We have had no problems with it and it exceeded expectations as far as speed, latency and reliability.

If it starts out being perfect and then there are problems, the rating would go down. But so far there haven't been any problems.

The interface is fine. We don't use it that much because we just take big chunks of it and present it as MDisks to the IVM.

This system, for us, is actually a set and forgot type of system. We have presented the array to San volume controller, and manage it from there, and we are also using flashsystem 900 for our super fast storage (we are very lucky to have this storage architecture – it’s really good).

As you are probably aware, they have since come out with the a9000 and a9000r which pair the XIV architecture with the flashsystem 900 flash backend, including compression and dedupe. I’m sure we will be looking at this when it is time to refresh. I don’t think anyone yet has a system that truly competes for speed with the flashsystem 900. emc now has a one new system (very expensive) and pure storage (I think it’s the flashblade system but don’t quote me on it) – they are way late to the game and all the others are even further behind still using “SSD” form factor. All the devices (basically all, except the aforementioned) that use what is basically a disk interface (e.g. SAS) are slowing down their flash.

Probably for absolute MAX performance, one would still use standalone flashsystem 900, but the a9000r will give great performance while reducing the price quite a bit by using the compression and dedupe.

IBM XIV is attractive because it gives value for money in terms of features. I would give IBM XIV a rating of seven out of ten.

The product is good but only if you have a small datacenter.

Don't use it for heavy workloads and latency sensitive workloads. It can be a good fit for nonproduction environments like test, dev, uat, and cat.

I see XIV as a mid-range (not high-end) storage. Easy to install, small size factor/capacity, easy to use, quick to provision. Not for heavy load, especially sequential due to wide/mirror stripping. Smallest provisioned capacity is 17GB (increments by 17GB), has easy CLI, and alerting.

The product is exceptionally reliable and very easy to manage.

It's a solid, mature product. However, there are indications that IBM is not looking to extend the product range, but rather is pushing people toward its new A9000 platforms, which can be tied together with XIV-like functionality.