We performed a comparison between IBM FlashSystem and SolidFire based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
"NVMe data storage platform that's easy to set up and easy to use. It's stable, with a lower response time, and quick technical support."
"It helps simplify storage. When you're running Pure all-flash, you don't have to do a lot of the old Oracle best practices. You don't have to worry about putting log files on a different disk channel than the data files, and those types of issues... That has made it vastly easier to do large volumes, rapid provisioning in databases, without taking a performance hit."
"The reliability is very good."
"It's very fast and very easy to use. It performs well and is both flexible and compatible. We like it because it's easy to use."
"It worked flawlessly."
"I find two features of Pure Storage most valuable. The first is the "safe mode" function, and the second is its simplicity."
"Performance, deduplication, compression, and fast response time for requests from servers and applications."
"The initial setup was really straight forward."
"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."
"Speed (IOPS/second) – It is most vital for applications that need low latency and high speed for transferring the data."
"The solution is very easy to configure and use."
"The speed, performance, and stability are the best features of IBM FlashSystem."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is compression."
"They have a virtualization feature and, even if you do not want to buy that feature, you can have it as a trial for two to three months. If you have another brand of storage from another company, you can use this tool to transfer all your data from the old system to the new Storwize system, which really shortens the migration time."
"IBM FlashSystem has an easy to use GUI, similar to the IBM Storewize family, which make it one of the best flash storage systems in the market."
"The most valuable features are, of course, the virtualization of the storage, the performance, and the compression."
"SolidFire provides seamless performance across your storage system when you need to scale up. Other storage systems do not do that."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its scalability."
"It's got full API functionality and the performance is pretty steady."
"The most valuable feature is the performance, as well as how you manage performance on the system."
"We can add a node, we add compute, we add storage, and we've had really good luck with that."
"The scalability and being able to implement it quickly."
"Feature-wise, it is a good solution allowing users to monitor and simplify their networks. The solution also provides its users with flexibility by enabling them to utilize its extensions."
"SolidFire has seamless performance for the nodes and extensions. I also like the tool’s scalability. The product’s performance does not get affected when we scale either up or down. This is not the case with other products."
"I would like to have support available in Spanish."
"The solution could improve by having a multi-tenant feature."
"On a couple of occasions, the waiting time for an upgrade has been pretty substantial."
"The number of Filesystems is limited, which it is not on the EMC VNX."
"I would love to see a true one click upgrade solution. Right now, you have to click and schedule an appointment with Pure Storage to be able to upgrade. I would love for it to automatically download, install, and fall-over every controller as it updates."
"FlashArray's capacity for forecasting should be improved because it needs to be a bit more current. I think it's bundled with the deduplication and other compression factors. We need more user interfaces for forecasting in this software and more interfaces need to be integrated with this array management tool."
"From a scalability perspective, it is a very small storage solution, so it's not very expandable."
"I would love for them to have a hyper-converged solution."
"IBM could do more marketing and improve brand awareness. I had never heard of this product until a colleague told me about it. FlashSystem could add a few features, but it would probably increase the price. For example, Pure Storage offers instant snapshotting and partitioning. That would be nice to have, but I think the cost would go up."
"The interface of this solution could be improved."
"The Data Reduction Pools (DRP) support could be better."
"It could be easier to implement."
"They don't offer subscription-based payments."
"IBM should improve its data reduction development."
"In the next release having the next level of high-speed performance would be great."
"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."
"The inclusion of more protocols and interfaces would make it easier to integrate with other products."
"The tool should improve its initial cost which is expensive compared to other products."
"There is room for improvement with a focus on creating a centralized storage system, functioning similar to AWS."
"I think there is room for improvement needed with its storage capability. A bigger node is needed."
"It would be good to provide administrative access at the root level to be able to do things with the system, if need be."
"SolidFire should start from two nodes instead of the four nodes. That's the only thing. In a lot of solutions, we have to use four nodes, that's the better thing. But as a starting point, two is better. That's why their starting point is expensive."
"Though it is a stable solution, its users may face some security issues at times...The security provided by the solution is one area that can be improved."
"They could make the mNode more user-friendly. Now you need to configure and add nodes by CLI and it’s not really easy to manage. If they created a web interface to do the management of the mNode, that would be great!."
IBM FlashSystem is ranked 6th in All-Flash Storage with 106 reviews while SolidFire is ranked 19th in All-Flash Storage with 33 reviews. IBM FlashSystem is rated 8.2, while SolidFire is rated 8.2. 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 SolidFire writes "A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance". IBM FlashSystem is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, NetApp AFF, Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform and HPE Nimble Storage, whereas SolidFire is most compared with NetApp AFF, Dell PowerStore and VMware vSAN. See our IBM FlashSystem vs. SolidFire report.
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.
