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IBM FlashSystem vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (14th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
IBM FlashSystem
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
NAS (5th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (2nd), All-Flash Storage (13th)
NetApp FAS Series
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd), NAS (3rd), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature
One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.
OmarIsmail1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers high performance and dependable support for fast storage needs
The most valuable feature of IBM FlashSystem ( /products/ibm-flashsystem-reviews ) is its robust back code. When integrated properly into the environment and configured according to the guidelines, it provides a very solid infrastructure that does the job on demand. Additionally, IBM FlashSystem offers competitive pricing and reliable performance. The hardware is dependable, ensuring that it functions effectively when the setup is done correctly.
Arnaud Salmon - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good performance and
Once, I've been in a program, but they stopped supporting protocols like HTTP, STP, and that kind of stuff. All of the DIP supports at the beginning were kind of support when it was just Python and just five storage. And it happened a few times that the customer required the STP and HTTP protocol for storage. And I was surprised I couldn't do it anymore with NetApp. So, it would be beneficial for them to support both kinds of protocols. The only little black points that I would put on top of NetApp FAS Series. There is room for improvement in deployment and configuration processes. The thing with ONTAP is that we have a lot of layers, from the raw disks to the volumes we present to servers and configure. There are quite a lot of things to configure. Probably NetApp should ease the way to install that. In NetApp products, such as ONTAP and FAS, a solid understanding of storage is still necessary to handle configurations in larger systems. It's not the same with Pure Storage or Huawei. Even someone less familiar with storage could manage it, making it more accessible.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"I appreciate the performance."
"It's very easy to manage."
"The power systems are very reliable if you are running 24/7 operations. For ongoing mission-critical applications, it's the best solution."
"IBM's technical support do excellent work."
"The valuable features for us are the extra add-ons, such as the FIM provisioning, the compression, the disaster recovery capabilities, and the storage pooling functions."
"I would recommend it to other users."
"User friendly management interface."
"The initial setup was really straightforward. It was not complex. Deployment took one month, due to the data migration duration."
"IBM FlashSystem is a stable solution."
"Flexible and reliable storage solution with multiple features such as cloning, replication, and deduplication. Data migration can be done without any performance implications on the production systems."
"The most valuable feature of the NetApp FAS Series is the snapshot and the FlexClone for Oracle and Microsoft SQL environments. Additionally, the integration can be done with most all on-premise and cloud providers."
"The replication feature is noteworthy because it's faster than most and it uses little bandwidth. Then there's the friendly interface that the equipment offers. With this interface, it is very easy to manage."
"They are very satisfied with NetApp and continue to use NetApp and upgrade to new solutions."
"The ONTAP tools make managing VMware easier."
"Good for NAS and unified solutions."
"The most valuable features are the NAS features and NetApp's excellent support."
"It is very flexible. It integrates well with the public cloud and other components, so everything can be API driven. Therefore, it is very easy to automate it."
 

Cons

"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."
"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."
"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."
"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."
"I think the only thing the developers can look at, is that it is limited to 25 gigabytes currently. In the next release they might want to increase that."
"Enterprise data storage needs improvement. They should create a feature for data and file storage."
"Their technical support needs improvement in terms of reachability for the clients and response times. They should be more responsive and have more online platforms for support. They should make more technical information available online. There could be some kind of documentation community."
"The marketing could be improved."
"Sometimes the performance is effective but it gets resolved in the process."
"They can include Amazon file system S3 protocol in the upcoming releases. It is a cloud file system. IBM FlashSystem doesn't have this feature in the box for high-end or mid-range. We have got requests for this from customers because we need to use S3 for EDI application storage. At the beginning of every year, IBM releases firmware. When I find any bugs in the firmware during the year, I am unable to find any information from IBM regarding the bug. I need to open a ticket, and the IBM engineering team makes a patch only for me. This patch is not public. By creating a customized patch for a client, they don't really solve the issue for everyone. If multiple users have the same bug, IBM should upload the patch on the official website so that we can download it. IBM FlashSystem has a monitoring tool in the box, but it is not advanced. I need a more advanced tool for more advanced equations and monitoring. All top three storage vendors, that is, EMC, IBM, and Pure Storage, don't have a powerful monitoring tool. To monitor our box to show the statistics for I/Os and latency, I need to pay for extra software. The built-in monitoring storage is not mature enough to handle all requests and generate all reports that I need. They can include the functionality to stretch a cluster natively without using any additional boxes. In addition, there are some features that EMC has integrated with the box. These features are not available in IBM FlashSystem."
"Our model does not support compression or deduplication."
"The GUI needs some improvement. An additional function that could be helpful is reducing the time it takes to delete volumes, especially if they are compressed or deduplicated."
"The plan is to go with all SSDs and use MDM, rather than sticking with traditional disk drives. The goal is to have all SSDs for better maintenance speed, which is essential for applications that need to work."
"Technical support needs to be improved, as there are no longer partners in our country."
"The one aspect of the solution that's negative for us is also more unique to us due to the fact that we did a MetroCluster. The tiebreaker piece that does the monitoring of the two different locations, and determines if one is not talking to the network normally (or if it's truly down) is a little difficult. It feels like it was not designed from the beginning to fit well into the other pieces. It feels like it was thrown in at the last minute and it is not smooth."
"NetApp FAS Series should improve its price, which is expensive."
"The WAFL is slow."
"It lacks automatic tiering, When you use data, some of it goes cold. It is not hot data, so the system should automatically move that data to the SATA, while the hot data is kept on tier-one, the SaaS or SSD drives."
"Needs to ​add wizards for newer, inexperienced users."
"Regarding the stability of NetApp FAS Series, I would rate it seven or seven point five because there are frequent panic messages."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."
"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."
"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"The pricing has been very competitive for the last few years. IBM got to the point where they changed the pricing model and we feel very comfortable with the pricing. It's very competitive. Over the last two years, IBM has been coming up with all kinds of interesting promos, especially for the SMB systems. That makes it very competitive price-wise and in terms of performance..."
"The pricing is competitive in our country."
"I find the pricing of the solution to be very reasonable."
"They've been much more aggressive in the last five, six years than they were before that."
"Pricing can be considered as per market competition."
"You purchase it as a bundle and the price is comparable."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"It pays to go back and get the best price you can from your supplier. The first offer is not always at the best discount."
"I've sold arrays for as little $20,000 USD and as high as $300,000 USD."
"There are products available in market with comparatively lower costs."
"We purchased it for four years, and it wasn't expensive. It was reasonable. Every company has a different agreement with NetApp. We got everything we wanted with all the bells and whistles and all the features and functionalities."
"The NetApp FAS series price is very competitive compared to other solutions on the market it is a good choice."
"It is expensive."
"It is a moderately low-priced platform."
"It's not cheap, but at the same time, it's also inexpensive. It's somewhere in between."
"I don't recall the price, but in general, pricing can always be better."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
26%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem?
Many factors affect purchasing directly from IBM, often involving a multi-step process. Customers, especially in bank...
What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem?
The deduplication technology in IBM FlashSystem needs significant improvement. Other vendors like NetApp ( /products/...
Which SAN product would you choose: IBM FlashSystem (FS9500) vs PureFlash Array/X NVMe vs PureFlash Array/XL NVMe?
Have you considered a NetApp FAS Storage for your NAS needs? I am sure it fits very well.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp FAS Series?
The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is not cheap, but in comparison to other vendors, NetApp FAS Series is affordable be...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
IBM Storwize
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
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
Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM FlashSystem vs. NetApp FAS Series and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.