IBM FlashSystem Reviews

Our entire company uses the solution for block storage. The solution is easily administered and maintained by four technicians. 

The solution has a very compact physical footprint that is high performance and easy to administer.

The solution allows for easy migrations from previous products or vendors via its embedded storage virtualization function.

The solution has a low number of NVME host attachments at 16 per IO group over the fiber channel. This is magnitudes lower than competing products. 

The 8.5 release for the 7300 and 9500 Flash Systems no longer allows IO group migrations. The replacement volume mobility is not as seamless as IO group migrations.

The Kubernetes CSI driver and the open-stack cinder driver still rely on SSH instead of native APIs for configuration changes. This reduces the limit of outstanding configuration changes that can be submitted to storage in bulk. 

The solution has not yet adopted Swordfish APIs and its SMI-S APIs are legacy and depreciated. Swordfish's are vendor-independent APIs made by the Storage Industry Association that allow you to manage storage no matter your vendor. These new generation APIs were released after ten years but IBM has not yet jumped on board. With a multi-vendor environment like ours, implementations are easier with universal APIs. 

Redhat Enterprise Linux clones such as CentOS, AlmaLinux, or Rocky Linux are not supported. All are binary compatible and should be supported because they are fundamentally the same product with different branding. 

It would be helpful to have a public page listing the minimum supported firmware levels for HBAs from different vendors. We have run into bugs with fiber channel cards that were solved with firmware updates. It was a laborious process to cross-reference vendor information so it would be helpful for IBM to provide recommended baselines for firmware. 

I have been using the solution for four years. 

The solution is scalable within reason. We lease it based on a four-year forecast and then return it when the lease term ends. The solution can scale up a bit but we haven't really changed configurations during our lease terms. 

Technical support is very proactive and we receive alerts when they are visiting the data center or asking for permission to change a part. We are alerted to part failures before we even have a chance to find them in logs. 

I rate technical support a ten out of ten. 

Positive

The setup is quite straightforward and easy. 

The rack mount took thirty minutes because we had to cable the device. Deployment took about ten minutes. 

I implemented the solution because it is an easy product to set up. It is a pleasure to occasionally get out of the office and assist the data center. 

Previously, integrators helped with installations but weren't utilized much. 

The pricing is competitive in our country. In some countries, IBM is the most expensive vendor but that is not the case for us. 

We also negotiated a 60% discount directly with IBM because we are the largest consumer of enterprise hardware in the country. 

Each solution has its pluses and minuses. Pure, Dell EMC, and all other products have room for improvement. 

IBM is a good vendor with an excellent product, but the software side of the company still needs improvement. 

I rate the solution a seven out of ten. All top-tier solutions have room for improvement so I never rate them higher than a seven. 

The solution is primarily a file infrastructure. It contains all the virtual machines for our company.

The solution is still new to us and needs to be explored more.

The documentation is excellent so far. 

The solution uses all flash. The connection to the server is a fiber connection. It's very fast. 

The possibility of expanding is very good. It offers very good flexibility.

The price point is pretty decent. 

The product is user-friendly. The setup process is easy.

We've found the solution to be very stable so far.

We need to spend more time with the solution in order to detect any shortcomings. So far, we haven't really seen any.

The design is a little old-fashioned and could be updated. The rack is very primitive and designed in an older style. 

I've only been using the solution for two months. It hasn't been that long just yet. It could be maybe less than that, as we just recently installed it and we decided to go for it about three months back. About one and a half months ago the implementation was completed and we started using it.

The stability of the solution is very good. We haven't detected any bugs or glitches. it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

The solution has the potential to scale quite well. If a company needs to expand it, it can.

However, it is a hardware, and you do need to take scaling into account early on. We can grow with the hardware we have and put on new drives, et cetera.

We have approximately 200 employees, and anyone that's connected to the network, those files are stored on this particular solution. Therefore, even if they aren't aware they are using the product, they, in fact, are.

Personally, I haven't directly dealt with technical support. That said, apparently, it looks like it is quite good. The support is proactive. My system is already connected to IBM tech centers. They can highlight predictive failures, for example. My assumption is that they are quite good, although I can't yet peak from personal experience.

We previously used Dell EqualLogic. We switched, as we had used it for close to six years and it needed to be replaced. Initially, we thought to replace it with another Dell EqualLogic product, however, after comparing different brands, we landed on this.  

The initial setup is definitely not complex. It's not difficult. They make it straightforward and user-friendly. A company should have no problems implementing it.

The price is quite good. We find it to be rather reasonable overall. When you compare it to other brands especially, the price is quite good.

We did look at other solutions, including and updated Dell EqualLogic and HPE.

We are just a customer and an end-user.

We are using the latest version of the solution at this point.

I'd recommend the solution. Everything is fiber from start to finish. I don't need to use a fiber switch. It's an expensive component. However, IBM says I don't need it and I can do I direct line from my own source. It's a supported solution. It's very good.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten so far.

IBM FlashSystem is the best solution for storage virtualization. 

The solution should improve its pricing and the mechanism in the reduction pool. 

I have been using the solution for 15 years. 

IBM FlashSystem is scalable. 

IBM FlashSystem's deployment is easy. You can manage everything from the GUI. IBM provides replacement and spare parts. 

IBM FlashSystem offers easy management and durability. I rate it an eight point five out of ten. 

We use it for our databases.

The speed, performance, and stability are the best features of IBM FlashSystem.

It would be good to have historical graphs showing data for a month. Right now, only live graphs are available.

Space reclamation also needs to be improved.

If you want to expand, you cannot expand the disc enclosure. You have to buy a total individual node. Sometimes, this is difficult because we are just looking for capacity and not a node.

I've been using this solution for the past two years.

It is a stable solution, and I would give the stability a rating between eight and ten.

I would rate the scalability at seven out of ten.

IBM's technical support has been good, and I would rate them at nine on a scale from one to ten.

Positive

The initial setup is easy, and I'd give it an eight out of ten. It took about half a day to set up IBM FlashSystem.

I would highly recommend IBM FlashSystem and would rate it at nine out of ten. It is definitely worth the cost.

We implement this solution for our customers, including African banks who use it for storage. 

The storage capacity of this solution could be improved. 

I have been using this solution for six years. 

This is a scalable solution. 

The technical support for this solution is good. They used to help us when the motherboard of Power Systems broke. Their response times are really fast. 

The initial setup is straightforward but does have some complexity in the middle. 

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.

I would recommend this solution because it offers good performance and the systems are fast. In terms of dealing with Oracle, it's really a good choice for customers that have their infrastructure that needs balance. 

I would rate this solution ten out of ten. 

Our primary use case is we are required to share storage. We share and cluster the application and databases. We use the IBM Flash System as a tier of storage. We have SND, cache, SST storage system, and staff storage. When performance or database is required we provide the storage tier from the SAS-based storage. It is a hybrid storage system that combines both SAS and SN storage.

The data is the main factor. The security encryption of the data with storage has been the biggest improvement to our organization.

The most valuable feature in demand is virtualization and its support storage of virtualization features.

In the next release having the next level of high-speed performance would be great. We should see an increase in the FC board to thirty-two G, sixty-four G UBS port for the performance to be readily available. 

I have been using IBM FlashSystem for the past two and a half years.

IBM FlashSystem is a very stable solution and its default rate is low. In the past four to five months we only received one default.

The scalability is excellent. We can add a storage box as required and the capability is increased on that particular box. In one year we export our data to the boxes and we have doubled.

We previously used HP three Power and DX four hundred and ten storage. We needed the virtualization feature and IBM FlashSystem was the only one that offered that.

The initial setup is complex because it requires a more extensive knowledge base. There are multiple parts from storage, and data parts, and the configuration zoning of each of them.

We used a third party and had it deployed by IBM.

We can see a return on investment on the technical side. IBM FlashSystems is stored in a centralized way and with the original fee. We can protect the time and we can restore the application in case of any disaster.

I would rate IBM FlashSystem a nine out of ten.

The most valuable features of IBM FlashSystem are performance and security.

The interface could improve in IBM FlashSystem.

I have been using IBM FlashSystem for approximately four years.

IBM FlashSystem has high availability.

The scalability of IBM FlashSystem has been good.

The technical support from IBM FlashSystem is very good.

We have not used other solutions other than IBM FlashSystem.

The initial setup of IBM FlashSystem was easy.

The price of IBM FlashSystem is a little high because you pay a premium because the solution is from IBM. We had paid for the SLA prior to using the solution.

If someone wants a robust, scalable, and consistent behavior for their site, then they should use IBM FlashSystem.

I rate IBM FlashSystem a nine out of ten.

We used the solution exclusively for block storage. Over time, it added compression features and now even NVMe. 

It's perfectly suited for an on-premise solution or for providing a base for cloud solutions, VMware workloads, IBM i-series, IBM AIX, IBM Power, Linux, and Windows compute. In other words, the complete server stack. It is something others actually can't offer. All of this can be operated from within the same solution. 

It definitely has a strong plus in environments where you actually have such different server solutions in place.

It's a really reliable, powerful platform. It's a mature product. It's like a BMW that evolves consistently. 

There is no need to change or buy another company's solution. It came with storage virtualization and options to move/migrate volumes around and migrates easily even before you actually have svMotion on VMware. 

It can be stretched. There is a Site Recovery Adapter. It has backup integration using flash copies. You can build a disaster recovery solution around it. IBM has its famous Redbooks where you can enter in the best practices. You name it, they've got it!

It offers separate IO Modules for connectivity additions, for compression to offload the CPU. 

It offers storage virtualization to ease migrations. You can build storage clusters and migrate data and easily configure partner relationships. 

The solution offers excellent performance! Flashcopies come in handy with backup solution integrations. The site recovery adapter for VMware Site recovery manager integration is great. Everything is working like a charm. 

I've used it in a banking environment in combination with VMware Site Recovery Manager and Site Recovery Adapter (SRA) - a wonderful combination. It saves you headaches building a recovery plan. Most of all, it works.

IBM's solution has come a long way and has had different milestones/features have been introduced. I would position the 7200 in the upper midrange class as it has lots of features - more than, for example, EMC Unity/VNXe. It doesn't lack anything, really. One could argue that NAS or S3 is not available to it, but I prefer other types of storage optimised for that job.

It is slightly more expensive, however, it all depends on your supplier. Licenses are volume-based. Larger companies with more TB usually are better off as the price per TB decreases the bigger you go. I would definitely recommend this platform!

I've known the predecessors of the IBM Flashsystem, being the Storwize 7200 (Gen 1 to 3) and SVC Front End Servers, from the time they were running on code 6.2 way back in 2011.

We have never ever had an incident with it making the infra go on its knees, nor did we have any datacorruption ever.

All storage solutions have bugs and all have their correctives that might not address an issue on the first occurance or under all circumstances. When the system is stressed and under some specific (nonetheless rare) conditions , the developped code might trigger a reboot of a controller node  to avoid data corruption. A system with 2 controllers is resilient enough on its own and a reboot of a node to prevent e.g. cache merge problems or alike is not harmfull.

To me, the need to evict a controller node and warm boot it is actually intentionally a safety precaution that avoids data corruption, something we all want to stay out as much as possible. It's as reliable as any other product in that respect. All solutions that I know off like DELL EMC Unity, Fujitsue DX-series or 3PAR Storeserv respond in the same manner to avoid datacorruption. I've seen it the most on the SVC (code 7.1/7.2 around 2012/2013  , but not on the  Storewize v7000 Gen1 to Gen2+ solutions, though I have to admit they all had about 40 to 50% of the load of the SVC.

You can build clusters with it and IO Groups.

IBM is able to deliver a support organization with well-trained people. IBM's redpieces/papers and solutions designs are published and offer real references. You can develop your own skills and become an expert or fallback on IBM Supreme Support if you feel less comfortable. 

Positive

We used IBM FastT/DS Storage (LSI Logic) with/without IBM SVC and IBM v7000 Gen1/Gen2/Gen3, shifting from legacy/traditional storage to storage virtualization.

It's quite intuitive. I always enjoyed that, whatever operation you initiated on its Webvinterface, it generated the command, and you actually see which command is being executed. I love it! It surely helps you get acquainted with the product. The setup with many modules and ports requires some design, as on any midrange solution. You get a nice template to initiate it and off you go.

I've done it myself after all the experience I've had. 

At the end of the lifecycle, the migrations and options you have mean that it doesn't require several storage solutions if you have mixed server solutions like Mainframe, i-Series, AIX, IBM PowerPC, VMware, Desktop Virtualisation, et cetera.

Also, the superb integration with VMware SRM and its Site Recovery Adapter makes it a seamless solution to make your infra resilient.

It's not as expensive as HPE Storeserv, however, it is more expensive than Netapp FAS or Dell Compellent. 

We looked at the Netapp FAS all-flash series, Dell Compellent, HPE StoreServ (7200/7400, 8200/8400, and 10500), and Dell EMC VNXe/Unity

It's a more complete solution and really up to mixed infrastructure and resiliency and has a lot to offer on scalability too