IBM FlashSystem 9500 vs NetApp AFF A900
Side-by-side specifications from the vendors' own documents. The IBM FlashSystem 9500 is a tier-1 enterprise modular all-flash storage system designed for high availability and petascale throughput. The NetApp AFF A900 is an enterprise modular all-flash storage system engineered for maximum availability and non-disruptive upgrades.
| IBM FlashSystem 9500 | NetApp AFF A900 | |
|---|---|---|
| Brand | IBM | NetApp |
| Status | current | current |
| Released | Mar 2022 | Feb 2022 |
| Form factor | 4U rack | 8U modular rack |
| Form factor | 4U rack | — |
| Controllers | Dual active-active | — |
| Cache memory | 3072GB | — |
| Max drives | 48 NVMe FCM/SSD (expands to 1536) | — |
| Host interfaces | 64Gb/32Gb FC, 100Gb/25Gb Ethernet, NVMe-oF | — |
| Max raw capacity | 7.9PB in 4U (up to 79PB expanded) | — |
| Controller configuration | — | Dual active-active modular controllers in 8U enclosure |
| Processor | — | Dual Intel Xeon processors per controller |
| Memory | — | 1024GB system memory per HA pair with NVRAM cache |
| Drive bays | — | Connects to external NS224 NVMe drive shelves (no internal storage bays in head unit) |
| Supported drives | — | NVMe TLC SSDs (1.9TB to 30.7TB) |
| Maximum raw capacity | — | Up to 702PB in a 24-node cluster |
| Host connectivity | — | Up to 20 PCIe Gen 4 expansion slots supporting 100GbE, 40GbE, 25GbE, 10GbE, and 32Gb FC |
| Storage protocols | — | NVMe/FC, NVMe/TCP, FC, iSCSI, NFS, SMB, S3 |
| Clustering | — | Up to 24 nodes (12 HA pairs) |
| Management | — | NetApp ONTAP 9 |
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