No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

DDN IntelliFlash vs IBM FlashSystem comparison

Why PeerSpot?
Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
234
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
DDN IntelliFlash
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
30th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (15th)
IBM FlashSystem
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
NAS (8th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 6.4%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DDN IntelliFlash is 1.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem is 4.1%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray6.4%
IBM FlashSystem4.1%
DDN IntelliFlash1.9%
Other87.6%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Cristian Ion - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Information Technology Engineer at Eta2u
All-flash storage has unified my clients’ workloads and has reduced TCO through efficient data services
The pricing and licensing of Everpure FlashArray is a problem because Everpure is considered more expensive than competitors. IBM, Lenovo, and Dell are more aggressive on prices. It is a very complicated market, especially now, and I understand the prices are higher at Everpure because of the software and all the enhancements it has. However, in this competitive market, we have a big problem selling to customers that are on a tight budget. A product with better pricing would be a win in the end. The RC or C20, for example, was a very good product that I could sell more easily than other options. Everpure FlashArray//C is sufficient for most workloads and virtualization workloads if you do not have very large databases. A product like that helps, and perhaps a new product in the future that is a little cheaper than the current options would be a possibility to gain more market share. I see the return on investment clearly from using Everpure FlashArray, but the challenge is selling it to customers for the first time. There are many customers who fall in the sweet spot where they are too small for an X or even a C model. They need something a little cheaper, they have the money for a cheaper version, and they need the performance of a Pure system. These customers could be more easily approached if Everpure offers a version of a local device in the future that is even cheaper than the C-class. I am trying now to help customers understand the concept behind AG1. I know that AG1 is not profitable if capacity is less than 50 terabytes. However, some customers would be very willing to pay for 25 terabytes in a cloud operated by Pure and to have it accessible with very good speed. We will see what the future brings.
Anil Rahulwar - PeerSpot reviewer
L3 Storage Engineer at Capgemini
Good customer service and support and suitable for large environments
It is very easy to install. Users don't need to remember anything while deploying IntelliFlash because everything will be taken care of by tech support. They can easily modify the installation or change the password with the help of the tech support. It is very easy to integrate IntelliFlash with other solutions. We have plugins that can be integrated with other solutions. It will require maintenance. It is the same as any other storage solution: updates and upgrades, firmware upgrades, and drive upgrades.
OmarIsmail1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Technical Specialist II at Clicks Group
Offers high performance and dependable support for fast storage needs
The most valuable feature of IBM FlashSystem is its robust back code. When integrated properly into the environment and configured according to the guidelines, it provides a very solid infrastructure that does the job on demand. Additionally, IBM FlashSystem offers competitive pricing and reliable performance. The hardware is dependable, ensuring that it functions effectively when the setup is done correctly.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The speed is one of the most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray."
"I would highly recommend this solution; it has all the features we need and tests all the software solutions that are currently available and that will be available in the future."
"One of the features that my customers are really interested in is immutable snapshots. There are immutable snapshots to which your applications can be reverted back if you are hit by some kind of ransomware threat or malicious attack. That's kind of a key deal, and it is one of the selling points I use to point out to my customers the value and the features that Pure Storage brings to the table."
"If you need a high-performance storage appliance that is easy to install and maintain, you pretty much can't go wrong."
"The most important feature of any storage array is its reliability, measured by its uptime."
"Pure Storage FlashArray provides immediate benefits to our customers with its easy setup process, allowing for instant use and rapid realization of advantages."
"The zero latency and high IOPS utilization we observe with it are significantly better than other storage solutions."
"Performance, dedupe, and that it works well with database workloads are its most valuable features."
"After five years, the cost decreases over 30% and the performance increases over 50%."
"EasyTier/hotcaching: Valuable because it allows greater performance than standard SAS disks Cheaper than pure solid state without needing to actively manage where the data is located."
"It has cut batch job runtime in half, so we're seeing performance improvement throughout the organization."
"Data Compression: Up to 80% space reduction in the database"
"It's very fast. We were seeing read latencies of less than one millisecond. It is robust."
"We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"With so much technological advancement and more coming, the world is their oyster."
"We previously used Dell EMC and switched to this solution because the support, product and performance are of a higher standard."
"This is highly reliable storage."
"The speed, performance, and stability are the best features of IBM FlashSystem."
"The solution is currently hosting our core banking system and we haven't faced any stability issues, so it is very stable."
"IBM products at the enterprise level are stable solutions, with a score of nine out of ten for stability."
"The IBM System is top-notch and offers all the features we need to keep going for another 5 years."
"The stability is awesome, based off a mature product line that has been around since 1999, combining two well-known and well-proven technologies into a very solid solution."
"The performance is very good and we use this product to enhance our core system."
 

Cons

"The main disadvantage of Pure Storage FlashArray is the price."
"It needs to improve its price."
"Automation could be simplified."
"During heavy load situations with 100K IOPS on one specific port, it requires more granularity level for distribution."
"I would like the ability to swap out the network adapters into it. So, without taking out the whole controller, I would like to be able to swap adapters. This would make things easier."
"The solution is not cheap."
"I would like to migrate to the cloud in the future and know how that would actually work with this product."
"I have been primarily working with storage and have not fully explored other areas, but there is some room for improvement when it comes to performance reporting."
"Technical support is bad. It'd grade them at 30% or 40%. The response time is terrible."
"In future releases, I look forward to more AI features."
"Snapshots are not as easy to access as on a NetApp device."
"It's annoying that if you turn on SMB3 (as opposed to the earlier CIFS protocol), then it is not possible to access a file store using a mixture of SMB and NFS."
"The solution as it is right now is not very stable. The stability seems to have eroded."
"Performance is horrible now. Our original intent was to buy new storage in about two years. But since it became a critical urgency for us, we decided to purchase a new one in two or three months."
"The monitoring matrix and its dashboard need work."
"In the proxy section you can’t choose a user account and password, so it is not allowed at the moment to go out, if customer has such constellation."
"At our current code level, when I extend any volume that is using Metro Mirror, I have to remove the Metro Mirror relationship."
"We've had some issues with stability, such as a couple of hardware failures and a couple of code bugs."
"We sometimes had a problem with some bugs in FlashSystems. One time, one FlashSystem was burnt up. There was some smoke and the data was damaged."
"A big area for improvement is that the data reduction pool feature is not recommended for use in a production environment because it has stability and performance issues."
"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."
"This is an expensive solution compared to other similar solutions."
"The solution is not easy to use and could improve."
"GUI interface should be enhanced more as there is some issues in copy services GUI interfaces should be enhanced as this will not let the customer doing wrong configurations"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Pure Storage FlashArray could always improve. They are still more expensive than some alternative offerings. Cost is always a concern and when there is a battle they tend to be more expensive."
"The cost was initially high, but once more people were using it, the costs came down. This was because the University was reselling it to other departments."
"The price is too high."
"When I last looked, the prices were reasonable, and we could get an excellent array for about $60,000."
"While it comes with a higher price tag, this investment often translates to significant improvements in performance."
"I think that the pricing is less expensive compared to other standard products in the market today. Even the support contract and maintenance services cost less when compared to market-leading products like EMC."
"All storage is expensive so any price improvement would help."
"The cost has room for improvement."
"I recommend the full bundle software in order to have all the functionality. It is more expensive to purchase it one by one."
"I think we pay around 100 grand per year for three arrays or four arrays."
"It pays to go back and get the best price you can from your supplier. The first offer is not always at the best discount."
"The pricing is competitive in our country."
"Among IBM, Dell EMC, and Pure Storage, IBM is the cheapest. The price is also based on our location, the size of our entity, and our regular annual purchases from them. We are a very big IBM customer, so we normally get very high discounts. We are not a big customer of Pure Storage. We don't buy that much from Pure Storage per year. Everything is included in the price. There is no extra license for different functions."
"My customers got the IBM FlashSystem bundle offer. It was a one-time purchase for three years of service. The price would depend on the storage size and could reach between $25,000 to $55,000."
"The pricing has been very competitive for the last few years. IBM got to the point where they changed the pricing model and we feel very comfortable with the pricing. It's very competitive. Over the last two years, IBM has been coming up with all kinds of interesting promos, especially for the SMB systems. That makes it very competitive price-wise and in terms of performance..."
"You purchase it as a bundle and the price is comparable."
"The solution requires a license and could be less expensive."
"If five is a good price and one is a high price, I would rate the price a two or three out of five."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.
921,749 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business75
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise162
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business48
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise60
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
When comparing cost, I find that the cost is either the same or slightly higher, but that is returned by the ease of ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
The only thing I think could be improved is price. The price is the main concern for our customers.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem?
The pricing is high; storage solutions are always expensive. I do not know if the price needs to be reviewed, but it ...
What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem?
As far as I know, IBM FlashSystem has already improved, but I do not see room for improvement. It is simple to use an...
What is your primary use case for IBM FlashSystem?
We are not working with Object Storage or Storage Protect; we are working with SAN storage and LUN storage. I am a co...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
Tegile, IntelliFlash N-Series, IntelliFlash T-Series, IntelliFlash HD-Series
IBM Storwize
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Bank of Stockton, Barnsley College, Boyes Turner, Brigham Young University
Celero, Friedhelm Loh Group, Clarks, Mingkang Natregro Health Food Group, Sofia, Etisalat Fights Fraud, UF Health Shands Hospital, Generali, Elecon Engineering Company Limited, Ventiv , Technology, CPFL Energia, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., SciQuest, Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated, Paddy Power, Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, Interconnect Services, Severstal IP-Only AB, PVU Group GmbH
Find out what your peers are saying about DDN IntelliFlash vs. IBM FlashSystem and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
921,749 professionals have used our research since 2012.