We performed a comparison between IBM FlashSystem and Pure Storage FlashBlade 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."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"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 benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."
"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"They have a virtualization feature and, even if you do not want to buy that feature, you can have it as a trial for two to three months. If you have another brand of storage from another company, you can use this tool to transfer all your data from the old system to the new Storwize system, which really shortens the migration time."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The technical support for this solution is good. They used to help us when the motherboard of Power Systems broke. Their response times are really fast."
"The valuable features for us are the extra add-ons, such as the FIM provisioning, the compression, the disaster recovery capabilities, and the storage pooling functions."
"The maintenance service and support from IBM is very good."
"At the FlashSystem level, customers are especially fond of multi-tier and distributed rate systems, particularly the dynamic rate six arrays."
"Stability-wise, this solution is fine."
"This solution is very stable."
"The solution provides many controllers."
"We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."
"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is performance."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power outages when we need to quickly move data between different data centers. It ensures efficient replication and helps maintain our data centers' uptime."
"It uses the same platform for connectivity so integration is seamless."
"The most valuable features include the ease of implementation, ease of use and the speed that you can do backup and recovery on."
"It has absolutely simplified our storage because the dashboards on the consoles show a clear understanding of where you are, and it is also very easy to provision. This been a big help for our teams."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"The software layer has to improve."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."
"The generic functionality of IBM FlashSystem, IBM always dismisses using file share or sharing protocols inside their storage hardware, and they only focus on the block-level storage."
"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 solution should improve its pricing and the mechanism in the reduction pool."
"They can improve its initial configuration. The initial configuration is currently very difficult. There are multiple choices or alternative ways to configure based on the use case and what you are targeting out of the device, that is, more capacity or more performance. These multiple alternatives cause a lot of confusion. They should increase the processing part of the nodes. Currently, you can cluster up to eight nodes. From my experience and the workload that I am facing in my environment currently, I would like to see either a bigger or stronger node or a larger number of nodes that can be clustered together. We formally communicated to them that we need to see either this or that, and they are working on something."
"The solution is not able to replicate data in one-to-many scenario."
"The solution has a low number of NVME host attachments at 16 per IO group over the fiber channel."
"IBM FlashSystems is lagging in optimizing storage technologies."
"Our model does not support compression or deduplication."
"In the realm of micro-services, I think that Pure Storage can do well if they start getting in there and making their arrays more micro-services ready."
"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."
"It would be nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."
"The feature that we're waiting on is better integration with the cell services."
"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."
"I would like to see better integration."
"I want efficiency. FlashBlade doesn't have efficiency now."
"I have not seen ROI."
IBM FlashSystem is ranked 6th in All-Flash Storage with 106 reviews while Pure Storage FlashBlade is ranked 16th in All-Flash Storage with 31 reviews. IBM FlashSystem is rated 8.2, while Pure Storage FlashBlade is rated 8.8. 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 FlashBlade writes "A high-performing and scalable solution that improves data performance for S3 workloads". IBM FlashSystem is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Pure Storage FlashArray, Dell Unity XT, NetApp AFF and Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform, whereas Pure Storage FlashBlade is most compared with Dell PowerScale (Isilon), VAST Data, MinIO and Pure Storage FlashArray. See our IBM FlashSystem vs. Pure Storage FlashBlade report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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