Item: IBM Storage FlashSystem
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Usability

I have found the system to very user friendly. We are currently using it for on premises storage only and have not had the need to leverage any of the cloud extensions. Being able to directly connect up to 8 hosts with dual controller fiber channel is a very nice feature for such a low cost SAN, which saved up quite a bit of money by not having to purchase fabric switches. This also keeps maintenance and power costs down and saves room in the rack.

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use IBM Storage FlashSystem as our primary storage array for our virtualization environment. It provides storage for our main 5 host cluster via 16Gb fiber channel. The hosts support roughly 100 virtual machines. The business problems that the unit addresses are providing very fast VM storage with extremely low latency. The array contains 12 NVME storage modules in a ~RAID6 level setup, so that we can lose 2 drives without impacting uptime.

Pros and Cons

Low latency
Storage DRS is supported
Ease of expansion

Drive firmware updates are a bit clunky, the update files have to be sourced manually
IBM has separate storage monitoring you need to set up to get good historical statistics.
If you need 8 16Gb ports you will not be able to expand with a SAS connector.

Return on Investment

Our 1U 5200 replaced 16U worth of VNX with lower power usage and much faster performance.
VMware operations complete much more quickly with this SAN.
Storage DRS allows for fewer decisions when deploying virtual workloads.

Performance

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.

Alternatives Considered

EMC VNX (Discontinued)

We replaced a hybrid EMC VNX with the IBM Storage FlashSystem and could not be happier. Compared to the proposed Dell and EMC replacement storage solutions the IBM Storage FlashSystem was smaller, more performant, and much less expensive. I especially appreciated how up front and transparent IBM was with pricing. The setup of the unit was straightforward as well. It is rare in IT that you can so easily recommend a product, but it is certainly so with the IBM Storage FlashSystem. The VNX we replaced was over 14U in size with over 100 spinning hard drives, which used an immense amount of power. With the 1U IBM Storage FlashSystem we use less rack space, much lass power, and get better and more consistent performance with the benefits of compression and deduplication.

Likelihood to Recommend

IBM Storage FlashSystem is very well suited for a small or medium business that does not want to compromise storage performance. Pricing is excellent and transparent on the website. The option to have 8 16Gb FC connectors allows you to forgo expensive and complicated SAN switches if your host count is low enough. Fewer components make the infrastructure more reliable.

IBM Storage FlashSystem is a soldi product at a great pricepoint for SMB high end storage needs.

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Storage FlashSystem