IBM FlashSystem vs NetApp AFF comparison

Cancel
You must select at least 2 products to compare!
Pure Storage Logo
21,403 views|11,777 comparisons
IBM Logo
11,969 views|9,461 comparisons
NetApp Logo
22,235 views|12,104 comparisons
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM FlashSystem and NetApp AFF 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.
To learn more, read our detailed IBM FlashSystem vs. NetApp AFF Report (Updated: September 2023).
735,226 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray are the management view of the solutions, ease of provision, and deprovision, it is fantastic.""It worked flawlessly.""Data deduplication is one feature I found to be the most valuable in the tool...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.""The speed is one of the most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray.""The most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray are management and administration user-friendliness, provisioning, and performance.""The product cheaper compared to other solutions concerning the technology that they are using.""The most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray is its high stability level.""The code upgrades are very smooth."

More Pure Storage FlashArray Pros →

"It's a mature product. It's like a BMW that evolves consistently.""The initial setup is straightforward and can be done in an hour and a half by one person.""The most crucial feature of IBM FlashSystem is compression.""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.""The speed, performance, and stability are the best features of IBM FlashSystem.""IBM FlashSystem is flexible, quick, and has a solid design.""The solution is very easy to configure and use.""IBM FlashSystem is a powerful effective storage solution. Additionally, it is user-friendly, anyone can use it."

More IBM FlashSystem Pros →

"NetApp AFF has helped to simplify our clients' infrastructure while still getting very high performance for their business-critical applications. One of our customers uses the vSAN environment in the release, then they use NFS for their VMware VCF environment and TKG environment. In this case, when they move to NetApp for the TKG and the VM infrastructures, they use AFF for block, CIFS, and NFS. It provides a single storage with NFS, block, and CIFS with deduplication, team provisioning, and compression. Everything is in there, which makes it very good to use.""I actually did major projects where we used NetApp storage for some government agencies, and we were able to keep the storage where the government or the customer is able to own the storage while using AWS as their computing. That part was helpful to the customer.""Snapshots, snap clones, backups, flexibility, and agility are valuable features. I like that NetApp AFF is easy to use. We can automate everything for our backups and use cases. It's fast and simple, and provides storage to all of our VMware ESX hosts. It expands easily as well.""In terms of the footprint, it is far more efficient. It has smaller, higher-capacity drives than our older unit. In terms of space, power, and cooling, it has simplified things.""The most valuable feature of NetApp AFF is the reputation of the company.""The Snapshots and just the overall flexibility of the product have been great.""I like the ability to snapshot, and the cloning features are valuable to us as well. I like that I can quickly and efficiently snapshot the data and move it to wherever I need to locally or in the cloud. Also, I know that when I take the snapshot that all of the data will be there and that it will be usable when I need to use it.""This solution helps accelerate demanding enterprise applications. VMware workloads, the database, and Oracle Solaris are hosted on AFF, which means that our primary priority workloads are on AFF and that the secondary ones are on FAS. That includes the SAN national cloud."

More NetApp AFF Pros →

Cons
"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.""Areas for improvement would be the financial operations. In the next release, I would like to see a NAS protocol included.""It is a bit expensive.""I can't see where they can make anything better, unless, of course, they lower their prices even more.""Pricing could be better in comparison to other solutions.""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.""CIFS and SMB Shares cannot be mounted directly.""The solution could improve by having a multi-tenant feature."

More Pure Storage FlashArray Cons →

"In the next release having the next level of high-speed performance would be great.""The deduplication and compression ratio is not very good. It's not reaching a very high ratio.""The GUI for monitoring performance metrics could provide better visibility. For example, it doesn't let me segregate the IOPS per volume.""The generic functionality of IBM FlashSystem, IBM always dismisses using file share or sharing protocols inside their storage hardware, and they only focus on the block-level storage.""We use some open-source tools for monitoring, such as Grafana and it should be bundled along with IBM FlashSystem.""Our customers have raised concerns about the limitations of the FlashSystem 5200 and 7300, which only offer a 32-gigabyte connection.""The interface of this solution could be improved.""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."

More IBM FlashSystem Cons →

"There is room for improvement in terms of support. I have noticed that if I sometimes call their customer care for a particular issue, they will give me another number and ask me to call that other team. It would be better if they could do a warm transfer. That would save customers time from calling all the numbers again and speaking to another team.""Some of the graphical user interface changes in the later versions of NetApp have not been as good as the older ones, like in the 9.5 era.""In the past, NetApp designed it so that you have a 70% threshold. You would never fill up past 70% since you need to have that room available. Whereas with Pure, I can fill it up to 110% of what they listed and it's still going at full speed. NetApp can't do that.""You have a limit in terms of how much you can expand storage. It sounds like a lot. However, over the years, as you grow, it may be smaller than you think.""It used to give us the volume where LANs should be placed when we created a LAN in the older version. However, in the newer version of ONTAP, it does not give where to place the LAN in the volume. So, that liberty has been taken away. If that was there again, it would be very good.""The NetApp support could be better.""Its technical support could be better.""There is room for improvement with the user interface. There are a few things that cannot be done in the GUI. We do a lot of things through the CLI, but that's grown out of a lack of ability to do them in the GUI. An example is QTrees. You can manage them within the GUI, but the GUI is missing a few options."

More NetApp AFF Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "When we bought the unit, we bought per capacity. So, the licensing is per capacity, and the only thing that we have to buy every year or every three years is maintenance. Included in that maintenance is the upgrade of the controllers every three years at no cost to us."
  • "We consume it as a service, and that's actually something we really like, or at least I really like from the technical perspective. That's because it means there is no hassle when we need to upgrade arrays to add capacity. We just interact directly with technical counterparts, and we say, "Hey, we're filling up," and they say, "All right, here's another data pack." They ship it in, and we install it. So, the as-a-service model has worked very well. Given the outstanding data reduction rates, it has improved our profitability because we're selling allocated volumes as part of the cloud service or recovering those costs from our tenants. It is very efficient, but that has offset the premium price. It started out that way, but over time, as we've added capacity, the price per gig has gone down a lot because we have a lot of it."
  • "There are no fees for licensing. The hardware is paid for only once."
  • "I think that the pricing is less expensive compared to other standard products in the market today. Even the support contract and maintenance services cost less when compared to market-leading products like EMC."
  • "You can pay extra for Evergreen support, which gives you free upgrades when new features are introduced."
  • "The best features come included without any additional cost."
  • "We purchased a license to use this solution and we pay for the storage ourselves."
  • "The price of the solution is not expensive."
  • More Pure Storage FlashArray Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The cost of the IBM FlashSystem is lower than the HPE solution."
  • "The pricing may be a bit higher than other brands. If you compare the IBM FlashSystems in midrange with Dell EMC in midrange, IBM costs a bit more, but I prefer IBM because it has more specs that I can benefit from."
  • "The cost is pretty high in terms of licensing. We pay at least $100,000 USD in licensing fees for the storage."
  • "The price of IBM FlashSystem is reasonable."
  • "There are no licensing fees, it is a one-time purchase of the IBM FlashSystem."
  • "Our customers would like IMB FlashSystem to be less expensive."
  • "This solution is expensive compared to other solutions."
  • "The pricing is reasonable."
  • More IBM FlashSystem Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The licensing and pricing are fine. As a reseller for the product, we need to make the differentiation in the minds of the customer. They are not just buying some tool that does only one thing, e.g., showing a LAN for a customer. The pricing is fair for what it is."
  • "In addition to simplifying the management across a mix of solutions, AFF simplifies the cost. That was one of the main reasons we purchased AFF."
  • "NetApp AFF is an expensive product, although not compared to other vendors."
  • "The pricing is pretty reasonable for what we get. But if you have to buy any more disk space, it can be quite expensive."
  • "The list price of AFF is too expensive... they need to be careful with the pricing of the new NVMe disks. They are way too expensive."
  • "I looked at other vendors for other potential projects and thought NetApp's pricing was very competitive."
  • "There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost. The cost is very high compared to other devices."
  • "The only area where the product has room for improvement is the cost."
  • More NetApp AFF Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.
    735,226 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure… more »
    Top Answer:Data deduplication is one feature I found to be the most valuable in the tool...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a… more »
    Top Answer:FlashArray is a premium solution, having all-inclusive licensing including future functionalities, and being end/to/end… more »
    Top Answer:FlashSystem offers proven technology in a compact package.
    Top Answer:I rate FlashSystem seven out of 10 for affordability. It's a great value for the price.
    Top Answer:IBM could do more marketing and improve brand awareness. I had never heard of this product until a colleague told me… more »
    Top Answer:Well, Is one thing NetApp Storage has vs other brand is the mix of protocol CIFS with NFS booth working together in the… more »
    Top Answer:This question is very dependent on your requirements. Both are among the best in the field. Of course, the intended cost… more »
    Top Answer:The answer depends on your needs and budget. If you want high performance (who doesn't) or let's say the latency matters… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    IBM Storwize
    NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
    Learn More
    Overview

    Pure Storage FlashArray is the world’s first enterprise-class storage array that runs exclusively on the nonvolatile memory express (NVMe) protocol for memory access and storage. It represents a totally state-of-the-art type of storage technology. It offers users shared accelerated storage that delivers cutting-edge features in the realms of performance, simplicity, and consolidation. Pure Storage is fresh and modern today and will be for the next decade. Without forklift upgrades or planned downtime, Pure Storage takes the work out of storage ownership and delivers unprecedented customer satisfaction.

    Pure Storage FlashArray is built with simplicity and reliability in mind. The solution can be implemented and optimized in hours, as opposed to other similar solutions that can take days. It has no moving parts, which removes areas where it could potentially be vulnerable to suffering errors. It is highly stable and gives users the ability to manage system shutdowns in a way that  prevents data loss.

    Benefits of Pure Storage FlashArray

    Some of the benefits of using Pure Storage FlashArray include:

    • A much higher level of speed than similar pieces of technology. Pure Storage FlashArray maximizes the speed at which data can be transferred while at the same time minimizing system latencies that might slow the transfer down. Additionally, it offers users quick memory read and data access speeds.

    • A higher bang for your buck in terms of the storage capabilities you get for the money you pay. They are smaller in size than more standard storage technologies, but they offer flash memory, which enables users to store larger amounts of data than the current standard.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Pure Storage FlashArray is a highly effective piece of storage technology which stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its overall robustness and the value that it offers by way of its reliability and ease of use. It provides users with many valuable features that allow them to maximize what they can do with this solution. Pure Storage FlashArray’s reliability and ease of use make it a highly valuable solution. 

    PeerSpot user Prabakaran K., a technical consultant at Injazat Data Systems, notes the robustness of this solution when he writes, "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."

    PeerSpot user Jason D., a cloud solutions architect at a tech services company, notes three features that make this solution valuable when he writes, "We've had different types of storage, and three things of this solution are valuable. The first one is its outstanding performance. The second one is its stability. In the about three years that we've had it, we've had component failures, but we never had a service interruption or any data loss. The third one, which is really critical, is that it is super easy to use in terms of provisioning, storage, and managing the arrays. I'm able to maintain a multi-site environment with a couple of dozen arrays with a single mid-level storage admin."

    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.

    NetApp AFF A-series systems are cloud-connected, flash storage designed to meet and exceed the performance requirements of business-critical applications and enterprise workloads. Powered by NetApp ONTAP data management software, AFF systems deliver industry-leading performance, superior flexibility, and best-in-class data services and cloud integration to accelerate, manage, and protect your business-critical data in the hybrid cloud.

    These systems support end-to-end NVMe technologies to deliver the industry’s lowest latency for an enterprise all-flash array, making them the superior choice for running the most demanding business-critical workloads and AI/ML applications.

    NetApp AFF is a robust, scale-out platform ideal for virtualized environments and can be deployed as an independent system or a high-performance tier in a NetApp ONTAP cluster configuration.

    NetApp AFF Benefits

    The AFF systems yield many benefits:

    • Reduce Cost:  Change the economics of your data center with flash - you'll consume 11 times less electricity, require 11 times less rack space, and spend 67 percent less on support compared to a data center using HDDs.
    • Increase Performance: AFF A-Series systems deliver industry-leading performance proven by SPC-1 and SPEC SFS industry benchmarks, making them ideal for demanding, highly transactional applications such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, MongoDB databases, VDI, and server virtualization.
    • Simplify Operations on premises or in the cloud: Eliminate fragmented and redundant toolsets and combine visibility and manageability of storage instances with data services in a unified control plane across the hybrid cloud.
    • Secure your data: automatically protect your data from ransomware attacks and avoid paying ransoms, meet compliance requirements with ease, and create a Zero-Trust perimeter around your organizations data on premises or in the cloud.

    NetApp AFF Features

    Many critical features play a role in making AFF systems the optimal flash storage choice:

    • Take advantage of faster host connectivity with NVMe/FC and NVMe/TCP support.
    • NetApp SnapMirror replication software reduces overall system costs by replicating to any type of FAS or AFF system, whether it is all-flash, hybrid, or HDD, on premises or in the cloud.
    • Automatically balance and optimize your production all-flash capacity with efficient cloud storage.
    • Built-in, app-integrated backup.
    • Automatic ransomware protection, multifactor admin access, secure multitenant shared storage, and in-flight and at-rest encryption.
    • Unified architecture which supports file, block, and object storage
    • Scale out to 24 nodes, 367PB of effective capacity, and 4 million IOPS non-disruptively.

    Reviews from Real Users

    NetApp AFF stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its high performance and simplicity. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

    PeerSpot user and Storage Administrator, Daniel Rúnar Friðþjófsson, comments “AFF has helped to simplify our infrastructure, while still getting very high performance for our business-critical applications. Having all these things working well on one solution is really good. We run this as the backbone for both Hyper-V and VMware as well as an archive location for Rubrik. So, it is great having one solution that can do it all.

    Because of the ease of it all, you have a highly tunable, high-performance storage system that alleviates a lot of problems. With its ease of management, you can quickly get your work done and go onto the next thing on your list.”

    Additionally, Mohan Reddy, Sr. Technology Architect at a Pharma/Biotech company comments on how “NetApp's ONTAP data management software has also made tasks simpler for us. There's no question about that. It has helped us run operations very quickly, saving us a lot of time. Before ONTAP, we used to spend a long time doing regular operations, but with the latest version of the tool, our day-to-day operations are much quicker and easier.”

    Offer
    Learn more about Pure Storage FlashArray
    Want to Hear More?

    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.

    Learn more about NetApp AFF
    Sample Customers
    Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
    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
    DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Healthcare Company12%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Computer Software Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization36%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm27%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Government8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company21%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company16%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Energy/Utilities Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization60%
    Computer Software Company8%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Financial Services Firm4%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise58%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business16%
    Midsize Enterprise44%
    Large Enterprise40%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business37%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise48%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business29%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise55%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business12%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise75%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business10%
    Midsize Enterprise65%
    Large Enterprise25%
    Buyer's Guide
    IBM FlashSystem vs. NetApp AFF
    September 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about IBM FlashSystem vs. NetApp AFF and other solutions. Updated: September 2023.
    735,226 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    IBM FlashSystem is ranked 6th in All-Flash Storage with 35 reviews while NetApp AFF is ranked 4th in All-Flash Storage with 28 reviews. IBM FlashSystem is rated 8.6, while NetApp AFF is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of IBM FlashSystem writes "Reliable and easy to configure with simple data migration capabilities ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp AFF writes "Provides us with quick options when restoring things for customers". IBM FlashSystem is most compared with Dell PowerStore, HPE Primera, HPE Nimble Storage, Dell Unity XT and Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform, whereas NetApp AFF is most compared with Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Dell Unity XT, Dell PowerStore, HPE Nimble Storage and VMware vSAN. See our IBM FlashSystem vs. NetApp AFF report.

    See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.

    We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.