We performed a comparison between Dell Unity XT and IBM FlashSystem 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."The code upgrades are very smooth."
"The compression and deduplication features help to make the best use of the capacity."
"I like FlashArray's ActiveCluster as well as its snapshot and cloning capabilities."
"The management features are well organized and they have a very good dashboard."
"FlashArray has many valuable features. It's very user-friendly and it has high availability, so there is comparatively less downtime. During maintenance, there is no shutdown procedure, so you can directly power off the Array and manage the shutdown process without any data loss, which is a unique feature. Managing replication and data migration is also very easy."
"Support has been helpful."
"It's just very easy for general block storage."
"The product cheaper compared to other solutions concerning the technology that they are using."
"Inline data reduction is pretty impressive."
"Its most valuable feature is the storage alarm."
"The high availability of Dell EMC Unity XT has been the most important feature."
"Dell Unity XT is user-friendly and easy to use."
"The most valuable aspects of this solution are its stability, performance, and ease of updating."
"My storage team likes Unity's replication features. Three-site replication is a unique feature that EMC offers us."
"It is easy to set up the solution."
"I have found Dell EMC Unity XT to be stable."
"The Flash core models offer amazing performance."
"IBM FlashSystem is a powerful effective storage solution. Additionally, it is user-friendly, anyone can use it."
"The storage system is one of the best in the world."
"FlashSystem offers proven technology in a compact package."
"The price-performance ratio is most valuable."
"Data deduplication is one of the most valuable features of this solution."
"The initial setup is straightforward and can be done in an hour and a half by one person."
"One of the most valuable features is that it's very easy to use and configure. It used to be more difficult, but now it's almost flawless."
"I can't see where they can make anything better, unless, of course, they lower their prices even more."
"It was not proactive communication."
"Data reduction is an area that needs improvement. There is a garbage collection service that runs but during that time, system utilization increases."
"The GUI could improve, it could be more intuitive. There is hidden functionality."
"We need to add more storage in Pure Storage FlashArray with the cluster mode activated for us to have better performance."
"I want to learn more about command line usage which I have not explored much yet. However, there are many automated solutions for repetitive tasks. I would like to see additional features like performance monitoring, configuring of alerts, and the customization of alert thresholds in the next release."
"FlashArray's capacity for forecasting should be improved because it needs to be a bit more current. I think it's bundled with the deduplication and other compression factors. We need more user interfaces for forecasting in this software and more interfaces need to be integrated with this array management tool."
"In the configuration, which we brought in or tested it in, it has a very limited config as far as the array goes. That said, it still did more than our anticipation."
"One area of improvement is replication. We are also using Oracle virtual machines, and when you are using systems from other vendors, the process of replicating from Unity through OLVM is more laborious than when we were using VPLEX."
"The pre-sales technical support and technical engagement could be made better for this product."
"It could be a little easier to attach it to a network file system."
"This is a tier-three solution and it gives us what we need for archiving and backups."
"We have only used this solution for less than one year so I don't have any improvements suggestions yet."
"The solution can use improvement with the patch cluster like the Synchron and Active replication."
"I have a problem because between the Unity XT and the PowerMax, sometimes we need another product between these two products. There could be better integrated and the capacity of the size could be larger."
"Having more artificial intelligence tools built into the solution would be a great benefit. This would allow us to see more about the workloads and higher visibility, such as performance degradation."
"The data reduction pool feature sucks and is not recommended for use with heavy workloads."
"If you want to expand, you cannot expand the disc enclosure. You have to buy a total individual node. Sometimes, this is difficult because we are just looking for capacity and not a node."
"The interface could improve in IBM FlashSystem."
"The pricing could be improved, but I think it's getting better and better with each version. IBM needs to implement NAS storage again, as this is a big flaw. Dell EMC is very good at this and if you compared them based on NAS storage, Dell EMC would win right away. IBM's solution for NAS storage is very complicated. We don't have a storage box that provides file sharing from itself, we have to put software on it and go through a whole complicated process. It should be simplified."
"A big area for improvement is that the data reduction pool feature is not recommended for use in a production environment because it has stability and performance issues."
"This solution could be improved by offering greater amounts of storage."
"The GUI for monitoring performance metrics could provide better visibility. For example, it doesn't let me segregate the IOPS per volume."
"The storage capacity of this solution could be improved."
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.
Dell Unity XT is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 48 reviews while IBM FlashSystem is ranked 6th in All-Flash Storage with 35 reviews. Dell Unity XT is rated 8.4, while IBM FlashSystem is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Dell Unity XT writes "Price / Quality ratio is good and since OE 5.03 code the array family reached a rather good maturity level". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM FlashSystem writes "Reliable and easy to configure with simple data migration capabilities ". Dell Unity XT is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, HPE 3PAR StoreServ and Dell PowerMax NVMe, whereas IBM FlashSystem is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Primera, HPE Nimble Storage and Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform. See our Dell Unity XT vs. IBM FlashSystem report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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As with any engineered solution, it depends on your needs.
However, the bottom line is that for their target markets Dell EMC Unity will generally have a better price at parity performance over IBM's FlashSystem.
Both are focused on All-Flash arrays and Dell EMC Unity is where I start with VMWare. If I have a dedicated IBM DB2 application, I would lean toward the IBM FlashSystem.
The problem in the VMWare environment is that IBM has done a poor job prioritizing this area and has several I/O bottlenecks and interface driver issues. I expect future resolution, but does that happen before current platforms evolve?
Depends what you're expecting. Full compatibility with VMware environment - DellEMC only, IBM FS has problems with iSCSI connections to vsphere 7.02 - it's not supported (FS5200 and vsphere 7.02 server with Intel cards - doesn't work fast (10Gbe - 300MB/s instead of 1,1-1,2 GB/s), no solution for now from IBM and VMware (08/2021). Integration - DellEMC and VMware are one company - everything goes smoothly. Space reclamation didn't work well on IBM systems when connected to vsphere (vsphere 6.5 and V7000 models). When using Microsoft virtualization - no difference - it's more complex to start system but when properly configured - it runs well (fast). But of both of them I would choose HPE systems,:-) (Nimble or Primera):-)