We performed a comparison between IBM FlashSystems and Pure Storage FlashArray based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: PeerSpot users find Pure Storage FlashArray easy to use and say it offers very low latency and excellent efficiency of their deduplication technology. The features in data protection, snapshotting, and replication between data centers and sites are better than many other solutions in today’s robust marketplace.
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"The latency is good."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"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."
"We've found the solution to be very stable so far."
"IBM FlashSystem has an easy to use GUI, similar to the IBM Storewize family, which make it one of the best flash storage systems in the market."
"We are a 100% satisfied with the stability of the solution."
"The speed and the ease of installation are the most valuable features."
"Virtualization of external storage, while adding cache and speed to the external storage."
"The performance of IBM FlashSystem is very good. The new technology and high throughput have given us more confidence in the solution. The management of the system has improved and we can control the monitoring system alerts and multiple FlashSystems with the Enterprise Cloud Edition, which is free. The migration of recently stored data to a new flash is much easier. You can move your data because you can utilize it externally."
"The installation is nice and easy."
"Over the years, it has become increasingly user-friendly."
"The stability is perfect. The reliability is 100% and the latency is always lower than 1 millisecond."
"The data reduction technology part of the scalability has been impressive, like its ability to host additional workloads, volumes of data, and databases."
"The performance of the storage is just unbelievable."
"The most valuable feature is replication."
"The most valuable feature is that maintenance is free."
"It reduces space and the polar consumption. It also accelerates the application."
"Having an intuitive user interface to get things running is great."
"One of the lesser sung advantages was when we started running our interface engine on Pure Storage. The ability to process messages and pass them through in our organization skyrocketed purely because of a disk that I owned which we were getting out of Pure Storage."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"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."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"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 would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"We had issues when attempting to do a flash, we hope to resolve it soon."
"The solution is not able to replicate data in one-to-many scenario."
"IBM FlashSystems is lagging in optimizing storage technologies."
"I would like to have a larger disk. Right now, you can get 57 terabytes in a shelf. Once they get the larger disk and you get larger capacities, it'll be even better."
"The solution is quite expensive. That's one of the downsides to using it."
"I know they have a flashcopy manager, but it is extra software, an additional license, and some customers don't like to add addition costs to their infrastructure. If IBM could create, or include snapshot management within the GUI, that would really be helpful."
"The price is very costly."
"It could be easier to implement."
"We do have an issue with the vCenter integration. Pure Storage says it has a lot of free space, but vCenter says its completely full. This is because their dedupes are saved as space, but Vcenter still detects the disk as completely full. So, we do have an issue with that."
"The problem is that we can only make a few groups, around five or six groups. I like groups and we need a lot of them. We had to put all the information in only a few groups and cannot make a more detailed separation of them."
"I can't see where they can make anything better, unless, of course, they lower their prices even more."
"The technical support is okay, but could be improved."
"Going forward, don't complicate things for the customers."
"Having something native in the Pure Storage ecosystem would make it integrated and in one single company, and we wouldn't have to work with multiple organizations."
"In the next version of this program, I would like to see increased security, higher encryption, and faster throughput."
"The connectivity needs improvement. You do not have the possibility to have a file and block connectivity at the same time on the same machine. It has limited ability to do so."
IBM FlashSystem is ranked 6th in All-Flash Storage with 106 reviews while Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 174 reviews. IBM FlashSystem is rated 8.2, while Pure Storage FlashArray is rated 9.2. 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 Pure Storage FlashArray writes "Effective provisioning, helpful support, and reliable". IBM FlashSystem is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, NetApp AFF, Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform and Huawei OceanStor Dorado, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, VMware vSAN and Dell Unity XT. See our IBM FlashSystem vs. Pure Storage FlashArray report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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