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IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800 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
4th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
219
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
28th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (13th)
NetApp NVMe AFF A800
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
26th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (8th)
 

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.
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.
Helder-Valente - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Director at affidea
Has improved data efficiency and application performance while supporting encryption and fast access to imaging workloads
We use it quite extensively because with this we have more space and the information can be read without wasting time. We are satisfied with this. The performance is quite good. We don't have any issues regarding the applications that use fat clients. It helps prevent being hacked, and so far we don't have any issues. We can do the encryption of the data. The solution performs quite well. It helps us maintain our systems. Since we have many applications that use images for streaming, it works exceptionally well. We don't have any issues, and this helps us with the service we provide to the hospital.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Overall, Pure Storage FlashArray has never let us down in front of customers so far."
"When users don't call wanting to kill me, that's ROI."
"I appreciate the ease of provisioning storage on Pure Storage FlashArray."
"Most of the problems that we had in the past with the performance in IOPS have disappeared; it has been a great improvement for our customers' services."
"The most valuable feature is it never goes down. We can expand and create volumes."
"The connections are a lot faster than what we had in the past. One InfiniBand does what we did on all of our Fibre Channels."
"The biggest return on investment for us is not having to do a swap out of the arrays every five years."
"The best features of Pure Storage FlashArray are its ease of use and user-friendly interface, and the performance allows all types of services to be visualized from a single point of interface, making it more robust and user-friendly."
"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."
"Good performance with a user-friendly UI."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is easy to use and comes with good performance."
"It is a high-performance product that serves our requests well."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is a stable solution."
"The solution is more available for IOPS warehousing, resolving issues, and reporting than other products."
"The most valuable features of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe are its steady performance and usefulness in high-traffic environments."
"The product is a game-changer; IBM changed the game architecturally by moving computational resources into the flash media."
"In summary, this is a good product, it is serving our purpose well, I am satisfied with it, and I absolutely recommend it for others."
"The solution performs quite well; it helps us maintain our systems, and since we have many applications that use images for streaming, it works exceptionally well, helping us with the service we provide to the hospital."
"The solution is very stable; it's reliable, it doesn't crash or freeze, and there haven't been any bugs or glitches."
"We find the product to be very flexible."
"You can easily scale up, and scale-out."
"The storage features are valuable."
"During the use cases of the solution, its reliability and suitability are the best."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O."
 

Cons

"Price per terabyte is substantially higher than their competition. We would like to see it drop."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve by being more secure."
"The connectivity needs improvement. You do not have the possibility to have a file and block connectivity at the same time on the same machine."
"The primary drawback is the cost, which can be prohibitive for small configurations."
"They could improve the price."
"There are scenarios with very specific functionality around VMware integration particularly to do with the way we'd like to manage LUNs in VMware. The tools are pretty good but there's room for improvement there."
"They're also talking about a phone home centralized analytics database being used as a centralized management console with a list of new cloud features, but this doesn't seem finalized."
"I recognize it's a difficult challenge, but I would like to see them make the pricing more reasonable."
"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."
"The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best."
"The storage system itself should have built-in capabilities for different ransomware attacks."
"IBM is currently not offering volume-based encryption or compression, while other brands or IBM's competitors are doing it."
"Other vendors have included a block and file system. IBM doesn't include a file system. And yet, it's very necessary for all organizations' networks to have file systems. We have other systems for the file system, however, ideally, we would like to have one system with these features."
"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."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is currently at the end of its lifespan and will soon become obsolete in the markets."
"In terms of improvement regarding IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe, I can compare with other competitors, especially regarding solution architecture."
"Increasing the RAM, and including physical cords would be beneficial."
"The product’s UI could be better."
"The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better."
"The initial setup should be easier, and more like a plug-and-play approach."
"Sometimes, it takes a while to get somebody competent on the other end of the line. They do have engineers in multiple time zones around the world. However, their level-one support is not always the best."
"The initial setup is complex."
"Increasing the RAM, and including physical cords would be beneficial."
"The cost of the solution is quite high. It would be ideal if they could adjust it so that it's a but less."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost has room for improvement."
"We evaluated Oracle and Hitachi, but Pure Storage had the better pricing."
"It is cost-effective because after buying a subscription, they provide a service to upgrade hardware for free. They are providing so many features. When you consider the features provided, it is cost-effective."
"We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO)."
"I would rate the pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray a five out of ten. It is expensive but not too much."
"The pricing of Pure Storage is all-inclusive. It is very fair, and very easy. In comparison, Dell EMC has licensing that needs to be added if you wan to work in a complex environment or in specific functionalities."
"The price-to-performance is good. I looked at Pure about three to four years back, but the price-to-performance wasn't right for us. Now, it's right."
"All storage is expensive so any price improvement would help."
"The solution is priced well."
"The solution's price is competitive."
"The price of the FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable."
"The tool's pricing is competitive."
"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 IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMele can be considered affordable when taking into account the operating system that is required for it to function properly. This operating system, which is licensed by IBM, may carry a higher cost, but it is worth the investment for larger corporate entities, such as insurance companies, Fortune Five companies, and banks, who make up a significant portion of their target market. The FlashSystems are designed for larger corporations and multinational enterprises, and may not be the most cost-effective solution for smaller businesses."
"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 price of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is less than Dell. For upgrades, the Dell solutions are more expensive."
"Though NetApp NVMe AFF A800 may seem like a highly-priced product, it is not extremely expensive."
"Considering the requirements and the situation, I don't feel that this is an expensive product."
"There are licenses for the use of this solution, such as commercial licenses."
"The solution is expensive."
"I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Marketing Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business66
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise154
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
 

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?
The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...
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.
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...
What is your primary use case for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?
We use IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe as a storage device in the IT industry.
What needs improvement with NetApp NVMe AFF A800?
For NVMe, the reporting and consolidation dashboard could be improved. The dashboard is not user-friendly. It should ...
What is your primary use case for NetApp NVMe AFF A800?
We continue with NetApp NVMe AFF A800. We are the client. It is used for storage and backup. Regarding equipment mode...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
IBM FlashSystem 9100, FlashSystem 9100
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
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Find out what your peers are saying about IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
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