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Dell XtremIO vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe 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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell XtremIO
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
17th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
26th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 6.9%, up from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell XtremIO is 1.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is 1.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray6.9%
Dell XtremIO1.7%
IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe1.1%
Other90.3%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
AS
System Engineer at Exaware
Has improved data reduction and snapshot efficiency while supporting critical workloads
There are some areas that could be improved with Dell XtremIO. The API to connect with command line or to see performance very clearly could be enhanced, similar to how NetApp works with Grafana and NetApp monitor, which shows you a comprehensive view of the whole picture. The snapshot functionality could work more similarly to Snap Center. If I want to see all the VCenter with the VM, I think it needs the API for this. I do see big differences between Dell and other products. NetApp works very closely with VCenter, and Hitachi also integrates well, but Dell is not very clear and does not proceed well with VCenter integration with Dell. It needs the API, and I need to see all the snapshots. If I want to restore a VM from only a few directories or a few files that I need to restore, it is very difficult. I do see some differences in licensing. For the last few years, the Dell EMC price is acceptable. A few years ago, Dell EMC was expensive, approximately 20 percent more than NetApp. Right now the budget between EMC and NetApp is very closely aligned. Regarding the installation process and deployment of Dell XtremIO, I notice that in Israel, a lot of professional services and engineers who work with Dell EMC have moved to another storage company. I do not know why. Dell EMC does not have enough engineers, system engineers, or professional services engineers to provide service to the old clients, similar to how NetApp or Hitachi do. I think Dell XtremIO is between easy and complicated to deploy; it gives you the whole picture, but I need to go closely to VCenter to connect to VCenter to see the snapshot and to see performance with more dashboards of performance. I also need to connect the switch fiber channel to see all zoning to give me more flexibility to install or configure fiber channel or to see the performance of the fiber channels. I think there should be some fiber channel disconnect adapter or better troubleshooting from hardware for errors.
Yacine Bouakttaya - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer North Africa at Huawei
High-speed data processing has improved billing cycles but performance headroom still needs growth
In terms of improvement regarding IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe, I can compare with other competitors, especially regarding solution architecture. Data resiliency can be a concern because IBM can reach up to only four controllers, while others like Dell EMC can support up to eight controllers with better resiliency without service staff. Additionally, the SBC one benchmark is a storage performance console that stresses different storage solutions like Dell EMC and NetApp. It generates metrics of IOPS and latency, showing that the competition can have two million IOPS, significantly outperforming IBM's capabilities. As for the capability of scaling, we can see the limitations in reaching such high-performance levels.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Has also helped simplify storage for us. The other person we put in there, took about a week to implement. And we had both arrays set up within around four hours with a thirty minute drive time between the two locations."
"It upgrades in place which means we'll be using it well into the future."
"We were actually able to do multiple upgrades, including head upgrades and moving between the platforms, M20 and M50, over the years. We have never once lost a ping and have never had an outage due to an OS upgrade or a complete head upgrade."
"FlashArray's data reduction and NAS features are incredible. Its performance is the best I've worked with."
"The most valuable feature is replication."
"The first set up we had was really straight forward and simple."
"It is very easy to use."
"If you need a high-performance storage appliance that is easy to install and maintain, you pretty much can't go wrong."
"The solution's most valuable features are the inline data reduction and deduplication."
"Speed – All Flash makes this array very extremely responsive to virtually all workloads, besting all of our spindle-based arrays by a large margin."
"Dell XtremIO provides great performance."
"It is scalable."
"The most valuable feature of Dell EMC XtremIO is the data protection (DP) group, it is one of the most advanced features in these types of arrays, and the dedupe and compression that this array provides both do a superb job."
"DEV/UAT refresh periods reduced from hours or longer to under five minutes."
"XtremIO is very stable."
"Dell XtremIO is good for databases and huge workloads."
"The solution is more available for IOPS warehousing, resolving issues, and reporting than other products."
"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."
"It's easy to use, has good stability, and many features."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is easy to use and comes with good performance."
"The most valuable feature of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is the snapshot. We use it daily for all of the storage units."
"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."
"Its ease of use, performance, and hardware compression is very useful feature."
 

Cons

"More cloud connectivity would enhance the solution."
"We have not had a good experience with the IBM device."
"Reports of performance and LUN utilization could be improved."
"I think the pricing for Pure Storage FlashArray is the major issue because all the great things come with the price, and a lot of customers simply are not willing to accept it."
"It's not so scalable. It's got moderate scaling capabilities right now. The clustering technology needs a bit of work, they need to improve that."
"I would like to see some improvements on the FlashBlade side around the CIFS space support. I am not super familiar with all the different NAS protocols that they run on their box, but there could be some improvements made on SMB CIFS side."
"The solution is not cheap. It's much more expensive than DataCore."
"As long as they always improve on IOPS speed, that's all we're really looking for. The faster the storage can be the more we can do speed of application and speed of use."
"Dell is not very clear and does not proceed well with VCenter integration with Dell."
"What needs to improve is that the end compression uses a lot of CPU, which makes it difficult or impossible to upgrade."
"The past upgrades were highly impactful to active workloads."
"The interface could be simplified for beginners to ease the configuration of special objects in the system."
"The most important thing for the system engineer is to check if there is latency in the IOPS for any run; you cannot measure the number of IOPS or whether or not it is overloaded."
"UPDATE: 10:1 is too good to be true, EMC experts tell me 1.x-2:1 is more realistic for business critical databases."
"Native data replication: To replicate data between XtremIO devices, you need to use EMC’s RecoverPoint appliances to move the data."
"Ease of use is key in the converged and hyper-converged world that requires administrators to have both hypervisor and storage skills."
"IBM is currently not offering volume-based encryption or compression, while other brands or IBM's competitors are doing it."
"IBM's support is not good. I experienced a big problem where I opened the console IBM Storage and would see that something was broken. I called the call centers, and I said, "I have a problem. My drive is not working." They want me to give them the serial number, I gave it to them and they told me "I cannot find your product. Your product is not here.""
"The tool's architecture is complex. It also needs to add data utilization reports."
"The support could be better."
"We're not satisfied with the deduplication and compression for our volumes."
"In the FlashSystem 5200, there were only four ports of 32 fiber channels for the architecture. This has been resolved in the new generation."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is currently at the end of its lifespan and will soon become obsolete in the markets."
"In the future, the limitation is upgrading the same storage by adding a shelf to the desk. There is a limitation in the backend connection between the storage and extended shelf."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In terms of other contemporary arrays, Pure is something you need to have a use case for, as it's not priced for you to buy one off-the-shelf. If you have a use case, heavy lift Oracle Databases, any type of noticeable virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), or need low latency and high throughput, you should consider all-flash at least and probably Pure Storage."
"We feel that the pricing is fair and the licensing process was easy for both."
"Cost-wise, it's been very effective."
"The licensing is $100,000."
"The price of Pure Storage FlashArray is expensive."
"It's priced higher than the market."
"Pure Storage is expensive. It comes with features, so you get what you pay for. It is expensive compared to our old storage systems, but from the amount of human effort that you have to pay to babysit a storage system, it reduces that. I don't know if the TCO is reduced, but it's not a concern for us."
"It is a cheaper solution."
"The price of the solution should be reduced. The price matches the price of a VMAX service but it does not have the capability of a VMAX service. However, the prices of Dell EMC XtremIO can be reduceable."
"It's not cheap, but it absolutely gets the job done. I don't have any real comment regarding licensing specifically."
"The licensing cost is on a yearly subscription basis, which can be expensive but is necessary for ongoing support and services. The pricing could be improved to make it more accessible."
"It is costly but worth it."
"Don’t buy this array. You’re paying for loads of magic beans, since it’s mediocre at best for a platform in a rapidly growing field. Look instead at Pure Storage or something with variable block deduplication. You’ll end up spending less and getting a better product with actual support."
"It is great when a product can deliver high-end performance capabilities while offering a very competitive price point."
"It is expensive if you need to increase scalability."
"XtremIO is pretty straightforward about pricing. However, you need to look at your data so you can estimate, with the advice of DEL EMC, what data reduction ratio you will reach. In our case, a 3:1 reduction ration gave us a positive case compared to other storage arrays."
"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."
"The price of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is less than Dell. For upgrades, the Dell solutions are more expensive."
"Compared to other solutions, the cost of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable, with a one-time payment of around $70,000. However, additional support is available for $25,000 for three years. The overall maintenance cost is steep."
"The price of the FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable."
"The tool's pricing is competitive."
"There are pricing options from the mid-rand to the high-range, of which the suitability depends upon the requirements."
"The solution's price is competitive."
"The solution is priced well."
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Comparison Review

it_user182013 - PeerSpot reviewer
Federal Civ/Intel Engineering Lead at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
May 1, 2015
Measuring Up: EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR
Leading up to EMC World 2015, IT Central Station asked how I would compare EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR. Until recently, the flash storage conversation in my organization and many others has centered on XtremIO and Pure Storage, the leaders of the all-flash array (AFA) space. To that end, I've written a…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I find the pricing of Everpure FlashArray to be quite high compared to other storage solutions; however, the reliabil...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I believe we have covered the most important features; the architecture of Pure Storage is essential, and features su...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell XtremIO?
Pricing is hard to determine as it depends on the given configuration. XtremIO offers features that justify a potenti...
What needs improvement with Dell XtremIO?
There are some areas that could be improved with Dell XtremIO. The API to connect with command line or to see perform...
What is your primary use case for Dell XtremIO?
I was using Dell XtremIO as a storage admin and system storage admin internally within my company. My major use case ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?
The licensing cost for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe can be seen as a bit expensive compared to competitors. You can eith...
What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?
In terms of improvement regarding IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe, I can compare with other competitors, especially regardi...
What is your primary use case for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?
There are many advantages that we have with IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe against, for example, IBM full flash systems an...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
Dell EMC XtremIO Flash, Dell EMC XtremIO X2, XtremIO, XtremIO X2
IBM FlashSystem 9100, FlashSystem 9100
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Raiffeisen Bank Bulgaria, Wentworth-Douglas Hospital
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell XtremIO vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.