We performed a comparison between Dell PowerMax NVMe and IBM FlashSystem based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, IBM FlashSystem came out ahead of Dell PowerMax NVMe. Although both products are set up similarly and are described as high-end, Dell PowerMax NVMe has a licensing model that most users dislike and requires improvements in its support response times.
"The security operating system is its most valuable feature because it's very simple, easy to use, and operate. You don't have to do very serious training to operate this equipment. It's user-friendly and pretty straightforward."
"Technical support has been amazing."
"We put a fair amount of stress on it because we run sequel workloads and we run web applications where the same web files are hit over and over. We have had almost zero stability issues with that SAN, that has been really great for us."
"Performance is the most valuable feature."
"The speed is the most valuable feature, along with the ease of getting it connected. We were able to get it online in less than a day."
"The best feature is consistently lower latency, even when IOPS crank up to over 75K. The product maintains submillisecond response time, which is incredible."
"The most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray is its high stability level."
"It's reduced our overhead management time on storage, since it is so simple to get in and just provision a volume, present it to the host, and then you are done."
"It significantly simplifies storage."
"It has reduced our footprint in different physical locations."
"The SRDF replication piece is probably the best feature. It's useful for maintaining recoverability in the event of a disaster."
"We are able to provide storage at the right service levels without overmanaging it."
"The performance is very good. Our predominant workloads are all less than 5 milliseconds and it's most common to have a sub-1-millisecond response time for our applications. In terms of efficiency, we've turned on compression and we're able to get as high as two-to-one compression on our workloads, on average."
"Key features include performance, replication time, and dedup and compression."
"The compression and deduplication are always on. We get more than 4:1 capacity savings using them. The efficiency benefits from compression and deduplication are through a specialized hardware module within the storage itself, and that means there is no overhead to the compression and dedupe."
"Enterprise Cloud Storage is the most valuable feature, along with the data services which come with it, plus the deduplication and compression."
"Ability to manage third-party arrays and virtualise them: One screen to control multiple arrays. Simplified administration."
"The speed and the ease of installation are the most valuable features."
"It's very easy to manage."
"User friendly management interface."
"The most valuable features are, of course, the virtualization of the storage, the performance, and the compression."
"It's a mature product. It's like a BMW that evolves consistently."
"The initial setup was really straightforward. It was not complex. Deployment took one month, due to the data migration duration."
"The most valuable feature is reliability."
"The internal garbage collection process has been fixed recently in some OS updates so it is more efficient but that could be just a little better."
"In some cases, we get into very in-depth conversations around movement of specific data and, what's more, chunk sizes. The documentation lacked any description or information on that."
"We would like to see better troubleshooting aspects. It helps us if we can find out where the problem is. Right now, it's difficult. Sometimes it's difficult to pinpoint the issue. If they had more visibility and more troubleshooting feature built into the tool that would really help."
"I would like to see data tiering to AWS."
"If we suddenly dump large amounts of data onto the storage system, it takes a while to process it."
"It needs to improve its price."
"We would like to see more cloud support, which we know is coming, although it's not out yet. It's going to be released in the next versions. That would be the biggest win, if additional cloud support is built into the array."
"We have not seen a reduction in our TCO nor have we seen ROI."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"I think management is where PowerMax is weakest. We're still managing it like we managed EMC arrays in the early 2000s. There's a slicker, fancier GUI that does more things, but at the end of the day, you still have to dig into the command line and issue a lot of the same commands that we still were using almost 20 years ago."
"Dell PowerMax NVMe needs to increase storage and improve scalability."
"They should work with the storage engineers to better tweak the management tools to give them improved visibility into their data."
"I would like to see more development in the cloud environment. It would be good if it comes in the cloud kind of setup."
"We've had a couple of little things come up, but for the most part, they've been pretty stable."
"Setting up PowerMax with VMAX is always complex."
"The NVMe integration could be improved."
"One area for improvement is in the GUI, where host clusters are not properly dealt with. With Hypervisor host clusters, all hosts must see the same volumes in the same order. Using the concept of a “host-group” has been around (even with IBM) for many years, so why not with the V7000?"
"The initial setup is complex."
"Sometimes the performance is effective but it gets resolved in the process."
"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."
"It has room for improvement in the area of stability."
"Enterprise data storage needs improvement. They should create a feature for data and file storage."
"Replication features need improvement. Currently, they are there in the product, but I'm not sure as to how it works exactly."
"With regards to the IBM V7000 storage system, where we have multiple tiers of storage, a heat map would show I/O distribution across the tiers of storage."
Dell PowerMax NVMe is ranked 8th in All-Flash Storage with 66 reviews while IBM FlashSystem is ranked 6th in All-Flash Storage with 106 reviews. Dell PowerMax NVMe is rated 8.8, while IBM FlashSystem is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Dell PowerMax NVMe writes "Simplified storage provisioning for us, enabling us to assign any volumes in two to three minutes". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM FlashSystem writes "An easy GUI and simple provisioning but our model does not support compression". Dell PowerMax NVMe is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, Huawei OceanStor Dorado, Dell XtremIO and Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform, whereas IBM FlashSystem is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, NetApp AFF, Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform and Huawei OceanStor Dorado. See our Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. IBM FlashSystem report.
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