We performed a comparison between IBM FlashSystem and NetApp AFF 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."We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."
"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."
"The power systems are very reliable if you are running 24/7 operations. For ongoing mission-critical applications, it's the best solution."
"The most crucial feature of IBM FlashSystem is compression."
"IBM FlashSystem is a flexible solution with plenty of features."
"Speed (IOPS/second) – It is most vital for applications that need low latency and high speed for transferring the data."
"The GUI is very easy and performance is also good."
"The most valuable features in IBM FlashSystem are IOPS, performance, duplication, and compression."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is SCM (Storage Class Memory), which has the lowest latency value in the storage industry."
"The most valuable features are, of course, the virtualization of the storage, the performance, and the compression."
"The cloning and snapshot features are the most valuable. With snapshot backup, we can clone a big database in minutes. We take a lot of snapshots for clients in different environments."
"This solution makes everything a lot faster. The time to move data around, boot and migrate VMs is much faster."
"The file-based protocol supports NFS and CIFS."
"Data efficiency is the most valuable feature because of the dedupe and compression."
"Performance. Mostly with our default settings it's good. All of the factory settings are fine. We don't have to tune it."
"The most valuable features are the low latency and high-performance."
"It should scale far beyond our needs. I don't think we will ever hit the edge of it."
"Using System Manager for green management or command line interface, we have a single point for managing the cluster. It is much easier to manage. It is very seamless. The product is robust and solid."
"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"We have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."
"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."
"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."
"I think the only thing the developers can look at, is that it is limited to 25 gigabytes currently. In the next release they might want to increase that."
"IBM could do more marketing and improve brand awareness. I had never heard of this product until a colleague told me about it. FlashSystem could add a few features, but it would probably increase the price. For example, Pure Storage offers instant snapshotting and partitioning. That would be nice to have, but I think the cost would go up."
"The interface of this solution could be improved."
"The pricing could be improved, but I think it's getting better and better with each version. IBM needs to implement NAS storage again, as this is a big flaw. Dell EMC is very good at this and if you compared them based on NAS storage, Dell EMC would win right away. IBM's solution for NAS storage is very complicated. We don't have a storage box that provides file sharing from itself, we have to put software on it and go through a whole complicated process. It should be simplified."
"The solution is quite expensive. That's one of the downsides to using it."
"Enterprise data storage needs improvement. They should create a feature for data and file storage."
"The solution has a low number of NVME host attachments at 16 per IO group over the fiber channel."
"Include an option to upload the support package to the IBM ECuRep when opening an IBM PMR."
"The certification classes are good, but they don't cover enough of the material, and the exams only test on what is covered in class."
"FC and ATTO bridges are still needed for cross datacenter replication."
"ZAPI is kind of difficult to use. You know, it's SOAP-like, it's not really SOAP. I would like to see it more of a REST-based JSON, instead of XML."
"The user interface should be more user-friendly, and the configuration could be more accessible."
"NetApp AFF could improve SAN storage because it feels as if it was not put together at the beginning, it functions as an afterthought. Additionally, the cloud features could be more mature."
"Offering the ability to actively write data on a single volume spanning multiple clusters is significant."
"I just got through the session where it looks like they are going to support Oracle running on Linux with SnapCenter. That is one of the main things that we are hoping to get integrated."
"NetApp could focus even more on the configuration."
IBM FlashSystem is ranked 6th in All-Flash Storage with 106 reviews while NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 280 reviews. IBM FlashSystem is rated 8.2, while NetApp AFF is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of IBM FlashSystem writes "An easy GUI and simple provisioning but our model does not support compression". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp AFF writes "Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency". IBM FlashSystem is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Pure Storage FlashArray, Dell Unity XT, Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform and Huawei OceanStor Dorado, whereas NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Pure Storage FlashArray and Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series. See our IBM FlashSystem vs. NetApp AFF report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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