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IBM FlashSystem vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
1.0
Organizations reduced costs and improved performance with Pure FlashArray X NVMe, achieving quick ROI and efficient resource management.
Sentiment score
6.7
IBM FlashSystem offers easy migration, improved performance, seamless integration, cost efficiency, and quick ROI, enhancing user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
6.9
Nutanix Unified Storage boosts ROI by cutting costs, enhancing efficiency, improving management, and strengthening data security for users.
By opting for the gold subscription every three years, you get a free upgrade to the latest controller release.
If you wait more than seven years to buy another one, you get a return on your investment.
The solution can comfortably be stretched from five to seven years without any failures, ensuring a long-lasting return.
We have seen return on investment compared to other OEMs, which took approximately three years after implementing IBM FlashSystem.
For me, the biggest return on investment when using this solution is that we do not have to have much support staff to run it.
The scalability challenge with previous systems is lessened with Nutanix since we can expand by adding new hardware without needing migrations.
We are saving approximately 20% to 25% compared with the competition.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Pure FlashArray X NVMe's technical support is praised for responsiveness, despite occasional follow-up issues, earning high customer satisfaction.
Sentiment score
7.0
IBM FlashSystem support reviews are mixed, with praise for response speed but criticism for regional expertise and complex escalations.
Sentiment score
7.5
Nutanix Unified Storage support is responsive and knowledgeable, though complex issue resolution can occasionally face delays.
We also had one outage where a controller of one of the products had failed and had to be replaced on-site.
Customers always have their issues resolved promptly.
Pure has good storage.
Customers of alternatives like Dell and Hitachi enjoy more reliable and comprehensive support services directly from vendors rather than third-party subsidiaries.
I rate the technical support from IBM as a ten.
IBM customer support is responsible, efficient, and responsive, though it is expensive.
They come on the call, start troubleshooting immediately, and resolve issues effectively.
They are very knowledgeable, and if they can't solve the problem, they find the answer within a day or so.
I would give the customer service and technical support a ten out of ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers scalable storage with low latency, easy upgrades, though capacity customization and high costs are noted.
Sentiment score
7.3
IBM FlashSystem is praised for its scalable, flexible expansion, suiting diverse enterprises and integrating well with current systems.
Sentiment score
7.8
Nutanix Unified Storage is highly scalable and flexible, allowing seamless expansion and integration without downtime, despite initial complexity.
It is highly scalable.
It is suitable for both medium-sized and enterprise businesses.
It hasn't broken down anytime in the last six to seven years, despite hurricanes, earthquakes, and power outages.
For larger enterprises, scalability is an issue as the price becomes prohibitive.
The problem arises when migrating data to a later IBM FlashSystem version due to issues with firmware compatibility.
The scalability of IBM FlashSystem is exceptional, and I rate it as a nine.
This means you don't have to buy everything upfront; you can buy what you need and add more as you grow, which is advantageous.
These three components utilize scalability tools, enabling storage addition to nodes and supporting independent, linear performance growth.
I find the scalability of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) to be excellent, and I would rate it a ten based on my clients' requirements.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Pure Storage offers exceptional stability and reliability with outstanding support, consistently achieving high user ratings for performance and service.
Sentiment score
7.6
IBM FlashSystem is generally stable and reliable; however, some users experience issues due to specific configurations or hardware conditions.
Sentiment score
8.0
Nutanix Unified Storage is praised for stability, high availability, and minimal disruptions, ensuring dependable performance and quick support resolution.
During the eight years, there have been no problems such as hardware failure or stopping.
I would rate the stability of the solution as a ten out of ten.
I would rate the stability of the product at seven out of ten.
Customers have infrastructure that is 100% stable.
The firmware and software engine have fewer bugs, which enhances operational efficiency.
We have not experienced these issues with Nutanix, which I attribute to the all-flash technology, the quality of their platform, and the responsiveness of the hyper-converged infrastructure.
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is very stable.
It automatically triggers tasks, causing performance issues.
 

Room For Improvement

Pure FlashArray X requires cost-effective improvements in UI, integration, cloud features, multitenancy, analytics, backup, AI, and scalability.
IBM FlashSystem needs improvements in capacity, GUI, support, data reduction, cloud integration, and stability for better competitiveness.
Nutanix Unified Storage requires enhancements in implementation, analysis, technical support, FTP compatibility, management, integration, security, and usability.
We would appreciate a built-in transparent failover in the next release to eliminate the need for a separate metro cluster.
I'm eagerly anticipating the roadmap's promise of introducing multiple controllers, which could significantly boost scalability and resilience.
We mostly rely on long-term releases. We don't need the most up-to-date features, but we need a reliable environment.
Despite marketing promises, these features do not function effectively and can impact performance.
There is room for improvement in the troubleshooting part, specifically related to IBM Spectrum for Insight.
An additional function that could be helpful is reducing the time it takes to delete volumes, especially if they are compressed or deduplicated.
The main concern is pricing, which could deter some customers; addressing this would enhance its appeal.
The system should move towards AI-driven optimization and enhance S3 object storage capabilities.
System downtime can disturb the entire ecosystem and impact all applications.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers see Pure FlashArray X NVMe as a justified premium investment due to performance and comprehensive licensing.
IBM FlashSystem pricing is competitive but can be higher; users stress evaluating total costs, including software and support.
Nutanix Unified Storage offers competitive pricing, valued for features and ROI, but may be costly for smaller users.
While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits.
The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there.
I would give it a nine out of ten in terms of costliness.
To install or upgrade any software features, the cost is high, which makes it challenging for smaller companies who do not require advanced features like deduplication or compression typically needed by larger organizations.
Compared to buying three or four vendor solutions, it is much cheaper.
The cost has doubled for the same amount of data, which was a challenge when presenting use case justifications for the increased cost.
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) has definitely helped reduce our total cost of ownership.
 

Valuable Features

Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers exceptional performance, reliability, scalability, and seamless VMware integration, enhancing workload efficiency and user experience.
IBM FlashSystem, known for high performance and reliability, excels in storage virtualization and advanced features, enhancing data efficiency.
Nutanix Unified Storage delivers easy management, high availability, and integration with robust security and flexible storage options.
Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator.
The platform's robust features include excellent sustainability tracking, and a comprehensive dashboard offering insights into IOPS, bandwidth, performance, and virtual activities.
Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen.
There is a significant amount of data reduction, achieving a ratio of one to three.
There is built-in compression, a data reduction feature, and artificial intelligence-driven insights that calculate warnings and errors to redirect to customers automatically.
When integrated properly into the environment and configured according to the guidelines, it provides a very solid infrastructure that does the job on demand.
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is appreciated for its fault tolerance and redundancy at the cluster level, which ensures reliable storage of files, folders, and other information accessible on the client side.
The cybersecurity features of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) when dealing with unstructured data, such as ransomware threats, provide the ability to detect and back up block-based storage, allowing me to restore repositories or sets of block storage with one button click, which is automatic.
My experience with using Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) for data-intensive workloads is that we have many SQL Servers and they perform much better than they did when we used hybrid converged previously.
 

Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
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Ranking in All-Flash Storage
14th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
IBM FlashSystem
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
NAS (5th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (2nd)
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (3rd), Public Cloud Storage Services (5th), File and Object Storage (3rd), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem is 6.5%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is 0.7%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh - PeerSpot reviewer
Supports efficient storage management through volume snapshots and offers reliable non-disruptive upgrades
I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, but it does not show the performance by 4K byte unit. It displays IOPS and bandwidth, but IOPS is about real use, and I want to know how many IOPS are currently running in 4K byte units. I cannot see that IOPS because most storage systems report their performance by 4K byte unit. I want to see Pure Storage performance by 4K byte unit to compare with other storage or other internal NVMe SSD.
OmarIsmail1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers high performance and dependable support for fast storage needs
The most valuable feature of IBM FlashSystem 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.
Amarnath Charugundla - PeerSpot reviewer
Unified management and cost-effectiveness lead to positive experiences and future savings
Improvement is necessary wherein the memory or storage should not breach 90%, because if breached, it becomes unmanageable. We have to set alerts or CPU triggering for 95% for the first warning. Other activities on nodes or file systems should be properly maintained. We must monitor the dashboard for P1, P2 alerts in the Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) file share system including SMB, NFS, objects, and blocks. Attention should be maintained for any alerts such as CPU, memory, and RAM alerts, as exceeding these creates issues within teams. If triggered to 95% and forgotten, it crosses the SLA breach, causing disturbances to application, web, and platform teams. Continuous monitoring on the Nutanix dashboard is essential. Even a highly experienced person in Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) cannot provide a 10 rating out of 10 because it is a vast system. I would rate it eight from my perspective.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
30%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could ...
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/...
What do you like most about Nutanix Unified Storage?
Nutanix has excellent product documentation available on their portals, written in simple, easy-to-understand language.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix Unified Storage?
I have no idea about the pricing of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) as I'm not the decision authority for pricing. Gene...
What needs improvement with Nutanix Unified Storage?
While there are good aspects, I would like to see improvements in networking configuration, particularly regarding ov...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
IBM Storwize
Nutanix Files Storage, Nutanix Volumes Block Storage, Nutanix Objects Storage
 

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
JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM FlashSystem vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.