We performed a comparison between Dell PowerMax NVMe and IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"PowerMax, with version 9.02, which we installed recently, has some very good features, such as CloudIQ."
"The performance is very good on our servers. It's superior. And the QoS capabilities for providing work congestion protection are also important because about 99 percent of our servers are production servers."
"We are happy with the monitoring that Dell EMC is doing for us. They have helped us to identify many issues during the routine checks, issues which we were not aware of."
"It allows us to protect our data using different data centers and replicate bi-directionally between our two main data centers."
"It is very stable. We expect superior performance and reliability from this particular storage system."
"The most valuable feature is its global cache, which allows for uncompromised performance."
"We are able to provide storage at the right service levels without overmanaging it."
"Dell PowerMax NVMe's tech support is good."
"The solution is more available for IOPS warehousing, resolving issues, and reporting than other products."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is easy to use and comes with good performance."
"The most valuable features of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe are its steady performance and usefulness in high-traffic environments."
"What I like about the product are its high availability, maximum efficiency in performance, and its ability to handle a high level of I/O operations."
"There are many valuable features of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMele I have found to meet my needs. Specifically, the maintenance cycle is a standout feature of this solution. The main component of the IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is the maintenance of the batteries, which have a predetermined and reliable four-year life cycle. This is in stark contrast to other solutions that may use spinning disks, which can fail unexpectedly, causing unwanted downtime and maintenance. Having a predictable maintenance cycle is a significant advantage and has made this solution a preferred choice for me."
"IBM FlashSystem provides the same software on each box, including virtualized solutions."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is one of the leading storage systems in the world...I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten."
"Good performance with a user-friendly UI."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."
"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"The software layer has to improve."
"The initial setup could be easier."
"The initial setup was complex, and we had experienced people working on it."
"The initial setup was a little bit complicated."
"They can make the GUI better, especially for the ones that come out of the box. We did encounter a bit of difficulty in setting up the storage. We had to deploy Solutions Enabler on a Linux machine to be able to fully interact with the storage. They need to upgrade the web interface for the management of the storage that comes out of the box. The management interface for NFS is also a bit old and not very intuitive."
"Some of the management features could be simplified and that's probably the main thing they need to address."
"Although they call it unified storage where you have SAN and NAS, with a NAS implementation on top of a SAN, the NAS implementation is a little complicated and clumsy. As SAN, as block storage, it is very powerful... If they could provide a very good NAS implementation, it would be better, so that customers don't have to look for other simple solutions for NAS."
"PowerMax's software is highly stable, but we faced two hardware issues in one year. We had a failure of the storage director module, and the physical disk failed on another occasion. Dell EMC should improve its hardware quality."
"The installation of equipment needed support's help."
"I'd like to be able to connect to tape drives behind the storage device to back up the tape if need be. We have all of our storage running in all-flash, and we make a copy on tape. Currently, when we want to hook up tape drives, we have to add some extra equipment, which is a little bit complex. We want IBM to add a feature where we could install a tape into the storage so that we can connect it through a single pane of glass. We'd like to have a feature in the IBM flash storage system so that we can connect backup tape drives through the IBM storage system and we can manage the backup tape from the storage system."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is currently at the end of its lifespan and will soon become obsolete in the markets."
"Deduplication and compression should be improved."
"There could be a possibility of not requiring to buy a new box while upgrading to a newer version."
"The pricing should be more competitive."
"I would like to have replication functionality built directly in the product, rather than having to use a separate device for this."
"In the future, the limitation is upgrading the same storage by adding a shelf to the desk. There is a limitation in the backend connection between the storage and extended shelf."
"I would like to see IBM products become more affordable because they can be quite expensive, which limits their accessibility to a broader customer base."
Dell PowerMax NVMe is ranked 8th in All-Flash Storage with 66 reviews while IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is ranked 13th in All-Flash Storage with 19 reviews. Dell PowerMax NVMe is rated 8.8, while IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Dell PowerMax NVMe writes "Simplified storage provisioning for us, enabling us to assign any volumes in two to three minutes". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe writes "Steady performance, responsive support, and high availability". Dell PowerMax NVMe is most compared with Dell PowerStore, IBM FlashSystem, Dell Unity XT, Pure Storage FlashArray and Huawei OceanStor Dorado, whereas IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform, IBM FlashSystem, HPE Primera and Pure Storage FlashArray. See our Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors and best NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays vendors.
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