IBM FlashSystem vs NetApp V-Series [EOL] comparison

"Biggest return is the easy migration and upgrade path as well as the scalability options, with IBM adding compression and deduplication in its portfolio, as well as garbage collection and space reclamation."

"Technical support is very proactive and we receive alerts when they are visiting the data center or asking for permission to change a part."

"This storage has incredible performance, the I/O is awesome."

"It is very, very stable, and we have never had issues."

"The most valuable features are performance and reliability; there are many functions, so the whole product is good."

"The valuable features are high availability, compression, and a failover mechanism. It's a very highly available storage solution."

"The most valuable features are deduplication and compression."

"The most valuable features are flexibility and performance."

"You have the ability to connect a third-party storage back end, EMC VMAX in our case, and have all NetApp functionalities available."

"We are very happy with this solution as it brings us the scalability and stability of Data Ontap and the versatility of NetApp solutions in order to provide different types of services for our customers' requirements (NAS, CIFS, FC / FCoE)."

"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."

"I know they have a flashcopy manager, but it is extra software, an additional license, and some customers don't like to add addition costs to their infrastructure. If IBM could create, or include snapshot management within the GUI, that would really be helpful."

"Deduplication feature is not mature and it is significantly increasing the latency."

"The technical support in general of IBM, in my personal opinion, could be much better."

"The price is very costly."

"The main issue is the speed in terms of accessing the data."

"Replication features need improvement. Currently, they are there in the product, but I'm not sure as to how it works exactly."

"I would like to have a larger disk. Right now, you can get 57 terabytes in a shelf. Once they get the larger disk and you get larger capacities, it'll be even better."

"We have had some performance issues."

"According to my experience, for certain HPC environments, we encounter certain Memory/CPU limitations when we have a large number of IOPS."

"The integration is already included in the license cost of IBM FlashSystem. The integration is very easy. You get the IBM storage core with all software, firmware, and upgrades. EMC provides the features in the box, but they are not free for customers. There is a licensing cost for features. We have yearly licensing, but IBM has also provided a new option where you pay as you go. They provide a big box, and I pay, for example, for 10 terabytes. If I exceed 10 terabytes, IBM will charge for the new storage after 10 terabytes. It is a good opportunity in the market for using the storage as a cloud and paying as you go."

"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."

"The price depends of the technology that our customers need. The price can come at a lower cost but this may increase as storage is added."

"For a yearly license, it is about $100,000. There are no additional costs. The entire system is included."

"This solution is expensive compared to other solutions."

"The price is a little bit high so is rated a six out of ten."

"Regarding licensing make sure you add at least three years software maintenance from IBM at the beginning, because you will not be able to download firmware updates or any fixes/patches without this."