IBM FlashSystem Reviews

IBM FlashSystem is used for performance systems.

IBM FlashSystem has improved the way the organizations of my customers function.

The most crucial feature of IBM FlashSystem is compression.

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.

I've been dealing with IBM FlashSystem for four years.

IBM FlashSystem is one hundred percent stable. My customers didn't encounter any failures, so it's good.

IBM FlashSystem is scalable, but it depends on what you're selling. You'll have scalability issues if you sell it as a complete system with maximum capacity. I didn't sell the entire system, so it can be upgraded if the customer needs more capacity.

I haven't contacted the technical support for IBM FlashSystem.

I sold other solutions apart from IBM FlashSystem, but the price for IBM FlashSystem was better.

Two of my customers preferred IBM FlashSystem, and the third customer liked Hitachi, but Hitachi was more expensive, so that customer went with IBM FlashSystem.

The implementation of IBM FlashSystem was straightforward. It will take less than two hours to implement if it's just a small system.

One engineer from my company and one engineer from the customer side took care of the deployment of IBM FlashSystem.

My customers got the IBM FlashSystem bundle offer. It was a one-time purchase for three years of service. The price would depend on the storage size and could reach between $25,000 to $55,000.

My company sells IBM FlashSystem to customers. I'm a salesperson.

My company sold six IBM FlashSystem to three customers. One was large-scale, while the other two were small-scale. The customers use the solution on production and deal sites. The capacity of my customers is sufficient at the moment, so there's no plan to increase the usage of IBM FlashSystem.

I'd tell people looking into implementing IBM FlashSystem that installing and managing it is straightforward. The solution also has excellent performance.

My rating for IBM FlashSystem is nine out of ten.

My company has a partnership with IBM.

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

We are using IBM FlashSystem for data storage at the hospital I work at.

IBM FlashSystem has benefited our organization because we can mix solid-state drives with spinning drives.

IBM FlashSystem is a flexible solution with plenty of features.

I have been using IBM FlashSystem for approximately one year.

The solution is stable and has good performance.

IBM FlashSystem is highly scalable.

We have approximately 5,000 people using the solution. We plan to continue using this solution in the future.

The support could improve by allowing you to speak to someone when you call rather than them calling you back. However, once we do have contact with one of their technicians they are excellent.

We previously used HPE and we are slowly moving towards having them switched with IBMFlashSystem. We have found the IBM FlashSystem to be more flexible.

The installation was a moderate level of difficulty and it took approximately one week.

We do the implementation and maintenance of the solution using our in-house team.

The cost of the IBM FlashSystem is lower than the HPE solution.

IBM FlashSystem provides a very good value.

I rate IBM FlashSystem a nine 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.

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.

IBM FlashSystem is used for online transaction processing in TP solutions.

The price-performance ratio is most valuable.

It is simple to use.

Both the performance and interface are good.

We are in our second year of using IBM FlashSystem.

IBM FlashSystem is a stable solution.

It is a scalable product.

In our organization, we have more than 1,000 people using this solution.

In general, we plan our investments for three to five years in advance. Because technology evolves every five years, the solution is usually changed after five years. As a result, we had to replace everything.

We don't have any plans to purchase additional licenses in the near future.

We haven't needed any assistance from technical support so far.

We use a variety of solutions from Hitachi, EMC, and NEC.

We switched to IBM FlashSystem because of the scalability, it was a beneficial option for us, as well as the price-performance ratio and technology.

They compare the IBM features with those of EMC and HP.

The initial setup is straightforward. It is easy to install.

It takes very little time to deploy. The initial implementation will take two days. The data will then be moved by wifi over a three-week period due to the implementation study.

The installation is being managed by a team of two engineers.

A company called Compro assisted us with the installation. They were good.

They don't offer subscription-based payments. You pay for the license.

I would recommend this solution to anyone else who is interested.

Because technology is evolving at a rapid pace, they should compare the benefits. Of course, solution technology is important, but the most important aspect is service and knowledge.

I would rate IBM FlashSystem a nine out of ten.

We use IBM FlashSystem as part of our core system to enhance performance.

This product will improve your performance and it has helped us with that.

Also, in prior systems where we had mechanical drives, there would have been at least a couple of drive failures. With this solution, no drive failures have been experienced so far.

Compare to our previous system, space utilization has definitely been reduced. Our old system used two racks, whereas this solution sits in a single rack and initially took up 2Us. Post-upgrade, it is 8Us but even so, compared to what we had, it is a considerable energy saving. Also, when we upgraded, it helped us to mitigate a lot of our legacy issues present with the old hardware.

The performance is very good and we use this product to enhance our core system.

The reliability is better than it is with mechanical drives.

This is a compact system, and it has a lot of pieces built into it. For everything is included for us to be able to replicate to a DR site. 

This product lacks some of the options we wanted. For example, expansion was difficult and it required a lot of patching to be done. It's not a seamless process because you need to do multiple modifications or alterations. There is a lot of effort required by the customer in order to expand the hardware.

Further expansion of our model is not feasible. As new models are released, expansion becomes difficult and you have to switch to a new model when you want to upgrade. This means that you have to migrate data between models. We want something where you can use for at least five years, where you can expand the hardware without the inconvenience of changing models. Ideally, the operating system and other applications would not be affected when expanding.

It would be helpful if the solution had built-in safeguards against security threats and malware, such as ransomware. Anything that can be utilized to enhance data integrity would be helpful. 

I have been working with IBM FlashSystem for three years.

The stability of the IBM FlashSystem is excellent.

There was no downtime when we patched the system, which is good because we wouldn't want our core system to go down.

In our experience, scalability is not very easy. This may depend on our systems so it might not be universally true but definitely, for us, scalability was a problem. IBM came out with a newer version and told us that "To scale, you'll have to either switch over to a new version or buy an additional controller."

So, scalability on that particular model was not feasible. There may be better models but the model that we purchased was not easily scaled.

We have 800 users and there are four engineers who manage our IT products.

We do not plan on expanding our use of this product in the future because our plan includes moving to the cloud.

The IBM technical support is excellent. When we had a hardware issue, they were able to fix it within the SLA period. They have back-to-back support for resolving any hardware problems.

When it comes to managing hardware, they're excellent.

We have worked with systems from Dell and HPE and we have found that more maintenance and patching needs to be done on products by those vendors, as compared to IBM.

This is important to consider because if you don't have a high-availability system then you are going to end up with downtime when patches are implemented.

The initial setup was complex because we had to move a lot of data from our old system to the new one. It wasn't difficult because of the hardware, but rather, due to our pre-existing setup. The fact that we had to migrate a lot of data was the source of the complexity.

It took at least one and a half years because we had to deploy while the system was still running. At the same time, the deployment was dependent on the systems that we had running. This is why it took so long to complete.

An integrator assisted us with our deployment and our experience with them was excellent. They've been supportive and they successfully helped us to migrate all of our data.

This product is part of our core systems, and we have definitely seen a return on investment.

The cost is pretty high in terms of licensing. We pay at least $100,000 USD in licensing fees for the storage. We have multiple types of storage, not only flash. We have the older versions of other storage and other versions of IBM flash as well.

In addition, we have a maintenance contract for this product when the warranty support period expires.

This is definitely a product I can recommend based on its performance and reliability. I don't know whether it is cost-effective compared to other similar products because we are an IBM shop from end to end. We chose IBM because the products have been well suited for our setup, and the performance and reliability are excellent.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The general use cases depend on the size of a company. I work with the commercial sector, the FlashSystem 5000 and its different models. It suits the small to medium, or SME, companies. The FlashSystem 9200 goes mainly to big enterprises, like banking or governmental sectors. The 7200 plays sometimes in SME and sometimes in bigger enterprises. 

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. 

The pricing could be improved, but I think it's getting better and better with each version. 

IBM needs to implement NAS storage again, as this is a big flaw. Dell EMC is very good at this and if you compared them based on NAS storage, Dell EMC would win right away. IBM's solution for NAS storage is very complicated. We don't have a storage box that provides file sharing from itself, we have to put software on it and go through a whole complicated process. It should be simplified. 

I have been working with IBM FlashSystem for around seven years. 

It's really stable, and many customers have experienced this as well. 

It's easy to scale, but it depends on the model. The 5100 is obsolete, but the 5200 has line expansions, up to two controllers, and can scale out both ways. The 7000 and 9000 can scale to 20 expansions and four controllers. It's very scalable, both horizontal and vertical. 

I believe the second line and third line are very responsive here. It depends on the customer's warranty level, if it's 9x5—it can't be like 24x7, which is immediately. 

IBM has some features that don't exist in other brands. External virtualization, for example—Dell EMC has the same feature, but it's applied differently. IBM's approach is to make it usable in many different scenarios so that the customer can work with multiple vendors under the IBM controller. Dell EMC can't do that. The external virtualization stacks with Dell EMC, and the features stack to every box. If I have a main box with high specs and I virtualize another box with minimum specs, that means I'm stuck with the minimum specs. With IBM, if I'm working with the virtualization engine with higher specs, I get the benefits from these higher specs, even if the virtualized box has minimum specs.

The initial setup is very straightforward and user-friendly. The FlashSystem 5000 can be deployed in around 20 to 30 minutes, but it depends on the number of volumes and the tools we set up afterward. On average, it can be installed and initiated within an hour, including microcode updating. If you calculate from the time I begin unpacking to the time I start to configure volumes, it will not exceed around 45 minutes. 

I implemented myself. 

The pricing may be a bit higher than other brands. If you compare the IBM FlashSystems in midrange with Dell EMC in midrange, IBM costs a bit more, but I prefer IBM because it has more specs that I can benefit from. 

Two years ago, we had all features installed in the midrange box without any need for extra licensing. However, lately we have features like Easy Tier and FlashCopy, which need extra licensing. We can purchase it with the box or afterward, and it's a smooth process. 

In my experience, IBM doesn't need maintenance at all. Every year, there is a microcode update to get a new feature or fix a bug, but I know some customers who have had the box for more than five or six years without updating it and it still runs well. 

To anyone who's looking into implementing IBM FlashSystem, I would advise you to read the instructions on the box. If you follow the instructions, implementation will be very smooth and easy, even if you're not a professional. 

I would rate this product a ten out of ten.