We performed a comparison between IBM FlashSystem and StarWind Storage Appliance based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two NAS solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The valuable features for us are the extra add-ons, such as the FIM provisioning, the compression, the disaster recovery capabilities, and the storage pooling functions."
"The performance is very good and we use this product to enhance our core system."
"When it comes to the interface of the solution we did not encounter any challenges. Additionally, the solution has good documentation."
"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 most valuable feature of the solution is replication...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."
"At the FlashSystem level, customers are especially fond of multi-tier and distributed rate systems, particularly the dynamic rate six arrays."
"The GUI is very easy and performance is also good."
"Installing FlashSystem is very easy. It takes less than half an hour, and I can handle it all myself."
"Another good feature is that you can pause the appliance if you want to move it from one location to another and then once it's moved you can resume it, this way you can physically move the whole cluster or storage without any downtime. Its really easy to use, if you have a good foundation in storage and clustering then you will need less then one hour to figure out how to operate it."
"The management interface is the most valuable feature for us."
"It is very easy to use and very cost effective."
"The integration is excellent."
"I would say data protection and easy management are the most valuable features of the product...I rate the technical support a nine out of ten."
"Its user-friendly interface makes it an attractive option, especially for customers who may not be highly tech-savvy."
"They call us when monitoring shows a possible issue and are very flexible in working with our schedule to troubleshoot when it is convenient for us."
"We are able to easily back up our data and send it to an offsite location."
"This product lacks some of the options we wanted. For example, expansion was difficult and it required a lot of patching to be done."
"The ease of installation should be improved. We had issues with the configuration model."
"Cloud file sharing is an area that needs improvement."
"The customer's expectations are what they get on the cloud, they're expecting even in the on-premises deployments, going forward."
"The marketing could be improved."
"The interface of this solution could be improved."
"They can include Amazon file system S3 protocol in the upcoming releases. It is a cloud file system. IBM FlashSystem doesn't have this feature in the box for high-end or mid-range. We have got requests for this from customers because we need to use S3 for EDI application storage. At the beginning of every year, IBM releases firmware. When I find any bugs in the firmware during the year, I am unable to find any information from IBM regarding the bug. I need to open a ticket, and the IBM engineering team makes a patch only for me. This patch is not public. By creating a customized patch for a client, they don't really solve the issue for everyone. If multiple users have the same bug, IBM should upload the patch on the official website so that we can download it. IBM FlashSystem has a monitoring tool in the box, but it is not advanced. I need a more advanced tool for more advanced equations and monitoring. All top three storage vendors, that is, EMC, IBM, and Pure Storage, don't have a powerful monitoring tool. To monitor our box to show the statistics for I/Os and latency, I need to pay for extra software. The built-in monitoring storage is not mature enough to handle all requests and generate all reports that I need. They can include the functionality to stretch a cluster natively without using any additional boxes. In addition, there are some features that EMC has integrated with the box. These features are not available in IBM FlashSystem."
"Our model does not support compression or deduplication."
"They offered onsite installation, but we chose to do it ourselves. That took longer and was more work for us but saved us a ton of money in the end."
"The dashboard features are not in the free version."
"StarWind should improve the synchronization time of its product. There should be a standard operating procedure (SOP) for synchronization to reduce the time it takes."
"It needs more integration with backup vendors so there is native integration with it that will allow storage level backup/snapshots. I would love to see integration with Veeam and Commvault so it can be recognized by them directly and added as network storage."
"An improvement would be if they reached out to education customers with other available products."
"They could improve by providing integration with HP."
"StarWind no longer sells HDDs for primary storage."
"Other solutions, such as StorMagic, offer more flexibility in terms of handling caching and moving data between additional nodes."
IBM FlashSystem is ranked 4th in NAS with 106 reviews while StarWind Storage Appliance is ranked 10th in NAS with 9 reviews. IBM FlashSystem is rated 8.2, while StarWind Storage Appliance is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of IBM FlashSystem writes "An easy GUI and simple provisioning but our model does not support compression". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind Storage Appliance writes "Offers stable performance even with a single node failure and manages everything with just two nodes". IBM FlashSystem is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Pure Storage FlashArray, Dell Unity XT, NetApp AFF and Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform, whereas StarWind Storage Appliance is most compared with FreeNAS, StoneFly VSO NAS, StorMagic SvSAN and VMware vSAN. See our IBM FlashSystem vs. StarWind Storage Appliance report.
See our list of best NAS vendors.
We monitor all NAS reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
