Dell EqualLogic PS series vs IBM FlashSystem comparison

"The technical support for EqualLogic has been universally outstanding."

"The technical support is very good."

"The solution has been working well overall."

"​It has contributed to the implementation of virtualization and all its benefits.​"

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

"Dell's technical support is very good."

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

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

"The most valuable features of IBM FlashSystem are performance and security."

"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 most crucial feature of IBM FlashSystem is compression."

"FlashSystem offers proven technology in a compact package."

"The Flash core models offer amazing performance."

"Speed (IOPS/second) – It is most vital for applications that need low latency and high speed for transferring the data."

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

"The speed and the ease of installation are the most valuable features."

"There is no inline deduplication capability."

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

"The searchable online documentation is missing.​"

"Synchronous replication uses space inefficiently."

"The solution is out of date and the new version has a lot of advanced features."

"The performance isn't as good as, for example, Nimble."

"The replication efficiency needs to be improved."

"Individual file recovery would be a nice additional feature."

"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 product needs to improve their scalability."

"It is slightly more expensive, however, it all depends on your supplier."

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

"Our customers have raised concerns about the limitations of the FlashSystem 5200 and 7300, which only offer a 32-gigabyte connection."

"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."

"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."

"IBM should improve its data reduction development."

"​It is a fair price."

"Initial packages include all upgrades and services."

"All features are out of the box. The license will be in the virtual, OS, or application layer."

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

"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."

"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."

"I didn't buy it. It was another person seven years ago. So, I don't really know, but all storage platforms cost a lot of money. It is probably in the mid-range, but you get what you pay for."

"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 cost of the IBM FlashSystem is lower than the HPE solution."

"I find the pricing of the solution to be very reasonable."

"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."

"There are no licensing fees, it is a one-time purchase of the IBM FlashSystem."

"The integration is already included in the license cost of IBM FlashSystem. The integration is very easy. You get the IBM storage core with all software, firmware, and upgrades. EMC provides the features in the box, but they are not free for customers. There is a licensing cost for features. We have yearly licensing, but IBM has also provided a new option where you pay as you go. They provide a big box, and I pay, for example, for 10 terabytes. If I exceed 10 terabytes, IBM will charge for the new storage after 10 terabytes. It is a good opportunity in the market for using the storage as a cloud and paying as you go."

"Our customers would like IMB FlashSystem to be less expensive."

"The pricing is reasonable."