IBM FlashSystem vs Kaminario K2 [EOL] comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM FlashSystem and Kaminario K2 [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Pure Storage and others in All-Flash Storage.
To learn more, read our detailed All-Flash Storage Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Simplicity and reliability are the most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray.""Has also helped simplify storage for us. The other person we put in there, took about a week to implement. And we had both arrays set up within around four hours with a thirty minute drive time between the two locations.""Scalability is one of the best features. You can quickly add more. You can swap out the drives with larger sizes, you can add more shelves. All of that is perfect - the whole concept of keeping it modular...""The performance of the storage is just unbelievable.""The performance and the ever-growing maintenance are the most valuable features of this solution.""Support has been helpful.""For us, the most valuable feature is the compression and deduplication. Being able to deploy a three to one ratio for storage is absolutely critical in today's world with the growing need for storage and the growing need for more space.""The code upgrades are very smooth."

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"The storage system is one of the best in the world.""Flash disk with Easy Tier option""The most valuable feature of the solution is compression.""The solution is very easy to configure and use.""The speed, performance, and stability are the best features of IBM FlashSystem.""The valuable features are high availability, compression, and a failover mechanism. It's a very highly available storage solution.""User friendly management interface.""The most valuable feature of the solution is SCM (Storage Class Memory), which has the lowest latency value in the storage industry."

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"Implementation of the solution is very simple.""The GUI is very straightforward and easy to use.""It provides a full feature set without separate licensing (deduplication, compression, snapshot, asynchronous replication, stable performance, etc.).""The capacity that we're saving by using Kaminario's K2 is giving us a four-to-one ratio for our deduplication.""Latency is definitely the big key for us.""Built-in snapshot support gives us SAN-side functionality most other platforms would have had us license separately.""Scale out is a differentiator for them, especially in the enterprise market. It's key for a lot of customers.""The most valuable feature is definitely the always-on data deduplication."

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Cons
"As partners, we should have the option to download the software, rather than have to go back through Pure to obtain it.""I'd like to see a move towards individual VMs for what the performance of each VM is in a VD infrastructure. I can see the overall volume, but I would love to see things in a more granular level on the VM side.""The price of the solution can improve.""The product should improve its response time. I have also encountered issues with its configuration.""It is way in excess of what we need. If anything, we could see a bit more speed. I'm just comparing it with what some of my colleagues who are implementing their own systems do.""Self-backup is the only feature lacking in this solution.""The one major gripe I have is that there is no snapshotting enabled by default on the SAN.""Pure Storage FlashArray could improve some aspects. There are certain features that are good and there are some features that I see some issues with at the technical level. Those issues are related to replication. They need to resolve those issues, which I have already highlighted to the Pure team. Additionally, there are some issues in the active cluster that could improve."

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"The technical support in my region is satisfactory but it could improve. Support is very important for customers and downtime is very critical for us. We would like onsite or complete technical support which can help us to minimize our downtime or if problems occur.""When you provision a datastore auto-format takes a long time""The pricing needs to be more competitive.""There could be some extra features added.""This product lacks some of the options we wanted. For example, expansion was difficult and it required a lot of patching to be done.""Additional licenses might be added for the fundamental licenses, such as those for copying and flash copies.""In the next release having the next level of high-speed performance would be great.""The ease of installation should be improved. We had issues with the configuration model."

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"I think it should have better performance with small files. With big data, its performance is top notch, but it is difficult to load small files.""The management graphical interface needs more improvement.""The system currently has a 15TB LUN size limit and that snapshots need to be scheduled through script API instead of the GUI.""Access to technical support should be improved for our region. Technical support is good, but they're very hard to access.""The front panel of the drive shelf doesn't always seat firmly.""I would love to see capacity on its DRAM. I know it's not cost effective for them to do it, but I think that it could be a big differentiator and was a big differentiator from the beginning.""I would like them to improve the look of the product’s external casing and shelves.""I would like to see them work with Cisco, so it comes off the FIs, instead of having to go through my 10-gig network."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "We feel that the pricing is fair and the licensing process was easy for both."
  • "There is always room for negotiation."
  • "The price was slightly higher than others, but competitive, if you consider all the other features that you get from it."
  • "It is a more expensive solution, but it is worth it. You are getting what you paid for."
  • "For pricing, you have to take into account their performance on deduplication and compression in a $/GB comparison."
  • "We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO)."
  • "It is a cheaper solution."
  • "Pure Storage is all-flash, so this sometimes tends to make it a bit more expensive in the beginning."
  • More Pure Storage FlashArray Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Pricing can be considered as per market competition."
  • "The total storage capacity vs price is still quite high for the IBM Flash Array."
  • "It pays to go back and get the best price you can from your supplier. The first offer is not always at the best discount."
  • "Regarding licensing make sure you add at least three years software maintenance from IBM at the beginning, because you will not be able to download firmware updates or any fixes/patches without this."
  • "IBM V7000 has a new license and price structure which provides intuitive licensing based on the functions customers wish to enable and use the most."
  • "The pricing has been very competitive for the last few years. IBM got to the point where they changed the pricing model and we feel very comfortable with the pricing. It's very competitive. Over the last two years, IBM has been coming up with all kinds of interesting promos, especially for the SMB systems. That makes it very competitive price-wise and in terms of performance..."
  • "For a yearly license, it is about $100,000. There are no additional costs. The entire system is included."
  • "The integration is already included in the license cost of IBM FlashSystem. The integration is very easy. You get the IBM storage core with all software, firmware, and upgrades. EMC provides the features in the box, but they are not free for customers. There is a licensing cost for features. We have yearly licensing, but IBM has also provided a new option where you pay as you go. They provide a big box, and I pay, for example, for 10 terabytes. If I exceed 10 terabytes, IBM will charge for the new storage after 10 terabytes. It is a good opportunity in the market for using the storage as a cloud and paying as you go."
  • More IBM FlashSystem Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Kaminario is very competitive on price. They also have a pay per TB model."
  • "All features are provided in the licensing. The cost of Kaminario was less than the cost of a hybrid array."
  • "I would like them to come down in price. It is as expensive as EMC, Hitachi, and other major vendors."
  • "Licensing is very straightforward. The cost was considerably lower than other products we looked at."
  • "The "extra" costs associated with features and options that are available off the shelf with Kaminario, make their value proposition extremely competitive."
  • "The licensing is all-inclusive."
  • "The Kaminario setup is simple and there are no hidden licensing fees so this area is a relief."
  • More Kaminario K2 [EOL] Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure… more »
    Top Answer:We consume less physical storage because of the solution’s deduplication and compression.
    Top Answer:We have customers who use a three-year or five-year license. We also have customers who use Evergreen.
    Top Answer:The most valuable feature of the solution is SCM (Storage Class Memory), which has the lowest latency value in the… more »
    Top Answer:The solution's infrastructure technology level could be PCI Express 5 instead of PCI Express 4 for the next version. In… more »
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    Comparisons
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    Overview

    Pure Storage FlashArray is the world’s first enterprise-class storage array that runs exclusively on the nonvolatile memory express (NVMe) protocol for memory access and storage. It represents a totally state-of-the-art type of storage technology. It offers users shared accelerated storage that delivers cutting-edge features in the realms of performance, simplicity, and consolidation. Pure Storage is fresh and modern today and will be for the next decade. Without forklift upgrades or planned downtime, Pure Storage takes the work out of storage ownership and delivers unprecedented customer satisfaction.

    Pure Storage FlashArray is built with simplicity and reliability in mind. The solution can be implemented and optimized in hours, as opposed to other similar solutions that can take days. It has no moving parts, which removes areas where it could potentially be vulnerable to suffering errors. It is highly stable and gives users the ability to manage system shutdowns in a way that  prevents data loss.

    Benefits of Pure Storage FlashArray

    Some of the benefits of using Pure Storage FlashArray include:

    • A much higher level of speed than similar pieces of technology. Pure Storage FlashArray maximizes the speed at which data can be transferred while at the same time minimizing system latencies that might slow the transfer down. Additionally, it offers users quick memory read and data access speeds.

    • A higher bang for your buck in terms of the storage capabilities you get for the money you pay. They are smaller in size than more standard storage technologies, but they offer flash memory, which enables users to store larger amounts of data than the current standard.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Pure Storage FlashArray is a highly effective piece of storage technology which stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its overall robustness and the value that it offers by way of its reliability and ease of use. It provides users with many valuable features that allow them to maximize what they can do with this solution. Pure Storage FlashArray’s reliability and ease of use make it a highly valuable solution. 

    PeerSpot user Prabakaran K., a technical consultant at Injazat Data Systems, notes the robustness of this solution when he writes, "FlashArray has many valuable features. It's very user-friendly and it has high availability, so there is comparatively less downtime. During maintenance, there is no shutdown procedure, so you can directly power off the Array and manage the shutdown process without any data loss, which is a unique feature. Managing replication and data migration is also very easy."

    PeerSpot user Jason D., a cloud solutions architect at a tech services company, notes three features that make this solution valuable when he writes, "We've had different types of storage, and three things of this solution are valuable. The first one is its outstanding performance. The second one is its stability. In the about three years that we've had it, we've had component failures, but we never had a service interruption or any data loss. The third one, which is really critical, is that it is super easy to use in terms of provisioning, storage, and managing the arrays. I'm able to maintain a multi-site environment with a couple of dozen arrays with a single mid-level storage admin."

    IBM FlashSystem products are enterprise computer data storage systems that store data on flash memory chips. Unlike storage systems that use standard solid-state drives, IBM FlashSystem products incorporate custom hardware based on technology from the 2012 acquisition of Texas Memory Systems. This hardware provides performance, reliability, and efficiency benefits versus competitive offerings.

    Kaminario K2 is the world’s only storage solution that delivers the predictability needed to handle the highly unpredictable world of modern businesses. This highly flexible all flash storage platform allows customers to cost-effectively scale capacity and performance to support their ever-changing business –seamlessly, on-demand and with no disruptions.

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    Offer
    Learn more about Pure Storage FlashArray
    Want to Hear More?

    IBM FlashSystem products are enterprise computer data storage systems that store data on flash memory chips. Unlike storage systems that use standard solid-state drives, IBM FlashSystem products incorporate custom hardware based on technology from the 2012 acquisition of Texas Memory Systems. This hardware provides performance, reliability, and efficiency benefits versus competitive offerings.

    Learn more about Kaminario K2 [EOL]
    Sample Customers
    Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
    Celero, Friedhelm Loh Group, Clarks, Mingkang Natregro Health Food Group, Sofia, Etisalat Fights Fraud, UF Health Shands Hospital, Generali, Elecon Engineering Company Limited, Ventiv , Technology, CPFL Energia, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., SciQuest, Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated, Paddy Power, Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, Interconnect Services, Severstal IP-Only AB, PVU Group GmbH
    Wargaming.net, El Rio Community Health Center, ECN, SpotOption, Ashkelon College, Clearwater Analytics, Intigua, Cobb EMC Customer Case Study
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Healthcare Company12%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization32%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm28%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Government8%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company27%
    Healthcare Company20%
    Consumer Goods Company13%
    Government13%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise57%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise41%
    Large Enterprise42%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business37%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise48%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business29%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise55%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business24%
    Midsize Enterprise24%
    Large Enterprise53%
    Buyer's Guide
    All-Flash Storage
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Pure Storage and others in All-Flash Storage. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    IBM FlashSystem is ranked 6th in All-Flash Storage with 105 reviews while Kaminario K2 [EOL] doesn't meet the minimum requirements to be ranked in All-Flash Storage. IBM FlashSystem is rated 8.2, while Kaminario K2 [EOL] is rated 8.8. 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 Kaminario K2 [EOL] writes "Built-in snapshot support gives us SAN-side functionality most other platforms license separately". IBM FlashSystem is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, Dell Unity XT, Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform and HPE Nimble Storage, whereas Kaminario K2 [EOL] is most compared with .

    See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.

    We monitor all All-Flash Storage 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.