Dell SC Series vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe comparison

Dell Technologies and IBM are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #17 with an average rating of 9.0, while IBM is ranked #20 with an average rating of 8.6. Dell Technologies holds a 0.8% mindshare in AFS, compared to IBM’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of IBM users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Dell SC Series and IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe are high-performance storage solutions in the enterprise category. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe holds the upper hand due to its advanced features and overall value.

Features: Dell SC Series offers robust data compression, auto-tiering, and reliable operational efficiency. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe includes integrated NVMe, AI-based analytics, and superior performance for data management.

Room for Improvement: Dell SC Series could benefit from enhanced scalability, reduced latency, and improved performance. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe needs simpler configuration, better documentation, and streamlined setup.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell SC Series is noted for straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe delivers strong support but may present deployment challenges due to its complexity.

Pricing and ROI: Dell SC Series is recognized for cost-effectiveness and reasonable setup costs, leading to quicker ROI. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe, while having higher upfront costs, justifies its investment through superior performance and features, resulting in stronger long-term ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell SC Series vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

June 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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell SC Series is 0.8%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is 0.5%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature

One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.

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Steven McClendon

Data Center Server & Storage Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Superior platform with excellent snapshots and cost-saving auto-tiering

I'm a big fan of the SC Series platform. Its feature set is superior to some of the other platforms. The snapshots on SC are excellent, allowing for multiple snapshot schedules for any one system. The auto-tiering functionality intelligently moves new data to the highest performance tier and then progresses it down to less expensive tiers over time, providing cost savings for customers.

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MohammedIsmail

Datacenter Manager at Tracker Connect

Enhanced storage performance and an easy setup with compression challenges

We use IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe as a storage device in the IT industry The features I find most valuable include its use for storage and performance. The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best. Furthermore, support from the partner could also be improved as it's been…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I appreciate the performance."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."

"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."

"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."

"The solution is scalable."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"Performance-wise it's high speed. It's also more stable and scalable."

"The most valuable feature is the speed for the end-user."

"The solution has a wide variety of valuable features. The data progression works well. We use the snapshot functionality quite a bit and really like it."

"Dell SC Series' most valuable features are performance and network facilities. We have no issues with its integration. The tool helps to visualize servers."

"The process of reallocating data from fast disks (SSD or SAS) to slow disks (SATA) gives you better performance and better use of resources."

"It has good dedupe and compression. Also, the built-in data migration capabilities are pretty good, as is the federation. When we started migrating the workloads from different storage platforms, like NetApp and XtremeIO, it helped us in moving to that direction."

"The product offers good performance and is quite powerful."

"What is most valuable about the Dell EMC SC Series system was its reliability."

More Dell SC Series pros

"Its ease of use, performance, and hardware compression is very useful feature."

"The storage serves the virtual environment. Most of our applications run in the virtual environment, and it serves nearly 30% of the bank's capacity."

"The features I find most valuable include its use for storage and performance."

"IBM FlashSystem provides the same software on each box, including virtualized solutions."

"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."

"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."

"It is a very stable solution."

"It's easy to use, has good stability, and many features."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe pros

Cons

"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."

"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."

"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."

"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."

"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The configuration could be easier in Dell EMC SC Series."

"In terms of additional features, I would like to see some kind of I/O meter, to indicate what we are using in terms of performance. I would like to see automation with that, where it would give me the trends. I want to know those things easily, to help me know where issues are going to occur."

"In the future, I want any box that comes on-premises to have the provision to integrate with cloud storage."

"I would like to see an integrated key manager in the controllers. Currently, it's an external product. It would be nice to have the option of having a built-in key for self-encrypting drive features."

"Dell SC Series is no longer available, while Dell PowerStore, which supports NVMe over TCP, is different and not very affordable."

"The ease of use could be improved. It took me a while to learn it."

"I would like to improve the processing ability."

"While there's always room for improvement in everything, I can't really think of a specific feature of the solution that requires immediate attention."

More Dell SC Series cons

"The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best."

"The pricing should be more competitive."

"The tool's architecture is complex. It also needs to add data utilization reports."

"The storage system itself should have built-in capabilities for different ransomware attacks."

"The solution's compression feature could be better."

"The support could be better."

"I would like to see IBM products become more affordable because they can be quite expensive, which limits their accessibility to a broader customer base."

"The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."

"The product is expensive."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"We have reviewed many platforms over the years. It is probably the best solution for its value."

"The SC Series was priced fairly. I wouldn't call it either expensive or cheap because we had a very tight budget, so if they were able to fit in that type of budget, they met our expectations."

"We have the basic license for the use of this solution and it is a permanent license. The overall cost could be less, it is expensive."

"Pricing depends on varying life cycles."

"We have found it to be affordable. Comparing the cost with other hardware, it seems to be right in line with the compute and the storage that we get with it."

"We were able to afford two tiers of flash storage at a price where the competition was giving us one tier or just a handful of discs."

"The pricing is reasonable, but it is expensive."

"The pricing of Dell EMC Compellent is competitive."

More Dell SC Series pricing and cost advice

"The product has an average cost."

"Compared to its competitors, IBM's offering is the most cost-effective."

"The price of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is less than Dell. For upgrades, the Dell solutions are more expensive."

"The price of the FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable."

"The solution's price is competitive."

"It's a lot less costly than cloud storage. People get surprised by the cost of cloud storage, which is extremely expensive and four or five times the cost of storage on-premises. People don't realize what they're spending on storage until they start getting bills from Amazon, Microsoft, and others. This is a good way to reduce your cloud storage expenses."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing an eight."

"The solution is priced well."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

22%

University

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

19%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell SC Series?

I find this version to be more budget-friendly compared to products from other vendors. This aspect greatly benefits ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell SC Series?

Cost considerations are crucial when choosing between solutions like Dell and NetApp. Sometimes Dell offers better pe...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell SC Series?

In the future, I want any box that comes on-premises to have the provision to integrate with cloud storage. If I want...

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?

The storage serves the virtual environment. Most of our applications run in the virtual environment, and it serves ne...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?

The tool is expensive, though I do not know the specific licensing costs.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?

The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best. Furthermore, support from the partner could al...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 29% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 19% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell SC Series

Compared 60% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell SC Series

Compared 10% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell SC Series

Compared 9% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell SC Series

Compared 8% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell SC Series

Compared 6% of the time

More Dell SC Series Competitors

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 31% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 22% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 20% of the time

Hitachi VSP E Series vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 12% of the time

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

June 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series

June 2025

Download Dell SC Series product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

June 2025

Download IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

SC Series Storage, Compellent

IBM FlashSystem 9100, FlashSystem 9100

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

Pure Storage

Dell EMC SC Series arrays provide a unified platform for the ultimate in performance, adaptability and machine-driven efficiency. SC Series software delivers modern features that help you meet aggressive workload demands using the fewest drives necessary. With an open, future-ready design, SC Series storage integrates seamlessly with applications and infrastructure, enabling you to scale on a single platform and add capabilities without forklift upgrades.

Dell Technologies

IBM FlashSystem 9100 combines the performance of flash and Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) end-to-end with the reliability and innovation of IBM FlashCore technology and the rich features of IBM Spectrum Virtualize - all in a powerful 2U enterprise-class storage system. Providing intensive data driven multicloud storage capacity, FlashSystem 9100 is deeply integrated with the software defined capabilities of IBM Spectrum Storage allowing you to easily add in the multicloud solutions that best support your business.

IBM

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

June 2025

Free Report: Dell SC Series vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell SC Series vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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