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IBM PureSystems vs VxRail comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

IBM PureSystems
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (8th), Converged Infrastructure for SAP HANA (2nd)
VxRail
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
HCI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM PureSystems is designed for Converged Infrastructure and holds a mindshare of 5.7%, up 4.7% compared to last year.
VxRail, on the other hand, focuses on HCI, holds 9.3% mindshare, down 14.8% since last year.
Converged Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM PureSystems5.7%
FlexPod XCS12.7%
HPE ConvergedSystem11.0%
Other70.6%
Converged Infrastructure
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VxRail9.3%
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.0%
VMware vSAN7.8%
Other73.9%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

it_user6186 - PeerSpot reviewer
Independent Analyst and Advisory Consultant at Server StorageIO - www.storageio.com
PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
PART I For a certain generation of IBM faithful or followers the recently announced PureFlex and PureApplication systems might give a sense of DejaVu perhaps even causing some to wonder if they just woke up from a long Rip Van Winkle type nap. Yet for another generation who may not yet be future…
AO
Technical architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Streamlines resource management through centralized automation and automatic upgrades
The most valuable feature of VxRail is the VxRail Manager, which centralizes resources like storage built with vSAN. It provides a unified way to access these resources, making management straightforward. Another benefit is the fully automated upgrade process, which is completed with just one click through the VxRail Manager. This centralization and automation enhance efficiency significantly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The strengths of the system is how the Flex scales from a very powerful, next generation BladeCenter all the way up to an IaaS platform."
"The feature that I have found most valuable with VxRail is its upgrade. Because if you talk about the normal ESX process you have to upgrade the firmware, the bios, and you have to manage the compatibility. You have to do a lot of things. But in the case of VxRail, it's a single upgrade, end to end. You simply upload the bundle, click next, it will do some pre-checks, if those pre-checks pass, it will update everything one by one. It will put one ESX in the maintenance and move other VM's to another mode. There is no downtime to the VM's."
"The solution is like a rock."
"It supports VDI deployment, enabling easy use for running different platforms in similar environments."
"The stability is very good. We haven't had any issues at all. There aren't bugs or glitches. There aren't system crashes or anything of that nature."
"An organization can get ROI because the solution is scalable, and it's cheaper to expand and add more resources than the traditional solution."
"The most valuable features are ease of management and ease of applying updates."
"Updating the product has been very easy."
"An HCI environment is more cost-effective than utilizing a traditional SAN, because with storage and computing altogether, you don't necessarily have to involve the networking team as much and you don't necessarily need somebody that understands Brocade's or Cisco Fiber Channel switches, because you have it all right there."
 

Cons

"The FSM does not quite deliver in the areas it plays too. A fairly sluggish interface that is more complex and less streamlined than it perhaps could be, holds it back and deployment of certain functionality from the switches requires more user intervention than feels necessary."
"There are still some features which aren't built into Cisco, like virtualized networking, that use its applications. However, these can be purchased through another product as an additional licensing cost to us."
"We do not use the storage part of VxRail, we use Pure Storage to map out the VxRail because the disk performance from Pure Storage was far better than the performance of the disk on the inside of VxRail."
"VxRail's scalability is a bit of a challenge."
"The upgrade packages require a lot of bandwidth. This could be reduced for an improved experience."
"The update for the graphics integration and the media drivers isn't included in the VxRail update."
"There could be better documentation and they should allow everyone to access the simulator."
"I would like to see VxRail add duplication features to its hybrid solution."
"There are multiple things that have space for improvement. The most important are the features related to VMware, vSphere, vCenter, etc."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Since VMware is detached from Dell, the solution's pricing is a bit higher than before."
"We pay for annual support from VxRail."
"The solution can be pricey depending on the project."
"Licensing and price for this solution is reasonable."
"The tool is expensive."
"The price would be in the middle to the expensive range. It is not cheap."
"The price of VxRail highly depends on your design and your configuration. For example, if I connect Pure Storage directly to ESXi hosts and bypass Fiber Channel switches and I will save on money. However, it reduces my redundancy and makes it not as robust of deployment and easy to manage. An HCI environment, it's more cost-effective than utilizing a traditional SAN. With storage and computing altogether, you don't necessarily have to involve the networking team as much. I don't necessarily need somebody that understands Brocade's or Cisco Fiber Channel Switches, because I have it all right there."
"There is a permanent vSAN license included since it is required, but vCenter\ESXi host licensing should be validated in the purchase process."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business42
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

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How does HPE Nimble Storage compare to VxRail?
HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one, zero rule. That means I need three copies of my data on two different types of me...
What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?
While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an engineered system. The choice to choose which technology depends on two major fac...
What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?
VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if the user is working with a l...
 

Also Known As

PureSystems
VCE VxRail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ABT Online, Ascent Solutions Inc., Desert Research Institute (DRI), Reflexis, Esri, Avcilar Municipality, ValeCard, Computer Gross Italia S.p.A., DynaFront, Silvermoon Business Systems, Diasoft, BPTP, Temenos, Innovation Group, OneTree Solutions
World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Rackspace Technology and others in Converged Infrastructure. Updated: October 2026.
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