Unboxing IBM’s FlashSystem 5300 Storage Array

Discover why IBM’s FlashSystem Storage Array’s Deserve a Closer Look.

For many years, the conversation around all-flash storage has largely revolved around the same handful of names: Pure, HP, Dell, and NetApp. If you’re an Infrastructure Leader in the UK, it’s likely one of these vendors is on your refresh shortlist.

However, if you’re aiming for a strategic storage refresh that maximises performance, capacity, and critical security features without inflating your budget, you may be overlooking a formidable and highly competitive option: the IBM FlashSystem Range.

At Covenco, we believe it’s time to challenge the perception that IBM’s premium storage solutions come with a premium price tag. That’s why our storage experts, Steve Hollingsworth and Chris Slater, have just released the latest video in our series: “Unboxing IBM’s FlashSystem 5300“.

Watch the video on YouTube

Performance and Price: The Elephant in the Data Centre

It’s common to assume that an IBM all-flash array, featuring their renowned FlashCore technology, must sit at the top end of the price spectrum. Our latest unboxing video dispels this myth immediately.

Steve and Chris review an array that starts from a surprisingly competitive price point of around £20,000, with the model featured in the video landing closer to £32,000.

If you’re accustomed to budgeting for comparable arrays from the usual suspects, this price-to-performance ratio should prompt a serious pause. The FlashSystem 5300 is designed as an entry-level array that punches well above its weight, making enterprise-grade features accessible to most mid-market organisations.

Exploring the Engineering: FlashCore and Canister Design

The video takes you directly inside the array from the Covenco data centre in Banbury, Oxfordshire, allowing you to see the design and engineering up close.

FlashCore Technology

A significant focus is placed on the IBM FlashCore Modules (FCMs). These aren’t just off-the-shelf SSDs; they are purpose-built for enterprise storage and are the engine behind the system’s exceptional performance and efficiency. Beyond sheer speed, the FCMs are crucial for advanced security, providing smart in-line scanning. This technology performs entropy analysis and real-time threat detection at the storage layer, allowing the system to stop cyber threats dead in their tracks – a critical feature in the current threat landscape.

Canister-Nodes and Resiliency

Steve and Chris go deeper into the canister-nodes and their features, highlighting the system’s robust cooling capacity and inherently resilient architecture. For infrastructure managers, understanding the design of the dual active canister-nodes is key to appreciating the high availability and simplified maintenance that the FlashSystem architecture provides.

Security and Resiliency: More Than Just Snapshots

Today, any storage refresh is incomplete if it doesn’t significantly bolster your resilience against ransomware. The FlashSystem 5300 includes the most advanced security and resiliency features as standard, most notably:

• IBM Safeguarded Copy: This feature provides near-instant, immutable snapshots of your data. Should a ransomware attack occur, this allows for a rapid failover and restoration from a clean, isolated copy, dramatically reducing recovery time objectives (RTOs). It’s a non-negotiable layer of defence that’s integrated into the platform – and it comes as standard with any new FlashSystem purchase.

Your Next Move

If your organisation is planning a storage refresh, or if you simply feel the pricing you’ve received from your current vendors is disproportionately high for the performance and security on offer, we urge you to do one thing:  Get a competitive proposal from Covenco for IBM FlashSystem.

Don’t let historical assumptions about vendor pricing prevent you from seeing a truly market-leading alternative. Watch the video, review the capabilities, and then contact us to compare the performance, features, and pricing for yourself. The evidence, both in performance and cost, is compelling.