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IBM FlashSystem vs SolidFire 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
4th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
219
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM FlashSystem
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
NAS (7th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (4th)
SolidFire
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
33rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 7.5%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem is 4.6%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolidFire is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray7.5%
IBM FlashSystem4.6%
SolidFire0.8%
Other87.1%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
OmarIsmail1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Technical Specialist II at Clicks Group
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.
Ramil Cerrada - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution lead at Globe Mobile
A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance
The most significant benefit lies in its exceptional performance, driven by its Flash-based architecture. This enhances routing speed and, consequently, database performance. The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance which is particularly valuable for tasks like data mining, where quick results are essential.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Most of the problems that we had in the past with the performance in IOPS have disappeared; it has been a great improvement for our customers' services."
"Lone segmentation is simpler and more agile. It's improved the velocity in overall provisioning from project to operation."
"Their technical support is excellent. It's the best out of any of the vendors we work with."
"It's just very easy for general block storage."
"Overall, Pure Storage FlashArray has never let us down in front of customers so far."
"This solution has improved the way our organization functions through its reliability and consistent platform for storage and has helped us to simplify storage because the management tools make everything a lot easier."
"All updates, upgrades, and hardware work are all performed on-line with no impact."
"One of the lesser sung advantages was when we started running our interface engine on Pure Storage; the ability to process messages and pass them through in our organization skyrocketed purely because of a disk that I owned which we were getting out of Pure Storage."
"Parsing is the most valuable feature inside IBM Spectrum Virtualize software, which allows us to virtualize any third-party storage for IBM or non-IBM systems."
"IBM FlashSystem is a powerful effective storage solution. Additionally, it is user-friendly, anyone can use it."
"The most valuable feature in demand is virtualization and its support storage of virtualization features."
"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."
"It is a good storage solution, but there many other options out there with more resources."
"The price-performance ratio is most valuable."
"Customer service is very good."
"High availability and enhanced security; Proven dependability; Data compression with hardware acceleration; Advanced copy services features are all in this product."
"The square footage for doing development is at a premium when dealing with government networks, and to be able to put a lot of IOPS in a lot of high-speed performing drives in a very small location which requires very little HVAC with very little power is very valuable to us."
"Being able to provide quality of service as promised."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its scalability."
"Individual settings you can put on each individual volume, if you want to do that."
"With this solution, you can actually do more with less, having more tenants and more applications with less space and a lower dollar per gigabyte by increasing utilization up to four or five times."
"The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance which is particularly valuable for tasks like data mining, where quick results are essential."
"One of the most valuable thing aspect of the solution is the fact that it's all in one and all in a very small physical footprint."
"The difference between SolidFire and other storage is that it is a stand alone storage; no one has that good storage software or that scalability and performance."
 

Cons

"Just some nit picky stuff, like allowing servers and volumes to be grouped. Therefore, it would easier to work with them in the GUI."
"We did have one hiccup with the integration of vCenter. When we were installing Pure Storage, we were using vCenter 6.7, which defaults to the HTML5 Web Client."
"In the next release, I would like to see file-level encryption."
"With the introduction of Albireo technology and 81x data de-duplication reduction, Pure Storage better start looking at more effective de-duplication techniques."
"We haven't seen ROI yet."
"It was not proactive communication."
"I would like to see a Nagios monitoring plugin which watches the health and performance of the system. The only one available just checks volume capacity."
"I would like to migrate to the cloud in the future and know how that would actually work with this product."
"The interface could improve in IBM FlashSystem."
"When you provision a datastore auto-format takes a long time .. to disable is you have to redo the whole process. this is a bit difficult if you want to make adjustments on the datastore"
"The several major crashes resulted in the entire weekends being lost in rebuilding the array and then for restoring the data."
"I would like to see an improvement in the handling of large amounts of rights."
"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."
"GUI interface should be enhanced more as there is some issues in copy services GUI interfaces should be enhanced as this will not let the customer doing wrong configurations"
"Technical Support: Not so good in my country because they only have a few people with great knowledge about FlashSystem."
"The marketing could be improved."
"A little better segregation of the multi-tenancy. Right now, it's just VLAN-specific, that's all you can do."
"The tool should improve its initial cost which is expensive compared to other products."
"They could make the mNode more user-friendly. Now you need to configure and add nodes by CLI and it’s not really easy to manage."
"However, when we wanted to change how we want to do it and basically start it over, do some hands on training with some of the architects who would be working on it, one of the issues was there wasn't an admin password at the BIOS level to restart it over."
"Though it is a stable solution, its users may face some security issues at times...The security provided by the solution is one area that can be improved."
"We are looking for, potentially, on the Active IQ reporting side, to do reporting based on the datastore. Right now, I can report on the whole SolidFire, or I can report on just a certain datastore or a volume. I'd like to take all of my VDI infrastructure, which as an example would be multiple datastores."
"The upcoming release is supposed to have much richer VMware virtual volume (VVOL) support, which is something we're very interested in."
"I would like to see more of the fiber channel connect, legacy-type, Linux-type front-ends to it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray is reasonable."
"Pure Storage has not helped us to reduce our licensing costs."
"The price was more favorable than Dell EMC."
"In terms of other contemporary arrays, Pure is something you need to have a use case for, as it's not priced for you to buy one off-the-shelf. If you have a use case, heavy lift Oracle Databases, any type of noticeable virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), or need low latency and high throughput, you should consider all-flash at least and probably Pure Storage."
"The price of the solution is not expensive."
"There is an annual or perpetual license required for this solution."
"It is light years beyond anything else with the same price point."
"We purchased a license to use this solution and we pay for the storage ourselves."
"The total storage capacity vs price is still quite high for the IBM Flash Array."
"I'd rate the basic licensing and the Virtualize software a ten out of ten, and the extra Spectrum and other an eight out of ten."
"I find the pricing of the solution to be very reasonable."
"The price is a little bit high so is rated a six out of ten."
"Among IBM, Dell EMC, and Pure Storage, IBM is the cheapest. The price is also based on our location, the size of our entity, and our regular annual purchases from them. We are a very big IBM customer, so we normally get very high discounts. We are not a big customer of Pure Storage. We don't buy that much from Pure Storage per year. Everything is included in the price. There is no extra license for different functions."
"Overall the price of the solution is expensive and this includes the license."
"The pricing is competitive in our country."
"If five is a good price and one is a high price, I would rate the price a two or three out of five."
"We would probably use SolidFire more, except we're getting more bang for our buck with our purchases of ONTAP right now, and the deal we made with NetApp, so it's more of just a cost decision"
"It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for what you get."
"On a scale where one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the solution between three and four. It is an expensive solution."
"The price of this solution is more expensive than others."
"Based on what I heard from other people, its price was on the higher side."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Construction Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business66
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise156
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise60
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem?
The pricing is high; storage solutions are always expensive. I do not know if the price needs to be reviewed, but it ...
What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem?
As far as I know, IBM FlashSystem has already improved, but I do not see room for improvement. It is simple to use an...
What is your primary use case for IBM FlashSystem?
We are not working with Object Storage or Storage Protect; we are working with SAN storage and LUN storage. I am a co...
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Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
IBM Storwize
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
California Public Utilities Commission, RFA, 1&1, Ultimate Software , Endicia, ezVerify, MercadoLibre, Sungard Availability Services, ServInt, Elastx, Hosted Network, Colt, Crucial, iWeb, Datapipe, Databarracks
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM FlashSystem vs. SolidFire and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.