IBM Storage FlashSystem vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

IBM Storage FlashSystem is very well suited for a small or medium business that does not want to compromise storage performance. Pricing is excellent and transparent on the website. The option to have 8 16Gb FC connectors allows you to forgo expensive and complicated SAN switches if your host count is low enough. Fewer components make the infrastructure more reliable.

Incentivized

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays should be used for critical system backups, databases, for critical applications due to different write allocation algorithms. These systems have faster underlying SSD drives comparing to older types, so in result, Inline data de-duplication in these systems are not noticeable. The idea for these types is valuable for MetroCluster configuration within switchover, in terms of disaster recovery. Performance and response time of EF-series are really exceptional, but comparing to the costs this the rpice for it.

Incentivized

• Data Replication over long distances using Policy-Based Replication and maintaining the RPO.
• We use snapshot technology heavily and these snaps are easy to create/automate and instantly available.
• Upgrades/Updates are deployed to the system without loss of data or services.
• Sub-millisecond latency is maintained and spikes are handled and absorbed by the system during peaks.
• When connected to the internet via Storage Insights and Cloud Call Home it makes for proactive problem alerting, monitoring and resolution.
• The fact that Replication and snapshot stuff are hidden under the covers and we no longer have to create mirror pairs or flashcopy pairs ourselves. It does it within the cluster or partnership.

Incentivized

• Good to use for Hyper-V Shared volume
• Good to use for passthrough DISK
• Very Good for NFS share

Incentivized

• I don't really like how the compression software works, especially when we configure the pools with data reduction, you need to have enough free space available to handle the delete operations, if you don't have that free space in the pool, the storage performance decreases in a very notorious way that directly affects the performance of access to information from the servers

Incentivized

• NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays basically provides high bandwidth that's basically used for high end application , but still there are lot of application needs to be run on low/medium bandwidth , for that , there some low/medium IOP's disk need be integrated in storage.
• NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are accessed NetApp SANtricity Web Services Proxy. which is separate tool or agent , its better we can access the GUI vi browser without any tool or agent.
• NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays, need to perform additional configurations for multipathing that's not required in other storage

Incentivized

We’re unlikely to renew our use of IBM Storage FlashSystem, not because of any shortcomings with the product itself, but simply because it serves a very specific role in our environment, supporting our SAP landscape. For other workloads and broader storage needs, we rely on different platforms that are a better fit for those use cases.
The FlashSystem has performed reliably in its role, but since our future storage strategy involves consolidating platforms and aligning with solutions that cover a wider range of requirements, we don’t plan to renew it as part of that transition.

Incentivized

I think Flashsystem has excellent usability. It is compatible with almost every platform we have at our enterprise. It is compatible with Power HA and VMware SRM. It has very well-suited interfaces, and spectrum virtualization is very easy to use. GUI and CLI are very well done.

Incentivized

HW and SW of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are easy to use, with very good support.

Incentivized

IBM Flashsystems is always available for me, it is fiberchannel storage without the fuzz of what iscsi brings. It is a very reliable storage system, I have almost never issues with this system. The only things which go wrong are the updates because the old updates which have been staged on the disks are not properly cleaned in my opinion.

Incentivized

From an integrative view, IBM Storage FlashSystem provided currently the required performance to support our use cases above and beyond. As one of the most performant solutions, we are pleased to have the IBM Storage FlashSystem supporting our needs of performance as well as scalability within the infrastructure. Not surprisingly, we certainly look forward to scale performance further in the future.

Incentivized

Sometimes the knowledge of the support agent is quite limited and the support always has to route through the level 1 agent to screen all the informtion provided. Then its esclated to the next level support with the all collected data . The logs are always uploaded along wiht the case but still its reviewed at the lower level and then escalated / handed over to the next level if its complex issue to solve.

Incentivized

THe training is often selfpaced and easy to follow if you have worked previously with other storage products. The content is clear and contains all the information needed for an admin to learn. However the troubleshooting part is not always included and this is dependent on forums or other sources where the information is not accessible very easily.

Incentivized

I was amazed by the way IBM Flash storage provides a huge amount of storage within the limited footprint, it helped us to replace big fat storage arrays, which aided in the process of moving towards lower hardware, carbon, and energy consumption footprint. We can comfortably say that Flash helped us to host applications fast with a blazing speed and user transactions are quite quick.

Incentivized

IBM Storage FlashSystem is MUCH faster than the options listed above. We were able to remove 12U of Dell equipment and relaced it with a 2U IBM Storage FlashSystem that was faster and had more storage available. The setup was extremely easier than our initial deployment of our Dell systems. Previous to deploying IBM Storage FlashSystem in our environment, we had quite a bit of lag in our user's VDIs leading to a lot of negative feedback on our systems. Since implementing IBM Storage FlashSystem, we've had tons of positive remarks and the number of helpdesk tickets our internal team has received have dropped considerably. We're spending more time on other initiatives with all the extra time we're saving.

Incentivized

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays provide high IOP's , data protection and other features which makes this storage different from other storage in the enterprise segment , I also worked on IBM DS8K storage and IBM flash storage , But If i compare both of them on basis of performance and feature , I feel Netapp EF series is far better in this segment , I highly recommend Netapp EF series storage , where we required highly IOPS and bandwidth.

Incentivized

We have been able to scale this storage system whenever there has been requirement for additional capacity and performance. with the help of deduplication we have been able to build quite a robust environment.

Incentivized

• Easy of use is a key aspect, as we do not have dedicated storage staff.
• Our RPO has lowered near to Zero, using PBR as replication and this is key for us.
• DR plan testing has become easier and less time-consuming, allowing us to conduct tests more frequently.

Incentivized

• Positive Impact on Business where application and database need high IOP's ,data processing speed.
• Its well designed for high end application and database
• Its not well suited for small mid-rang organization because of price.
• Stability and reliability

Incentivized