We performed a comparison between Dell PowerMax NVMe and IBM FlashSystem based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, IBM FlashSystem came out ahead of Dell PowerMax NVMe. Although both products are set up similarly and are described as high-end, Dell PowerMax NVMe has a licensing model that most users dislike and requires improvements in its support response times.
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"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."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"The latency is good."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"The performance is very good. Our predominant workloads are all less than 5 milliseconds and it's most common to have a sub-1-millisecond response time for our applications. In terms of efficiency, we've turned on compression and we're able to get as high as two-to-one compression on our workloads, on average."
"The SRDF replication piece is probably the best feature. It's useful for maintaining recoverability in the event of a disaster."
"It has dramatically cut down the footprint in our data center and reduced the amount of raw disk capacity that we needed to purchase."
"We are able to provide storage at the right service levels without overmanaging it."
"The compression and deduplication are the most valuable features because of the cost savings."
"Dell PowerMax NVMe has good scalability and performance."
"The high availability that other systems don't have. In other systems, there is an owner in the storage processes. But for PowerMAX, there is no owner. All the process storage is passed to all nodes without ownership. So, there is no response feature in the storage in PowerMax. In the other systems, there is a response, which is a very nice feature. No systems have such a feature."
"I have been highly satisfied with the resiliency and scalability of the solution."
"This solution is convenient, user-friendly, convenient and reliable."
"One of the most valuable features is that it's very easy to use and configure. It used to be more difficult, but now it's almost flawless."
"The most valuable features are deduplication and compression."
"High availability and enhanced security; Proven dependability; Data compression with hardware acceleration; Advanced copy services features are all in this product."
"No queuing and high ops, speed, and performance."
"It's a mature product. It's like a BMW that evolves consistently."
"The most valuable features of IBM FlashSystem are performance and security."
"The initial setup was really straightforward. It was not complex. Deployment took one month, due to the data migration duration."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"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."
"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."
"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."
"We need better data deduplication."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"The software layer has to improve."
"The tool is costly compared to other similar products. The product's pricing needs to be improved. I would like the product to include the replication feature in its future releases."
"Dell should work on their marketing strategies to make the product more visible on the market. They should promote the product's compatibility with IBM, as not everyone knows it."
"We would like more documentation, a guide to the features of the PowerMax."
"I would like NVMe to be end-to-end in the next release. Right now, it is not end-to-end."
"We've had a couple of little things come up, but for the most part, they've been pretty stable."
"The tool needs to improve its performance. Today's applications are demanding a response rate of one millisecond or below. The product should also look into AI integration."
"Dell can improve the Service Level Agreement (SLA) compliance. Sometimes, when we need to replace a component, the SLA says four hours, but for some reason, the technician doesn't arrive until the next business day or even six to eight hours later before the case is placed. So, focusing on respecting the SLA is where Dell could improve."
"The technical support is lacking. We are working with Dell EMC to get some better understanding of this."
"Additional licenses might be added for the fundamental licenses, such as those for copying and flash copies."
"AHV is Acropolis Hypervisor – A relatively new Hypervisor, robust and stable as VMware vSphere, has built-in advanced analytics and powerful operations, Self Service Portal and components for DevOps included, managed by a single pane of glass (Prism) via HTML5 and it is free of charge – That is why Nutanix is so advanced and revolutionary."
"The solution should improve its pricing and the mechanism in the reduction pool."
"The solution is not easy to implement. It takes a lot of time to study the product and it's a little complicated in general."
"Our model does not support compression or deduplication."
"The pricing needs to be more competitive."
"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."
"They can include Amazon file system S3 protocol in the upcoming releases. It is a cloud file system. IBM FlashSystem doesn't have this feature in the box for high-end or mid-range. We have got requests for this from customers because we need to use S3 for EDI application storage. At the beginning of every year, IBM releases firmware. When I find any bugs in the firmware during the year, I am unable to find any information from IBM regarding the bug. I need to open a ticket, and the IBM engineering team makes a patch only for me. This patch is not public. By creating a customized patch for a client, they don't really solve the issue for everyone. If multiple users have the same bug, IBM should upload the patch on the official website so that we can download it. IBM FlashSystem has a monitoring tool in the box, but it is not advanced. I need a more advanced tool for more advanced equations and monitoring. All top three storage vendors, that is, EMC, IBM, and Pure Storage, don't have a powerful monitoring tool. To monitor our box to show the statistics for I/Os and latency, I need to pay for extra software. The built-in monitoring storage is not mature enough to handle all requests and generate all reports that I need. They can include the functionality to stretch a cluster natively without using any additional boxes. In addition, there are some features that EMC has integrated with the box. These features are not available in IBM FlashSystem."
Dell PowerMax NVMe is ranked 8th in All-Flash Storage with 66 reviews while IBM FlashSystem is ranked 6th in All-Flash Storage with 106 reviews. Dell PowerMax NVMe is rated 8.8, while IBM FlashSystem is rated 8.2. 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 writes "An easy GUI and simple provisioning but our model does not support compression". Dell PowerMax NVMe is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, Pure Storage FlashArray, Huawei OceanStor Dorado and Dell XtremIO, whereas IBM FlashSystem is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Pure Storage FlashArray, Dell Unity XT, NetApp AFF and HPE Primera. See our Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. IBM FlashSystem report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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