IBM Storage FlashSystem

Overview

AI-driven dynamic storage

IBM FlashSystem® moves you from passive and reactive storage to AI-driven dynamic Storage, designed to help streamline IT operations and support data modernization initiatives with breakthrough capacity, next gen FlashCore Module, and pervasive intelligence.

Human-AI collaboration: Accelerates decision making and time to business value.

Proactive optimization: Dynamically tunes resources and mitigates potential issues.

Context-Aware security: Detects threats early and reduces time to response.

Dynamic compliance: Enforces SLA and policy adherence in real-time.

news

Protect your budget from flash market volatility.

How IBM FlashSystem® and IBM Storage Assurance® can help.

webinar

The next evolution of storage from IBM is here

Watch the replay to understand how it's redefining what storage can do for your enterprise: a smarter, AI driven foundation for your future.

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Be the first to know

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Resilience Reinvented: Build a Future‑Ready, AI‑Driven Cyber‑Resilience Strategy

Cyberattacks are accelerating. Regulations are tightening. Is your strategy ready? Watch the replay.

Features

Transform your data operations

ZERO

downtime data movement

Data movements now have zero downtime and are non-disruptive; guaranteed for customers with the IBM Storage Assurance Perpetual program – no swing box required.¹

5.5 x

more write cycles

than the industry-standard QLC drives² by using AI-driven recommendations to optimize data placement for high performance or colder data use cases.

40%

cost savings

Get at least 40% lifecycle cost savings with IBM FlashSystem by managing storage automatically with AI recommendations, business SLAs and policies as compared with competitive storage vendors using manual modeling.³

Safeguard consistently

Ensure data is protected with a resilient FlashSystem grid architecture based on immutable snapshots, flexible data replication features, real-time threat detection and autonomous response for quick recovery after cyberattacks to minimize impact.

Store data intelligently

Optimize data centers with FlashCore Module computational storage, safeguarding and storing data to reduce performance impact. IBM backs its FlashSystem C200 with drives replaced under maintenance, guaranteed with no write limits.⁴

Enhance energy efficiency

The FlashSystem C200 delivers 43% less energy compared to a 16TB HDD 1PB configuration.⁵

Specifications

Product comparison

Dive deeper into the features that power FlashSystem efficiency and resilience.

IBM FlashSystems - Technical specifications

Single enclosure product specifications	IBM Storage FlashSystem 5000	IBM Storage FlashSystem C200	IBM Storage FlashSystem 5600	IBM Storage FlashSystem 7600	IBM Storage FlashSystem 9600
Use cases	Smaller mixed workloads, backup	Backup, sequential and archival workloads	Mixed workloads, smaller OLTP databases	Larger mixed and OLTP workloads	Consolidated mixed and critical OLTP workloads
Maximum bandwidth (reads)	12 GB per second	23 GB per second	30 GB per second	55 GB per second	86 GB per second
Response times (reads)	<70 microseconds	1-2 miliseconds	<50 microseconds	<50 microseconds	<50 microseconds
Raw maximum capacity within single enclosure	737 TB	1.1 PB	633 TB	1.6 PB	3.3 PB
Effective maximum capacity within single enclosure¹	573 TBe (2U enclosure)	2.3 PBe (2U enclosure)	2.4 PBe (1U enclosure)	7.2 PBe (2U enclosure)	11.8 PBe (2U enclosure)
Maximum I/O ports within a single enclosure	8	16	16	32	32
IM FlashCore Module capacities supported	Not applicable (supports industry standard drives)	46 TB	6.6, 13.2, 26.4 and 52.8 TB	6.6,13.2, 26.4 and 52.8 TB	6.6,13.2, 26.4, 52.8 and 105.6 TB
Explore	IBM Storage FlashSystem 5000	IBM Storage FlashSystem C200	IBM Storage FlashSystem 5600	IBM Storage FlashSystem 7600	IBM Storage FlashSystem 9600

IBM FlashSystem grid at a glance²	IBM Storage FlashSystem C200	IBM Storage FlashSystem 5600	IBM Storage FlashSystem 7600	IBM Storage FlashSystem 9600
Effective Maximum Capacity	73 PBe	77 PBe	230 PBe	377 PBe
Max I/O Ports	512	512	1024	1024
Max bandwidth (reads)	736 GB/s	960 GB/s	1,760 GB/s	2,752 GB/s

Use cases

Built for real‑world scenarios

Storage sustainability

Invest in energy efficient, dense data storage that makes a difference.

Storage that makes a difference

Lights out data center

View all your data in one place and rely on AI-driven data tiering.

Manage all data in one place

Cyber resilience

Recover data quickly and without interruption in the event of a cyberattack.

Resilient data storage

Storage data analytics

Faster storage analytics, faster time to insight, using tools built with flash storage analytics.

Faster storage analytics

Case studies

Real stories. Real impact.

Working with Axians to design and deploy the IBM solutions has put us in control of our data. This means we can continue our expansion in new countries with the confidence that our production systems are fully protected.

Mohamed Asmine

Solution Architect, Hosting

Reduced

complexity by standardizing on integrated all-flash backup solutions, for greater resilience

Optimized

backup by establishing a template-based approach in each location

Read the FrieslandCampina story

By incorporating innovative technologies such as IBM FlashSystem, TCS is offering its client enhanced cyber resilience, increased scalability and improved environmental performance. As data volumes relentlessly increase, TCS and IBM can bring capacity and flexibility to the market, ready for the next growth era in the banking, financial services and insurance sector.

Chen Kamer

CEO

Tata Consultancy Services

With fully managed services from TCS and leveraging IBM FlashSystem technology, we have reduced the latency and are able to give the bank’s customers a seamless, confidence-inspiring experience.

Chen Kamer

CEO

Tata Consultancy Services

Read the TATA Consultancy Services story

We were previously running at 85 to 95 percent of our maximum IOPs, which meant a risk of bottlenecks. We're now typically down to 25 or 30 percent, thanks to the additional performance and capacity of the new IBM FlashSystem solution.

Xavier Lenoble

IT Manager

UCM

improvement in storage response time

higher IOPs provide headroom for business innovation

75%

reduction in runtime for overnight database refreshes

Read the UCM Technics story

The goal is for the information to be available to health personnel and residents when they need it. In short, we link Health Norway together.

Endre Storeheier Nerland

Infrastructure Manager

Norsk helsenett SF

~95%

less rack space used

~79%

less energy used

Read the Norsk helsenett SF story

Our IBM Power Systems and IBM FlashSystem environments add to our flexibility—and therefore our competitive edge—by enabling us to place workloads wherever it makes the most sense to run them.

André Wei

CTO

Groupe Chantelle

Results

25% boost

in per-core performance enables greater responsiveness to customers

25% increase

in price-performance accelerates returns on IT investments

Enables

agile decisions about future IT, contributing to competitive edge

Read the Groupe Chantelle story

We’ve cut storage onboarding times with IBM FlashSystem from as much as three days to just an hour. By providing more dynamic cloud services to our customers with help from IBM, we extend our competitive edge.

Marc Ott

CEO

OS systems AG

98.5%

faster onboarding - Reduces onboarding times onto storage platform for new customers

50%

lower management workload - Reduces storage management workload, supporting competitive pricing

Read the OS systems AG story

Resources

Discover expert resources

Explore expert resources to see how IBM FlashSystem can deliver high performance, security, resiliency, and efficiency for modern workloads in your organization.

Explore all resources

Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ report

IBM has been named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Storage Platforms. Find out why IBM has been recognized. IBM has previously been recognized 17 consecutive times as a Leader in the Magic Quadrant for Primary Storage Platform.**

International Data Corporation (IDC)

Ranked IBM among the top five vendors worldwide in all-flash arrays and commended the AI/ML-driven anomaly detection built into FlashSystem features to respond to evolving cyber threats.

Gartner Peer Insights

Explore the reasons behind IBM FlashSystem's exceptional ratings from reviewers across diverse company sizes, regions, and industries. Discover what makes it the preferred choice for so many organizations.

TrustRadius

Awarded Top Rated from TrustRadius for Enterprise Flash Array Storage Solutions based on excellent customer satisfaction ratings.

Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)

Reported that customer storage costs with IBM FlashSystem were 40%-90% lower compared than previous environments and experienced significant performance improvements.

Awarded IBM Storage FlashSystem with Users Love Us badge based on hundreds of positive user reviews.

Pricing

Explore pricing

Take the next step

Contact an advisor to get help configuring an all-flash storage solution using IBM FlashSystem for your business.

Explore configurations and pricing

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IBM Storage Insights

IBM Storage Virtualize for Public Cloud

IBM Storage Assurance

IBM Storage Utility

Footnotes

¹Through IBM Storage Assurance Perpetual, IBM guarantees that data can be moved between FlashSystem devices while always maintaining an active path to data from servers and applications using the data, when Storage Partitions are migrated as described in the IBM Storage FlashSystem documentation for the relevant Storage Virtualize release and FlashSystem.
Internal contract terms are found here (contract to be updated by 2/25): https://www.ibm.com/support/customer/csol/terms/internal/?ref=i126-9801-01-04-2024-zz-en

²Industry-standard QLC expects about 1,000 P/E (i.e.: write) cycles, https://www.techtarget.com/searchstorage/definition/write-cycle, whereas FlashCore Module 4 drives, which are in the C200, achieve 5,500 P/E cycles prior to wear out, using internal testing developed using the JEDEC Standards for Retention.

³IBM sponsored report: Analyzing the Economic Benefits of IBM Storage Assurance ESG Report (Page 7) https://www.ibm.com/downloads/documents/us-en/10a99803f32fd7b3.

⁴Please see details and definition of maintenance in the maintenance contract found here: https://www.ibm.com/support/customer/csol/terms/?ref=Z126-8971-04-05-2023-us-en

⁵C200 configuration uses a 1:4:1 data reduction ratio. The 16TB HDD configuration is an IBM FS7300 with a 5U92 HDD expansion attached using 81 16TB industry standard HDD drives.

*Internal experimentation by IBM Research has demonstrated detection of ransomware within 1 minute of the ransomware starting its encryption process. This experiment was done on a FlashSystem 5200 with 6 FCMs with the 4.1 firmware load. The 5200 had 8.6.3 GA level software loaded. The host connected to the 5200 was running Linux with XFS Filesystem. In this particular case, the IBM ransomware simulator called WannaLaugh was used. Underlying system must be compatible with FCM4.1 and version 8.6.3 GA level software loaded in order to receive results obtained.

**Recognized in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Primary Storage Platforms from 2019-2024
Recognized in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Solid-State arrays from 2014-2018
Recognized in Gartner Magic Quadrant for General Purpose Disk Arrays from 2013-2018