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.

Evaluating IBM FlashSystem and Competitors

Yes - We had replaced our current portfolio of Flash Storage 820 with a unified [IBM FlashSystem] 7200, main reason is to consolidate the environment and reduce the footprint. Secondly, to reduce the cost and unify all the storage arrays/small xylos into a single and robust environment. Lastly, maintenance cost is the key in choosing [IBM FlashSystem] 7200 over smalled FS820 arrays.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
Mainly we are focused on product stability/robustness along with price factor and support are the key metrics in opting for [IBM FlashSystem] 7200 over other peers in the market.
If I get an opportunity to re-evaluate, I consider including the compression feature as the key parameter. I feel IBM products are lacking in offering compression ratio compared to peers in the market.