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Dell Unity XT vs IBM FlashSystem comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Dell Unity XT
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
196
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM FlashSystem
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
NAS (4th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell Unity XT is 7.3%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem is 6.6%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Q&A Highlights

Miriam Tover - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 24, 2021
 

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Syed Habib - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient data replication and fast IOPS have improved operational performance
Dell and a partner jointly implemented this solution in Auvink. We installed the Flash, which makes our IO operations fast and efficient. Replication is available, allowing us to replicate data simultaneously from one site to another. All-flash technology and vTXT enhance speed, and the IOPS are faster. The cache's IOPS are much better. Snapshots provide a unique feature for testing and make management more comfortable and easy. The platform is multi-supported and certification is more convenient and easy to manage.
Raanan Sitton - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers cost-effective storage for small companies with budget constraints
IBM FlashSystem 5300 is offered at a very low cost in Israel, which is advantageous for small companies. However, other features like deduplication and compression do not perform effectively. The price sensitivity makes it a viable option for clients with budgetary constraints, as it allows us to secure deals based on the cost rather than advanced performance.

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."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."
"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."
"The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"Dell Unity XT offers data integration features."
"We can sleep at night because the support is great."
"Being all-flash makes everything super-fast. It's also great to manage. That's the easiest part. We also have another SAN, from Pure, and the Unity is easier to manage than the Pure."
"My storage team likes Unity's replication features. Three-site replication is a unique feature that EMC offers us."
"It’s helped with the overall stability of our VMware environment."
"Quick Snapshots and cloning are key features."
"It's the simplicity part of it. It's the ease of management, it's the call home, the CloudIQ functionality. It's all built in. I think Dell EMC has put a lot of thought into it."
"It is easy to manage overall. It is all web-based. It has a an easy, nice dashboard. I receive emails if there are issues. When there are any updates, I receive emails. I can either do them on my own, but normally I schedule them with Dell EMC and they remote in, then it's done."
"The most valuable features of IBM FlashSystem are performance and security."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is SCM (Storage Class Memory), which has the lowest latency value in the storage industry."
"The compression and deduplication features are the most valuable."
"The valuable feature is autoscalling."
"The initial customer technical support was efficient and effective."
"The valuable features are high availability, compression, and a failover mechanism. It's a very highly available storage solution."
"The speed of the unit is its best feature. It performs very well."
"IBM FlashSystem 5300 is offered at a very low cost in Israel, which is advantageous for small companies."
 

Cons

"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."
"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."
"The software layer has to improve."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"We had one incident with a memory leak that led to controller reboot. Although it had no impact, when such things happens the storage should be more aware of it, send alerts, and propose corrective actions."
"The iSCSI and the VMware integation using vSphere could be less confusing."
"If you compare it with VMAX, where we communicate with the box through Solutions Enabler and there are a lot of commands and a lot of flexibility, the command line for Unity needs to enhanced."
"It should be lighter. It takes up a ton of rack space. It would be nice to have a smaller footprint."
"I would like better integration with RecoverPoint. My major issue with the solution, all around, has been RecoverPoint more than Unity. While I like the easy user interface, I would like some more advanced features for troubleshooting built into the product, so that we can do more in-depth problem-solving."
"The initial setup is not so straightforward if you don't have experience with storage arrays."
"Recently, they released products, sometimes without proper testing, it seems."
"They should have more wizards for customers so they can do more of the self-service types of functions, in terms of upgrades and patching, although it's pretty easy right now."
"The pricing needs to be more competitive."
"One area for improvement is in the GUI, where host clusters are not properly dealt with. With Hypervisor host clusters, all hosts must see the same volumes in the same order. Using the concept of a “host-group” has been around (even with IBM) for many years, so why not with the V7000?"
"Replication features need improvement. Currently, they are there in the product, but I'm not sure as to how it works exactly."
"The solution is not able to replicate data in one-to-many scenario."
"The solution is not easy to use and could improve."
"The deduplication technology in IBM FlashSystem needs significant improvement."
"Events/log analysis tools."
"Our model does not support compression or deduplication."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"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."
"When you look at what Dell EMC is compared to, like NetApp, they're all priced pretty similarly. I think the pricing of the hybrid model is good."
"Compression is making a difference towards the amount of hardware that we need to purchase."
"Obtaining a warranty is easy."
"Its biggest valuable feature is its price point for the amount of storage and performance you get. It's a sweet spot. It's cheaper than the other SANs out there, but performs well enough. It fits that nice, middle-ground portfolio."
"There is not a license required for the use of the solution. We purchased a maintenance contract."
"We looked at HPE Nimble but the price of the Unity XT was very good compared to the competition."
"The solution is very expensive."
"The price of Dell EMC Unity XT is not reasonable. They should lower it because the trend is to move to the cloud. They have to protect their market by giving commercial or financial incentives."
"The price of IBM FlashSystem is a little high because you pay a premium because the solution is from IBM. We had paid for the SLA prior to using the solution."
"For a yearly license, it is about $100,000. There are no additional costs. The entire system is included."
"We have no issues with the price as it is very competitive."
"Its price is very good."
"The cost is pretty high in terms of licensing. We pay at least $100,000 USD in licensing fees for the storage."
"The pricing is competitive in our country."
"I'd rate the basic licensing and the Virtualize software a ten out of ten, and the extra Spectrum and other an eight out of ten."
"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."
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Answers from the Community

Miriam Tover - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 24, 2021
Aug 24, 2021
EMC's Unity is not comparable to the performance of an IBM FlashSystem option, but it is fairly close in performance profile to the just released Storewize V5100 model 424. If you provide the initial amount of storage you are going to purchase and your expected capacity growth rate, plus any workoad/performance info you have on hand, and we will give you a very quick TCO and performance compar...
2 out of 5 answers
IB
Apr 17, 2019
For a performance comparison, I use a vendor-neutral benchmark portal like Storage Performance Council: For SPC-1: a) IBM storage, including All-Flash (performance) https://spcresults.org/benchmarks/results/top10/performance/spc1/1?field_peer_review_status_target_id=48&field_sponsor_target_id=18 b) Overall top 10 SPC-1 (performance) https://spcresults.org/benchmarks/results/top10/performance/spc1/1?field_peer_review_status_target_id=48&field_sponsor_target_id=18 c) Overall top 10 SPC-1 (price/performance) https://spcresults.org/benchmarks/results/top10/price/spc1/3 For SPC-2: a) Overall top 10 SPC-2 (performance) https://spcresults.org/benchmarks/results/top10/performance/spc2/1 b) Overall top 10 SPC-2 (price/performance) https://spcresults.org/benchmarks/results/top10/price/spc2/1 I also look at specific benchmarks from the vendors: a) IBM https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/InsideSystemStorage/entry/spc_benchmarks_for_disk_system?lang=en b) Dell EMC https://www.dellemc.com/resources/en-us/asset/white-papers/products/storage/h15161-dell_emc_unity-performance_metrics.pdf
it_user1000854 - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 17, 2019
I am about to take delivery of a Unity 400 with SAS and have never considered an IBM hardware so i am not able to compare based on experience.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
67%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Government
3%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

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.
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 ...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
I saw that you have doubts about what you chose. I have a lot of experience with the constructor, honestly I can reco...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
They’re both great solutions and I’ve used both. EMC is being VERY aggressive on pricing which may be the undoing of...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
First of all the decision should be taken looking at similar products in terms of capacity and performance. I will sh...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem?
Many factors affect purchasing directly from IBM, often involving a multi-step process. Customers, especially in bank...
What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem?
The GUI needs some improvement. An additional function that could be helpful is reducing the time it takes to delete ...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
EMC Unity, Dell EMC Unity
IBM Storwize
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Draper, Rio Grande Pacific, Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Unity XT vs. IBM FlashSystem and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.