We performed a comparison between IBM FlashSystems and Pure Storage FlashArray based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: PeerSpot users find Pure Storage FlashArray easy to use and say it offers very low latency and excellent efficiency of their deduplication technology. The features in data protection, snapshotting, and replication between data centers and sites are better than many other solutions in today’s robust marketplace.
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"The solution is scalable."
"The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."
"FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"This solution is really user friendly. It also offers good performance and is highly reliable."
"No queuing and high ops, speed, and performance."
"IBM FlashSystem is flexible, quick, and has a solid design."
"The solution is very easy to configure and use."
"It's very easy to manage."
"The most valuable features are flexibility and performance."
"The solution is scalable and has varying degrees of scalability."
"At the FlashSystem level, customers are especially fond of multi-tier and distributed rate systems, particularly the dynamic rate six arrays."
"The most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray is its high stability level."
"The most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray are management and administration user-friendliness, provisioning, and performance."
"The solution is very reliable."
"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."
"It worked flawlessly."
"The most valuable feature is replication."
"The management is simple in Pure Storage FlashArray."
"Provides fast access and is user-friendly."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."
"We have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."
"In the next release having the next level of high-speed performance would be great."
"This solution could be improved by offering greater amounts of storage."
"The installation is not easy. You need to have extensive knowledge to handle it."
"The technical support in my region is satisfactory but it could improve. Support is very important for customers and downtime is very critical for us. We would like onsite or complete technical support which can help us to minimize our downtime or if problems occur."
"The only issue my team faced was transferring the data from the old system to IBM FlashSystem, which is an area for improvement in the solution."
"Additional licenses might be added for the fundamental licenses, such as those for copying and flash copies."
"Cloud file sharing is an area that needs improvement."
"The product needs to improve their scalability."
"The GUI could improve, it could be more intuitive. There is hidden functionality."
"Areas for improvement would be the financial operations. In the next release, I would like to see a NAS protocol included."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve by being more secure."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve in the area of cryptographic information in the consoles. The user-friendliness could improve. The Pure Storage FlashArray team should come and log into the system with their maintenance credentials and then pull out the information as evidence of cryptography."
"The price could be better."
"The price of Pure Storage FlashArray could be better."
"There was some complexity in the initial setup."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve the recent file storage capabilities because it is lacking a lot of features."
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.
IBM FlashSystem is ranked 6th in All-Flash Storage with 38 reviews while Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 44 reviews. IBM FlashSystem is rated 8.6, while Pure Storage FlashArray 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 Pure Storage FlashArray writes "Provides protection against ransomware threats with immutable snapshots, and it is well known for its scalability, ease of use, and non-disruptive upgrades". IBM FlashSystem is most compared with Dell PowerStore, HPE Primera, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage and Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, VMware vSAN, HPE Nimble Storage and Dell Unity XT. See our IBM FlashSystem vs. Pure Storage FlashArray 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.