We performed a comparison between IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe and SolidFire 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."We are very happy with the data deduplication and compression ratio that we have on the platform."
"Their REST API is wonderful, well-documented, and easy to use."
"It has improved my organization because now have lower latency, we get fewer complaints from customers, and we see a constant response time."
"It simplifies storage."
"The solution is very reliable."
"The scalability is good."
"We can store more for a cheaper price as opposed to paying for larger devices and larger rack spaces which get outdated sooner and which we'd have to change every two years. It simplifies storage for us."
"I have seen a huge increase in speed and performance on our databases."
"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."
"The high performance and high availability improved our overall processes."
"Its ease of use, performance, and hardware compression is very useful feature."
"The solution is more available for IOPS warehousing, resolving issues, and reporting than other products."
"Good performance with a user-friendly UI."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable features of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe are its steady performance and usefulness in high-traffic environments."
"Greater IOPS, speed, it's all-flash. So seeing that everything is going to all-flash, all SSDs, SolidFire fits right in there with the emerging trend in IT."
"The quality of service for minimum iOS, to maximum iOS in a multi-terminal environment is very powerful. The SQL service feature is the best part of SolidFire."
"We can just buy them, scale them as we need on demand, and we don't have to spend so many front end cycles on designing the architecture."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"It is very easy to scale up SolidFire."
"SolidFire is one of the products that does have great APIs right out-of-the-box. It works great. The tools and the other stuff seem to work a little better right out-of-the-box than the ONTAP stuff does, C-Mode."
"The square footage for doing development is at a premium when dealing with government networks. To be able to put a lot of IOPS in a lot of high-speed performing drives in a very small location which requires very little HVAC with very little power, it is very valuable to us."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its scalability."
"It is not possible to create a cluster on top of multiple arrays."
"I’d love to view the average, minimum and maximum performance in the reports (Analysis tab - Performance) but it is only graphics and you need to export data in CSV to find this information."
"I would like to see data tiering to AWS."
"The GUI could improve, it could be more intuitive. There is hidden functionality."
"The data reduction that we had initially anticipated when we bought Pure and we move over, is way lower than the expected reduction. It depends on the workloads, of course. But that has been a challenge at times."
"We haven't seen ROI."
"I'd like to see a move towards individual VMs for what the performance of each VM is in a VD infrastructure. I can see the overall volume, but I would love to see things in a more granular level on the VM side."
"Storage. There could be better storage."
"I would like to have replication functionality built directly in the product, rather than having to use a separate device for this."
"The ZIO interface could be improved."
"There could be a possibility of not requiring to buy a new box while upgrading to a newer version."
"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 support could be better."
"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."
"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is an expensive solution, and its pricing could be improved."
"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."
"I would like to see integration with the cloud, number one. Being able to spin SolidFire in the cloud."
"SolidFire could improve in terms of hardware robustness."
"The user interface needs to be improved. Much of the client feedback involves comments such as "Oh, it's hard to navigate through.""
"They could make the mNode more user-friendly. Now you need to configure and add nodes by CLI and it’s not really easy to manage. If they created a web interface to do the management of the mNode, that would be great!."
"This solution would be improved if it were made to be more compatible with other products."
"The inclusion of more protocols and interfaces would make it easier to integrate with other products."
"One of the challenges we faced while using SolidFire was that the product line that we were using in our company was discontinued."
"It would be good to provide administrative access at the root level to be able to do things with the system, if need be."
IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is ranked 13th in All-Flash Storage with 19 reviews while SolidFire is ranked 19th in All-Flash Storage with 33 reviews. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is rated 8.8, while SolidFire is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe writes "Steady performance, responsive support, and high availability". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SolidFire writes "A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance". IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform, IBM FlashSystem and HPE Primera, whereas SolidFire is most compared with NetApp AFF, Dell PowerStore and VMware vSAN. See our IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe vs. SolidFire report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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