Dell EqualLogic PS series vs IBM FlashSystem comparison

Dell Technologies and IBM are both solutions in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category. Dell Technologies is ranked #7 with an average rating of 7.5, while IBM is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.2. Dell Technologies holds a 2.6% mindshare in MS, compared to IBM’s 15.6% mindshare. Additionally, 78% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Dell EqualLogic PS series

Read 19 Dell EqualLogic PS series reviews

362 Views
362 Comparison Views

78% willing to recommend

IBM FlashSystem

Read 112 IBM FlashSystem reviews

7,923 Views
1,268 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Dell EqualLogic PS series

IBM FlashSystem

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

Dell EqualLogic PS series and IBM FlashSystem are competing products in data storage solutions. IBM FlashSystem has the upper hand in terms of advanced features and performance, while Dell EqualLogic PS series appeals with pricing and support.

Features: Dell EqualLogic PS series offers seamless scalability, automated load balancing, and excellent reliability. IBM FlashSystem provides low latency, advanced data reduction capabilities, and superior virtualization features.

Room for Improvement: Dell EqualLogic PS series could improve with more advanced data reduction and virtualization features, higher processing speed, and enhanced interface complexity handling. IBM FlashSystem may face challenges with better integration support, simpler deployment steps, and more budget-friendly options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell EqualLogic PS series is known for its easy deployment process and reliable customer support, attracting organizations that prioritize user-friendly solutions. IBM FlashSystem requires a steeper learning curve but offers comprehensive resources and support for complex environments.

Pricing and ROI: Dell EqualLogic PS series is cost-effective and delivers a satisfactory ROI, making it an appealing choice for budget-conscious users. IBM FlashSystem, although more expensive initially, offers significant ROI through its advanced features and improved performance, making it valuable for long-term investments.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell EqualLogic PS series vs. IBM FlashSystem Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell EqualLogic PS series vs. IBM FlashSystem

September 2025

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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

Dell EqualLogic PS series

Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

7th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM FlashSystem

Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

112

Ranking in other categories

NAS (5th), All-Flash Storage (13th)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of Dell EqualLogic PS series is 2.6%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem is 15.6%, down from 17.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM FlashSystem	15.6%
Dell EqualLogic PS series	2.6%
Other	81.8%

Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)

Featured Reviews

HansThilen

System technician at Lidingö stad

A highly scalable and astoundingly stable solution offering its users an extremely good technical support

Regarding an area to improve, I would say that from Dell EqualLogic family, I can't buy Dell EqualLogic PS series. I can't buy any more solutions provided by EqualLogic, so the solution will have to make certain improvements in the future. Since we can't buy anything from EqualLogic in our company, we plan to move to another solution. Since I can't buy it anymore, I don't receive any updates on the solution. Also, this is the last year in which one can buy support for the solution.

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OmarIsmail1

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is stable and scalable."

"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"The most valuable feature of Dell EqualLogic PS series auto tiering by using this feature, the customer can get higher performance on a valuable budget."

"Dell's technical support is very good."

"The solution has been working well overall."

"Its high availability. It has a lot of redundancy and good management software as well as good alerting."

"The technical support for the solution was really good."

"You can always trust it. It is stable."

More Dell EqualLogic PS series pros

"IBM FlashSystem 5300 is offered at a very low cost in Israel, which is advantageous for small companies."

"Virtualization of external storage, while adding cache and speed to the external storage."

"The power systems are very reliable if you are running 24/7 operations. For ongoing mission-critical applications, it's the best solution."

"The valuable features of IBM FlashSystem include flash copy mapping, which is a procedure to collect instant point-in-time data for testing real data."

"The all-flash storage has tier replication capabilities."

"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 initial customer technical support was efficient and effective."

"I like most of the features. Its speed, performance, and availability are valuable. We are implementing the data reduction technology the most."

More IBM FlashSystem pros

Cons

"We need more space and we can't get any."

"Dell EqualLogic PS series could improve the performance because in our hybrid configuration the read speed is faster than the write speed."

"If I need to have more space or more capacity, I need to replace the product. It would be ideal if we could scale without replacing the box itself."

"Synchronous replication uses space inefficiently."

"6510 and 6610 have two iSCSI connections in each controller. Why do 6110xxx members have only one, and why do the same members have the possibility of having an active iSCSI interface in the passive controller? It could make a lot of noise with a failover."

"Dell EqualLogic PS series could improve by providing fiber channel connectivity. Fiber channel connectivity is not supported, which is a requirement of advanced applications, such as SAP HANA. SAP HANA recommends fiber channel connectivity, but the Dell EqualLogic PS series is only an ISCSI data storage."

"Why is it not possible for both controllers to be simultaneously active (load balancing)?"

"There is no inline deduplication capability."

More Dell EqualLogic PS series cons

"With regards to the IBM V7000 storage system, where we have multiple tiers of storage, a heat map would show I/O distribution across the tiers of storage."

"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."

"Their technical support needs improvement in terms of reachability for the clients and response times. They should be more responsive and have more online platforms for support. They should make more technical information available online. There could be some kind of documentation community."

"The Data Reduction Pools (DRP) support could be better."

"I would like to see bigger modules."

"We had issues when attempting to do a flash, we hope to resolve it soon."

"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 ease of installation should be improved. We had issues with the configuration model."

More IBM FlashSystem cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise, the solution is cheap. I rate it a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is very cheap, and ten is very expensive."

"Licensing is pretty straightforward."

"Initial packages include all upgrades and services."

"Dell EqualLogic PS series can improve its scale-out feature. Sometimes the customer has a limited budget for storage expansion. When they want to expand their capacity, they need to buy a complete controller plus storage capacity, which sometimes is out of their budget. If Dell EqualLogic PS series support could scale up the environment in which only hard drive extension controllers should be supported, then customers can expand within a lower budget."

"It is a fair price."

"There are annual maintenance costs beyond the original licensing period."

"It seemed expensive at first, but the durability lowered the cost of ownership dramatically over time."

"I don't think I would say that the product is less expensive...The product's price is not an issue for our company, considering the relationship we have with Dell and the customer support we receive."

More Dell EqualLogic PS series pricing and cost advice

"The solution has good pricing, but it is not cheaper."

"The cost is pretty high in terms of licensing. We pay at least $100,000 USD in licensing fees for the storage."

"The price depends of the technology that our customers need. The price can come at a lower cost but this may increase as storage is added."

"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."

"Overall the price of the solution is expensive and this includes the license."

"They've been much more aggressive in the last five, six years than they were before that."

"This solution is expensive compared to other solutions."

"I would rate the pricing of this solution a four out of five."

More IBM FlashSystem pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	47
Midsize Enterprise	22
Large Enterprise	57

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell EqualLogic PS series?

The technical support for the solution was really good.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell EqualLogic PS series?

An improvement that could be made is to have a storage solution with all SSD hard disks, as we currently have a Dell EqualLogic PS series with traditional hard disks. It's not simple to replace a h...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Dell EqualLogic PS series?

Dell EqualLogic PS series is the storage of our server, which serves our use case. The deployment of Dell EqualLogic PS series takes about five days.

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM FlashSystem?

It is simple to make an update.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem?

The pricing is reasonable for IBM FlashSystem.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem?

Some improvements are required in IBM regarding response time and resolution time, though not about competence. Product-wise, it performs well. We have not used AI features yet, and I believe havin...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 32% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs Dell EqualLogic PS series

Compared 30% of the time

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Compared 22% of the time

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Pure Storage FlashArray vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 8% of the time

NetApp AFF vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell EqualLogic PS series

September 2025

Download Dell EqualLogic PS series product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem

September 2025

Download IBM FlashSystem product report

Also Known As

EqualLogic PS series

IBM Storwize

Overview

EqualLogic PS Series arrays bring a new level of performance to service more of your most demanding applications and virtualization requirements, while delivering the simplicity of the EqualLogic management experience. Featuring six array configurations, including 2U/2.5" drive options with All Flash and Hybrid Arrays, it is ideal for companies and organizations with growing data and performance needs.

Dell Technologies

IBM FlashSystem products are enterprise computer data storage systems that store data on flash memory chips. Unlike storage systems that use standard solid-state drives, IBM FlashSystem products incorporate custom hardware based on technology from the 2012 acquisition of Texas Memory Systems. This hardware provides performance, reliability, and efficiency benefits versus competitive offerings.

IBM

Sample Customers

FAW Foundry, AW Engineering, Unimat, eLongNet Information Technology, BDO Brasil, Odyssey Space Research

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

Buyer's Guide

Dell EqualLogic PS series vs. IBM FlashSystem

September 2025

Free Report: Dell EqualLogic PS series vs. IBM FlashSystem

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