We performed a comparison between Dell PowerStore and IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."I use all the features of this solution and I find them to be easy to use and functional, such as the compression and capacity to expand."
"The availability and ease of use are the big features."
"Processes that used to take 40 minutes to two hours can be completed in five minutes."
"The product cheaper compared to other solutions concerning the technology that they are using."
"The technical support is very good."
"This is the best all-flash storage array on the market."
"The management features are well organized and they have a very good dashboard."
"The most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray are management and administration user-friendliness, provisioning, and performance."
"The compression is excellent."
"Migrations are very easy and fast."
"PowerStore is easy to use. All the drives use soft encryption. To upgrade it, you download the app, and it runs by itself. It's very easy to deploy, share, and create volumes."
"It has its own file formatting protocol, which saves a lot of space."
"For access from virtual machines, iSCSI, and NFS, it is very good. It helps increase performance."
"The solution's technical support is excellent. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"Pricing is very good. It's very competitive against those of all the others that I looked at in the marketplace, such as Hitachi, IBM, HP, and Pure. Dell is right there in the mix as far as providing the best price point as well as meeting the performance requirements that we have."
"There are many valuable features of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMele I have found to meet my needs. Specifically, the maintenance cycle is a standout feature of this solution. The main component of the IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is the maintenance of the batteries, which have a predetermined and reliable four-year life cycle. This is in stark contrast to other solutions that may use spinning disks, which can fail unexpectedly, causing unwanted downtime and maintenance. Having a predictable maintenance cycle is a significant advantage and has made this solution a preferred choice for me."
"The most valuable features of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe are its steady performance and usefulness in high-traffic environments."
"It is a very stable product. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten because we did not face any issues in the last three years."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is one of the leading storage systems in the world...I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is the snapshot. We use it daily for all of the storage units."
"Good performance with a user-friendly UI."
"A key feature is that compared to storage systems that we've been familiar with over decades, IBM simply does not fail. The reason is that IBM is the only manufacturer that engineers its own flash module, and there is a key architectural difference from everything else that we have seen in the market. The difference is that the flash module has the computational capability, which allows reliability and capacity enhancements to be uploaded from the main controllers and run in each module. So, each of the flash drives becomes its own little storage system, and that is extremely effective architecture. In this field, with this type of system, IBM has made a statement. They've never had one of these modules cause an outage. So, the failure rates on these things are just in a whole different universe from what we were accustomed to."
"Its ease of use, performance, and hardware compression is very useful feature."
"We need to add more storage in Pure Storage FlashArray with the cluster mode activated for us to have better performance."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve the recent file storage capabilities because it is lacking a lot of features."
"It would be good to have metrics of the box's performance so we can see what it delivers, but currently, I can't see what it's actually doing."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve by being more secure."
"Larger capacity and more storage ports would be the two things I'd like to see."
"Automation could be simplified."
"I would like a feature to integrate with external or cloud solutions. For example, if I want to use this storage for a backup from the cloud, I want to have integration with the cloud vendors, such as Microsoft, Oracles, or Amazon. It could be available as an API to allow seamless integration. Additionally, the solution could improve by having native integration with a cloud provider, such as VMware or Microsoft, this would reduce the need to use third-party solutions to complete the task."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve some aspects. There are certain features that are good and there are some features that I see some issues with at the technical level. Those issues are related to replication. They need to resolve those issues, which I have already highlighted to the Pure team. Additionally, there are some issues in the active cluster that could improve."
"Reporting is an area that could be improved. It's very simplistic sometimes, and some of the very technical guys on my team want to see more of the details and be able to massage the report a little bit better."
"Could be improved by including a synchronizing feature for the file systems."
"The only area I can highlight for improvement is that the 4:1 data reduction target has not been reached. This may be due to an issue with Dell EMC's initial analysis of data compression. As a result, we have had to add new physical disks to reach our goal of total available disk space."
"More demonstration and training options are needed."
"The pricing could be lower. It is very expensive."
"The only thing is that with PowerStore, we don't have a solution for the file object."
"It needs more mature code."
"Dell PowerStore is a good solution overall, but some models could support hypervisors better by allowing for more customization and flexibility for customer needs."
"The ZIO interface could be improved."
"Deduplication and compression should be improved."
"There is a tool provided by IBM for repairing batteries which can only be utilized by those who have an IBM technical advisor under service contract. However, for individuals who do not have such a contract, the tool can be difficult to use and requires a zip file copy. I believe that it would be greatly beneficial if the tool were made more user-friendly and accessible for all individuals who need to repair batteries."
"IBM is currently not offering volume-based encryption or compression, while other brands or IBM's competitors are doing it."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is currently at the end of its lifespan and will soon become obsolete in the markets."
"The efficacy of the GUI in IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe could be enhanced, and it would be beneficial to include a feature that can prevent ransomware attacks."
"I'd like to be able to connect to tape drives behind the storage device to back up the tape if need be. We have all of our storage running in all-flash, and we make a copy on tape. Currently, when we want to hook up tape drives, we have to add some extra equipment, which is a little bit complex. We want IBM to add a feature where we could install a tape into the storage so that we can connect it through a single pane of glass. We'd like to have a feature in the IBM flash storage system so that we can connect backup tape drives through the IBM storage system and we can manage the backup tape from the storage system."
"The support could be better."
Dell PowerStore is ranked 1st in All-Flash Storage with 34 reviews while IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is ranked 15th in All-Flash Storage with 9 reviews. Dell PowerStore is rated 8.4, while IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is rated 8.8. 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 9100 NVMe writes "A game-changer product that doesn't fail, and as compared to the prior generation products, takes about 20% of space and uses about 85% less energy". Dell PowerStore is most compared with Dell Unity XT, IBM FlashSystem, Dell PowerMax NVMe, HPE Nimble Storage and NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS), whereas IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is most compared with Dell PowerMax NVMe, IBM FlashSystem, HPE Primera, Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform and HPE Nimble Storage. See our Dell PowerStore vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors and best NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays vendors.
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