Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Sep 1, 2022

We performed a comparison between Dell EMC PowerStore and IBM FlashSystem based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: Most users of both solutions report the initial deployment to be straightforward. Only a few users encountered configuration difficulties during setup.
  • Features: Users of both products are happy with their stability, scalability, and performance.

    Users of Dell EMC PowerStore like the solution’s flexibility and ease of use. Reviewers would like to see more enterprise features, like replication on other sites and improved storage and reporting.

    IBM FlashSystem users say the solution is very reliable, user friendly, and compact. Reviewers find the design of the solution to be a little outdated and say it would be helpful if the solution had built-in safeguards against security threats and malware.
  • Pricing: Users of both solutions share mixed reviews regarding pricing.
  • Service and Support: Most Dell EMC PowerStore share mixed reviews on the service and support. Users of IBM FlashSystem are satisfied with the technical support.
  • ROI: Users of both solutions report being satisfied with the ROI.

Comparison Results: When compared, both solutions received similar ratings in all categories except for service and support. Users of IBM FlashSystem were more satisfied with the service.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerStore vs. IBM FlashSystem Report (Updated: March 2023).
688,618 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It impacts customer retention because of its overall ease. When you are running a business, where time is a factor, that is the biggest selling point. Things happen really rapidly, when they happen, and being able to say, "Yeah, we can get this up and running in a day, if you want," or even less time in some cases. Sometimes, that can be what makes or breaks our case.""We recently started using the volume encryption feature, which is helpful because there are some federal projects that require data at rest to be encrypted.""I actually did major projects where we used NetApp storage for some government agencies, and we were able to keep the storage where the government or the customer is able to own the storage while using AWS as their computing. That part was helpful to the customer.""Using System Manager for green management or command line interface, we have a single point for managing the cluster. It is much easier to manage. It is very seamless. The product is robust and solid.""The speed is great. That's probably number one in terms of features we appreciate.""The performance is outstanding when it's all Flash. That's the biggest bang for the buck that we get.""Technical support has been okay.""Snapshots, snap clones, backups, flexibility, and agility are valuable features. I like that NetApp AFF is easy to use. We can automate everything for our backups and use cases. It's fast and simple, and provides storage to all of our VMware ESX hosts. It expands easily as well."

More NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) Pros →

"The initial setup was straightforward.""The solution is stable.""For access from virtual machines, iSCSI, and NFS, it is very good. It helps increase performance.""The way you're able to manage all your PowerStores as one solution is very good for us. PowerStore enables you to federate or cluster multiple appliances with automated load balancing. In terms of management, it's helpful that we can do it from a single interface where we're able to manage multiple PowerStores. When you have multiple PowerStores it works intelligently by running the workloads based on the needs of the infrastructure.""When compared to Pure Storage, Dell PowerStore's cost was quite attractive.""Currently, the features of replication and deduplication have been very important to us.""This solution is very useful to us as we use it internally for all of the services that we need. We use it as a lab and we showcase new technology to the customers and how it can help them going forward.""The support is very good."

More Dell PowerStore Pros →

"It's very easy to manage.""The all-flash storage has tier replication capabilities.""The most valuable features in IBM FlashSystem are IOPS, performance, duplication, and compression.""IBM FlashSystem is flexible, quick, and has a solid design.""The most valuable feature of the solution is compression.""The solution is scalable and has varying degrees of scalability.""Data deduplication is one of the most valuable features of this solution.""The most valuable features of IBM FlashSystem are performance and security."

More IBM FlashSystem Pros →

Cons
"There is room for improvement with the user interface. There are a few things that cannot be done in the GUI. We do a lot of things through the CLI, but that's grown out of a lack of ability to do them in the GUI. An example is QTrees. You can manage them within the GUI, but the GUI is missing a few options.""There is room for improvement in terms of support. I have noticed that if I sometimes call their customer care for a particular issue, they will give me another number and ask me to call that other team. It would be better if they could do a warm transfer. That would save customers time from calling all the numbers again and speaking to another team.""From my perspective, everything works well. They've already announced that they have some features in their next release that make the existing investment more usable, by adding software features to your existing legacy hardware investment.""The initial setup has a lot more steps in it than are probably necessary for a base deployment, unlike other vendors where it's more straightforward. It could be a little bit more streamlined.""In the past, NetApp designed it so that you have a 70% threshold. You would never fill up past 70% since you need to have that room available. Whereas with Pure, I can fill it up to 110% of what they listed and it's still going at full speed. NetApp can't do that.""I don't like the newest GUI. It needs more options. Some features have been removed. Oversight is not as good in the new GUI compared to the previous version. Though, it might be something that we just need to get used to.""The size of NetApp could be better. They're always about 40 pounds without the hard drives in them, so it would be great if there's a way to make them smaller yet keep the functionality. That would reduce the physical footprint.""We have been seeing some challenges around the application layer implementation. We are having some teething problems now with the cooperation between the application layer and backups to things, like SnapCenter. This may be a question of product maturity."

More NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) Cons →

"Many customers are looking for a cyber recovery feature included in PowerStore. We would like to see this added in a future release.""The support is not very good.""More demonstration and training options are needed.""The pricing could be lower. It is very expensive.""PowerStore's management console could be improved.""Could be improved by including a synchronizing feature for the file systems.""The upgrades themselves are running fine, but after the upgrade is when we have a problem. With the update to 1.4, we had a head crash. They told us, 'This is a known issue. Please upgrade to 2.' We upgraded to 2 and, one week later they told us, 'Yeah, there are some issues in 2.0.0. You can lose data. Please upgrade to 2.0.1.' Overall, they need to make the system stable.""The cost of technical support is high."

More Dell PowerStore Cons →

"We use some open-source tools for monitoring, such as Grafana and it should be bundled along with IBM FlashSystem.""Cloud file sharing is an area that needs improvement.""Sometimes the performance is effective but it gets resolved in the process.""The GUI for monitoring performance metrics could provide better visibility. For example, it doesn't let me segregate the IOPS per volume.""The interface could improve in IBM FlashSystem.""The data reduction pool feature sucks and is not recommended for use with heavy workloads.""The interface of this solution could be improved.""The storage capacity of this solution could be improved."

More IBM FlashSystem Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "We benefited from implementing all-flash by reducing our data center footprint. We took it from 30 racks to just over five. This is one of the biggest savings for us."
  • "The licensing and pricing are fine. As a reseller for the product, we need to make the differentiation in the minds of the customer. They are not just buying some tool that does only one thing, e.g., showing a LAN for a customer. The pricing is fair for what it is."
  • "In addition to simplifying the management across a mix of solutions, AFF simplifies the cost. That was one of the main reasons we purchased AFF."
  • "NetApp AFF is an expensive product, although not compared to other vendors."
  • "The pricing is pretty reasonable for what we get. But if you have to buy any more disk space, it can be quite expensive."
  • "The list price of AFF is too expensive... they need to be careful with the pricing of the new NVMe disks. They are way too expensive."
  • "I looked at other vendors for other potential projects and thought NetApp's pricing was very competitive."
  • "There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost. The cost is very high compared to other devices."
  • More NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "There's still a cap on the upgrade path, where you can consume all the engines within the frame before you have to go to another frame... Normally, we exceed the IOPS on the frames before we can ever exhaust the storage, so anything they can do to help us avoid stranded storage capacity, capacity that we couldn't get to, would be beneficial."
  • "When we compared it with the other solutions, the pricing of PowerStore was equal. The pricing is good."
  • "The price of Dell EMC PowerStore could be better, it is a bit expensive."
  • "We only have a single machine and we are currently using half of the hard disk slots. We have asked for an upgrade for the rest of the hard disks but, from my point of view, it costs too much. We have 12 to 15 hard disks inside and if we try to upgrade only the hard disks, it costs the same as the complete system. This is something I don't understand."
  • "We are happy with the pricing that we get from Dell."
  • "Licensing is very simple. Everything is included in the basic license. There are no concerns about having to pay to add a feature. Everything is there."
  • "The licensing for this solution is good and is in the mid-range tier."
  • "If we use the 500 or 1000, the licensing and pricing are reasonable. PowerStore can compete with any vendor and the price isn't that expensive."
  • More Dell PowerStore Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "I find the pricing of the solution to be very reasonable."
  • "You purchase it as a bundle and the price is comparable."
  • "The solution requires a license and could be less expensive."
  • "Overall the price of the solution is expensive and this includes the license."
  • "The cost of the IBM FlashSystem is lower than the HPE solution."
  • "The pricing may be a bit higher than other brands. If you compare the IBM FlashSystems in midrange with Dell EMC in midrange, IBM costs a bit more, but I prefer IBM because it has more specs that I can benefit from."
  • "The cost is pretty high in terms of licensing. We pay at least $100,000 USD in licensing fees for the storage."
  • "The price of IBM FlashSystem is reasonable."
  • More IBM FlashSystem Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Well, Is one thing NetApp Storage has vs other brand is the mix of protocol CIFS with NFS booth working together in the… more »
    Top Answer:This question is very dependent on your requirements. Both are among the best in the field. Of course, the intended cost… more »
    Top Answer:The answer depends on your needs and budget. If you want high performance (who doesn't) or let's say the latency matters… more »
    Top Answer:PowerStore is flexible, scalable, simple, and performant with market-leading economics for a wide range of legacy and… more »
    Top Answer:Dell EMC PowerStore is a unified storage platform that has the added benefit of being scalable. The automated management… more »
    Top Answer:Dell PowerStore is an all-solid-state midrange storage system. It has many internal elements taken from other Dell… more »
    Top Answer:As with any engineered solution, it depends on your needs.   However, the bottom line is that for their target markets… more »
    Top Answer:The solution is very easy to configure and use.
    Top Answer:The price is a little bit high so is rated a six out of ten. There is always room for improvement on the solution's… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
    PowerStore
    IBM Storwize
    Learn More
    Overview

    NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) is a storage infrastructure that contains only flash memory drives instead of spinning-disk drives. NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) addresses enterprise storage requirements with best-in-class data management, higher performance, and flexibility. All Flash FAS systems accelerate your operations without sacrificing the effectiveness, dependability, or adaptability of your IT infrastructure, since they are built on ONTAP data management software. As an enterprise-grade all-flash array, the NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) manages and safeguards your critical data, making your datacenter’s transition to flash simple and painless.

    NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) is a robust, scale-out platform designed for virtualized environments and can be deployed as an independent system or a high-performance tier in a NetApp ONTAP configuration.

    NetApp All Flash FAS Features

    NetApp AFF has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Cloning and Snapshot copies combined with native space efficiency can lower storage expenses.
    • Near-zero performance impact for snapshot copy creation, cloning, and replication.
    • Application-consistent Snapshot copies simplify app management.
    • Synchronous replication using NetApp MetroCluster software, a feature that is only available from NetApp in the all-flash array market and provides zero RPO and close to zero RTO for workloads that are mission-critical.
    • Support for at-rest data encryption and an onboard key manager to help secure your data through easier key management.
    • NetApp SnapMirror replication software reduces overall system costs by replicating to any type of FAS/AFF system, whether it is all-flash, hybrid, or HDD, on premises or in the cloud.

    NetApp All Flash FAS Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing NetApp AFF. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Change the economics of your data center with flash - you'll consume 11 times less electricity, require 11 times less rack space, and spend 67 percent less on support compared to a data center using HDDs.
    • Manage data with a single piece of software for SAN and NAS settings, including flash, disk, and the cloud.
    • Within 10 minutes, you can provision storage and serve data.
    • Inline data reduction technology can reduce SSD storage by 5 to 10 times on average.
    • Protect your data using the system's best-in-class integrated data protection suite.
    • Scale out to 24 nodes, 367PB of effective capacity, and 4 million IOPS without causing disruption.
    • Accelerate applications with up to 12 times more IOPS and 20 times faster response thanks to NetApp ONTAP FlashEssentials.

    Reviews from Real Users

    NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its handling of read and write operations and its high-capacity drives. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

    Harish M., Senior Consultant at a tech services company, writes of the solution, “The most valuable feature is its ability to handle high-intensity read and write operations. It works very well in terms of this.” He adds, “We recently started using the volume encryption feature, which is helpful because there are some federal projects that require data at rest to be encrypted.”

    Another PeerSpot reviewer, a director at an IT Infrastructure Services department at a university, notes, “In terms of the footprint, it is far more efficient. It has smaller, higher-capacity drives than our older unit. In terms of space, power, and cooling, it has simplified things.”

    Dell EMC PowerStore is a midrange next-generation data storage solution. It is designed with a data-centric, intelligent, and adaptable infrastructure and helps consolidate storage and virtual server environments. The Dell EMC PowerStore platform includes two major configurations, including PowerStore T and PowerStore X. Dell EMC PowerStore enables you to deploy the appliance and consolidate data and applications and supports both flash and SCM Optane devices.

    Dell EMC PowerStore Offers:

    • Value
    • Flexibility
    • Simplicity

    Dell EMC PowerStore Features

    Some of the most powerful Dell EMC PowerStore features include:

    • Data-centric design: Dell EMC PowerStore is designed to optimize system performance, scalability, and storage efficiency to support any workload.

    • Intelligent automation: Intelligent automation helps simplify management as well as optimize system resources. Through a programmable infrastructure, it also enables you to easily monitor, analyze, and troubleshoot the environment.

    • Adaptable architecture: Because it has an adaptable architecture, Dell EMC PowerStore is able to provide speed and application mobility and offer flexible deployment models.

    • Scalability: Dell EMC PowerStore can be scaled up and scaled out.

    • Data-in-place upgrades: By providing data-in-place upgrades, you gain a modernized infrastructure without any downtime involved and without impacting applications.

    Dell EMC PowerStore Benefits

    Some of the benefits of using Dell EMC PowerStore include:

    • Flexible deployment: Dell EMC PowerStore is made to modernize the core, edge, and cloud without disruption, leading to flexible deployment.

    • Pay-per-use: Dell EMC PowerStore offers a range of flexible purchase options.

    • Any workload: Because Dell EMC PowerStore is designed to leverage next-gen innovations, it can work with any workload.

    • Programmable infrastructure: Dell EMC PowerStore streamlines application development and also automates storage workflows through integration with VMware and a broad ecosystem of leading management and orchestration frameworks, enabling you to provision services directly from the application tool sets that you use most frequently.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Dell EMC PowerStore users who are currently using the solution.

    PeerSpot user Maurizio D., who is a CTO at Universita' degli Studi di Pisa, says it "Gives us flexibility, performance, and ease of use. It also has some very good compression capabilities. We were looking for a solution that was easy to install in our VMware environment, that was flexible. PowerStore X is a type of a VMware cluster that you install inside your environment. If you have a VMware environment, like we have in production, it's easy to install and use."

    Another PeerSpot user, Jorg L., who is an IT Administrator at a construction company, mentions "For access from virtual machines, iSCSI, and NFS, it is very good. It helps increase performance."

    "The administration tools take advantage of machine learning and make recommendations to the admins, and that makes the administration easier," says a Chief Information Officer at a computer software company. He also comments that “Overall, we've benefited from the dedupe, compression, and replication, the advanced technology, of this frame. It's all better than what we had in the previous generation of XtremIO appliances, and above what we were getting in the Dell EMC Unitys.”

    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.

    Offer
    Learn more about NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS)
    Learn more about Dell PowerStore
    Want to Hear More?

    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.

    Sample Customers
    Acibadem Healthcare Group, AmTrust Financial Services, Citrix Systems, DWD, Mantra Group
    Information Not Available
    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
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company15%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Energy/Utilities Company8%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company22%
    Comms Service Provider12%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company24%
    Healthcare Company18%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    University6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company21%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Government8%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm28%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Government9%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company23%
    Comms Service Provider14%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Government7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business12%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise75%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise59%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business35%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business24%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise60%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business37%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise48%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business28%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise56%
    Buyer's Guide
    Dell PowerStore vs. IBM FlashSystem
    March 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerStore vs. IBM FlashSystem and other solutions. Updated: March 2023.
    688,618 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Dell PowerStore is ranked 1st in All-Flash Storage with 30 reviews while IBM FlashSystem is ranked 6th in All-Flash Storage with 39 reviews. Dell PowerStore is rated 8.6, while IBM FlashSystem is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Dell PowerStore writes "Saves us power and floor space, and we can quickly assign new data stores for our developers' VMs". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM FlashSystem writes "Reliable and easy to configure with simple data migration capabilities ". Dell PowerStore is most compared with Dell Unity XT, Pure Storage FlashArray, Dell PowerMax NVMe, HPE Nimble Storage and HPE Primera, whereas IBM FlashSystem is most compared with Pure Storage FlashArray, HPE Primera, HPE Nimble Storage, Dell Unity XT and HPE StorageWorks MSA. See our Dell PowerStore vs. IBM FlashSystem report.

    See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.

    We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.