IBM Systems

Data Sheet

IBM FlashSystem 9500 | Data

sheet
NVMe-optimized high-performance
Highlights storage redefines cyber resilience for the
modern cloud enterprise
• Accelerate mission-critical
applications with IBM
Often, applications exist that are foundational to the
FlashCore technology
operations and success of an enterprise. These applications
• Enhance cyber resilience may function as prime revenue generators, they may guide or
without compromising control important tasks, or they may provide crucial business
application performance
intelligence, among many other jobs. Whatever their purpose,
• Leverage IBM Spectrum® they are mission-critical to the organization. They demand
Virtualize for high- the highest levels of performance, functionality, security, and
performance hybrid cloud availability. And they must be protected against the modern
• Transform data economics scourge, cyber attacks. To support mission-critical
using data reduction with applications, enterprises of all types and sizes turn to IBM
no performance impacts FlashSystem® 9500.
• Simplify storage
management by extending IBM FlashSystem 9500 combines the performance of flash
powerful data services and a Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe)-optimized
architecture with the reliability and innovation of IBM
• Leverage artificial
intelligence (AI) to optimize
FlashCore® technology and the rich feature set and high
storage management availability of IBM Spectrum Virtualize. This powerful new
storage platform provides:
• Deploy leading-edge
storage solutions with
The option to use large capacity IBM FlashCore modules
confidence using IBM
FlashWatch
(FCM) with inline-hardware compression, data protection,
and innovative flash management features; industry
• Increase cost-efficiency
standard NVMe drives; or Storage Class Memory (SCM)
with IBM Storage Utility
drives.
programs
The software-defined storage functionality of IBM
Spectrum Virtualize with a full range of industry-leading
data services such as dynamic tiering,
snapshot management, IBM Safeguarded Copy and IBM
Cyber Vault, data mobility, and high-performance data
encryption, among many others.
IBM Systems
Data Sheet

Innovative data reduction pool (DRP) technology that includes deduplication and hardware-
accelerated compression technology, plus SCSI UNMAP support and all the thin provisioning,
copy management, and efficiency you’d expect from IBM Spectrum Virtualize-based storage.

IBM FlashSystem 9500

Performance and flexibility at the core

IBM FlashSystem 9500 provides petabytes of effective data storage in a very efficient four-rack-
unit chassis. It utilizes IBM FlashCore technology packaged into a 2.5-inch solid-state drive
(SSD) form factor and using an NVMe interface. These FlashCore Modules (FCMs) deliver
powerful inline, hardware-accelerated compression technology without performance impact,
consistent microsecond latency and extreme reliability.

The IBM FlashCore technology has enabled very high flash density and storage
capacity. New third generation FCMs deliver enhanced compression technology enabling up to
116TB to be stored in a single drive. In addition, FCM 3 has full hot-swap capabilities and
supports FIPS 140-3 Level 1 encryption with IBM Security Key Lifecycle Manager and Gemalto
SafeNet KeySecure centralized key management.

The IBM FlashCore Modules can be complemented with Storage Class Memory (SCM) NVMe
drive technology. SCM technology offers even lower latency and when combined with FCM
drives, can be used for even more demanding workloads.

IBM FlashSystem expands its support of the NVMe fast-access protocol with NVMe-over fabrics
to compatible hosts for complete end-to-end NVMe support. Combined with the NVMe
capabilities of the systems, they can achieve latency as low as 50 microseconds to accelerate
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Data Sheet

application performance and business productivity.

Flexibility is built into the IBM FlashSystem architecture. You can choose FCMs in multiple
capacities, industry-standard NVMe drives or SCM drives to deliver the capacity you need with
the performance you require. The IBM FlashSystem 9500 has the capability to support all these
drive types simultaneously within the array. This means that using the always-on inline high-
performance data compression in the FCMs or DRP technology with the industry-standard
drives, effective capacities of a single 4U IBM FlashSystem 9500 can range up to 4.5 petabytes
and deliver performance of 100 GB/s throughput or 1.6 million IOPS with a database-like
workload.

IBM FlashSystem 9500 features dual controllers supported by four hot swappable batteries,
four power supplies, and redundant cooling. Each of the two controllers has two 2.4GHz Intel
Ice Lake CPUs with 24 cores. Up to 1.5TB of memory can be configured per controller, so that in
a single 4U storage system you can leverage the performance and efficiency of three terabytes
of memory and multiple petabytes of storage, all moving at NVMe speeds, to tackle even the
most demanding real-time analytics or AI application workloads. IBM FlashSystem 9500
supports host attachment using 16/32 Gbps fibre channel, and 10/25 Gbps and 100 Gbps
Ethernet with iSCSI and NVMe RDMA options.

Simplified management

IBM FlashSystem 9500 with IBM Spectrum Virtualize is designed to simplify hybrid cloud
storage environments from the very start. The systems utilize a modern user interface for
centralized management. With this single interface, administrators can perform configuration,
management, and service tasks in a consistent manner over multiple storage systems – even
from different vendors – vastly simplifying management and helping reduce the risk of errors.
Plug-ins to support VMware vCenter help enable more efficient, consolidated management
while a REST API and Ansible support help enable automated operations. The interface is
consistent with other members of the IBM Spectrum Storage family, to simplify tasks for
administrators and help reduce the risk of error.

Powerful cloud and container capabilities

IBM Spectrum Virtualize provides the data services foundation for every IBM FlashSystem 9500
solution. Its industry-leading capabilities include a wide range of data services that can be
extended to over 500 IBM and non-IBM heterogeneous storage systems; automated data
movement; synchronous and asynchronous copy services (either on-premises or to the public
cloud); encryption; high-availability configurations; storage tiering; and data reduction
technologies, among many others. IBM FlashSystem 9500 solutions can function as IT
infrastructure modernization and transformation engines, thanks to the IBM Spectrum Virtualize
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Data Sheet

capabilities that allow you to extend a wide range of data services and functionality to more than
500 legacy external heterogeneous storage systems under the solution’s management,
reducing both capital and operational costs while increasing the return on your investments in
legacy infrastructure.

The IBM Spectrum Virtualize technology within IBM FlashSystem 9500 arrays offers powerful
data-reduction pool capabilities that include block deduplication that works to minimize the
number of data copies stored, and hardware-accelerated data compression technology that
provides consistent, high-performance results across application workload patterns. IBM
FlashSystem 9500 DRP supports the SCSI UNMAP command, which allows software to tell the
storage system when it’s no longer using portions of storage. This capacity is then returned to
the pool to be used to satisfy other requirements. Previously, storage would stay assigned even
if it was no longer being used, which wastes capacity.

To further drive your IT transformation, combining IBM FlashSystem 9500 with IBM Spectrum
Virtualize for Public Cloud offers multiple ways to create hybrid cloud solutions between on-
premises private clouds and the public cloud. The common platform brings consistency to
enable real-time storage-based data replication and disaster recovery, as well as data migration
between local storage and IBM Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure. And
thanks to its software-defined storage nature, IBM Spectrum Virtualize allows storage
administration at a cloud service provider’s site in the same way as on-premises, regardless of
the type of storage.

Virtualization and container support

The IBM Spectrum Virtualize functionality in IBM FlashSystem 9500 complements server
virtualization technologies such as PowerVM, Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware vSphere, Kubernetes,
and Docker. Similar to provisioning virtualized servers, provisioning capacity with IBM
FlashSystem 9500 is designed to become an almost entirely automated function.

Containers are an open-source technology that wraps applications with everything needed to
run in any environment. Containerization is a key enabling technology for flexibly delivering
workloads to private and public cloud and DevOps. IBM FlashSystem 9500 supports Red Hat
OpenShift and Kubernetes container environments, accelerating the deployment of persistent
volumes with the IBM block storage CSI driver, certified by Red Hat and IBM.

Rock solid data resilience

As systems became linked with external networks, organizations adopted a “defense-in-depth”

security mode so that if the perimeter was breached, there were additional layers of security to
protect critical information. IBM FlashSystem 9500 provides advanced capabilities that can help
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Data Sheet

maximize data protection, security, and high availability to significantly reduce the risk of
disruption and financial losses due to user errors, malicious destruction, or ransomware attacks.
FlashSystem 9500 delivers the capability to enable this level of protection while also delivering
high performance for applications.

With Safeguarded Copy, IBM adds a line of defense against cyber threats by protecting your
valued data from cyberattacks with immutable and isolated copies that are hidden, non-
addressable and cannot be altered. In the event of an attack, these copies can be quickly
restored to support recovery. Customized to your particular application mix, IBM FlashSystem
Cyber Vault builds on IBM Safeguarded Copy to help reduce cyber attack recovery times.

Cyber Vault runs continuously and monitors snapshots as they are created automatically by
Safeguarded Copy. Using standard database tools and automation software, Cyber Vault checks
Safeguarded Copy snapshots for corruption. If Cyber Vault finds such changes, that is an
immediate sign an attack may be occurring.

When preparing a response, knowing the last snapshots with no evidence of an attack speeds
determining which snapshot to use. And since Safeguarded Copy snapshots are on the same
FlashSystem storage as operational data, recovery is very fast using the same snapshot
technology. With these advantages, FlashSystem Cyber Vault is designed to help reduce
cyberattack recovery time from days to just hours.

In addition, physical isolation layers can also be created by storing sensitive copies in
immutable storage, cloud environments or off-line write-once read many (WORM) tape devices
to provide physical air-gap protection.

IBM FlashSystem 9500 includes improved serviceability with more hot-swappable components,
secure boot capability that helps ensure only IBM-signed software can run on the system,
and multi factor authentication when administrators log into the system to help validate their
identity.

Moving data is one of the most common causes of planned downtime. The IBM Spectrum
Virtualize technology within IBM FlashSystem 9500 enables data movement from one storage
system to another, or between arrays, while maintaining access to the data. This function can be
used when replacing older storage with newer storage, as part of load-balancing work, or when
moving data in a tiered storage infrastructure from disk drives to flash.

IBM HyperSwap® function supports storage and servers in two or three data centers. In this
configuration, IBM FlashSystem solutions enable servers at each data center to access data
concurrently, with automated switch-over in case of failure, when it is implemented by IBM Lab
Services, IBM can guarantee 100% availability. When combined with server data mobility
functions such as VMware vMotion or IBM PowerVM Live Partition Mobility, HyperSwap
technology enables non-disruptive storage and virtual machine mobility between data centers
that can be up to 300 km (186 miles) apart.
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Data Sheet

And with more organizations looking to adopt data resilience solutions that go beyond simple
data backup and recovery, the IBM Spectrum Protect portfolio is the perfect complement for
IBM FlashSystem. It provides unified end-to-end workload protection, both on-premises and in
the cloud, including applications, VMs, file systems, SaaS workloads, AWS EC2 instances, and
containers.

Advanced replication

The IBM Spectrum Virtualize functionality in IBM FlashSystem 9500 is designed to enable
administrators to apply across all systems under management a single set of advanced
network-based replication services that operate in a consistent manner, regardless of the type
of storage being used.

When used with other IBM FlashSystem 9500 products, volumes can be replicated across 3
sites, offering both high availability and data recovery using synchronous and asynchronous data
communication.

IBM FlashCopy functionality is designed to create an almost-instant copy (or “snapshot”) of

active data that can be used for backup purposes or for parallel processing activities. Up to 256
copies of data may be created.

IBM Spectrum Protect is designed to perform near-instant application-aware snapshot backups

using FlashCopy local replication, but with minimal impact to IBM DB2, Oracle, SAP, VMware,
Microsoft SQL Server, or Microsoft Exchange databases.

IBM FlashSystem 9500 also supports remote mirroring, enabling organizations to create copies
of data at remote locations for disaster recovery. Replication can occur between any systems
built with IBM Spectrum Virtualize and can involve any supported storage, including cloud.
Support for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager helps speed disaster recovery.

For IP replication, IBM Spectrum Virtualize uses innovative Bridgeworks WANrockIT technology
to optimize the use of network bandwidth and can compress data being transmitted to help
reduce networking costs and improve remote replica currency.

Cost-efficiency

IBM FlashSystem 9500 offers better performance and a consolidated tiered storage
environment, in which you need less space, reducing your footprint, maintenance expenses and
other operating costs. With the high density of FCM drives, the automated tiering and the data
reduction options within IBM Spectrum Virtualize help transform the economics of data storage.
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Data Sheet

The innovative data reduction options allow compression, deduplication and thin provisioning to
significantly improve usable capacity and efficiency allowing you to store more in less space.
With automated storage tiering with Easy Tier® can help improve performance and lower costs
by enabling the more efficient use of flash storage or multiple tiers of drives. Easy Tier
automatically identifies more active data and moves that data to faster storage such as Storage
Class Memory and FlashCore Modules. This helps organizations leverage flash storage for the
data that can benefit the most.

In addition to built-in cost-efficiency features, IBM FlashSystem 9500 capacity can be procured
using the IBM Storage Utility pricing model. This offering allows you to predict monthly data
capacity costs and only pay for the capacity you need, whether your data grows or shrinks. No
need to over-purchase or lease large amounts of capacity for “just in case” needs. Simply use
the data that your business needs and the IBM Storage Utility offering will take care of the rest.

AI-powered storage visibility, insight, and control

IBM Storage Insights and Storage Insights Pro provide critical system analysis and optimization
capabilities that enhance your IBM FlashSystem experience, such as:

A single dashboard so you can see the status of all your block storage at a glance

System information gathered from approximately 23 million data points so you can make better,
more informed decisions

Monitoring of Brocade and Cisco switches and fabrics to help identify saturation, congestion,
and fabric errors that might impact your storage performance

AI-enhanced analytics that leverage knowledge from over two exabytes of storage currently
under management to better predict and help prevent problems before they impact your
business

When support is needed, the ability to easily open a ticket, upload log information, and view
open tickets

Detailed configuration data available to IBM specialists to help close tickets quickly.

Delivered as a service from IBM Cloud at no charge, Storage Insights is quick and easy to set up
and requires no ongoing software maintenance. IBM Storage Insights Pro is an upgrade that
provides more detailed information and additional capabilities.
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Data Sheet

Deploy with confidence

To enhance the IBM FlashSystem 9500 acquisition, deployment, and operational experience,
IBM offers a suite of programs collectively called IBM FlashWatch. This suite of programs
includes high availability, data reduction, and flash endurance guarantees; all-inclusive
licensing; Storage Expert Care and cloud-based analytics; cloud-like utility pricing; storage
upgrade options; and free data migration for the first 90 days. IBM FlashWatch increases
confidence in purchasing, owning, and upgrading IBM Storage solutions.

IBM Storage Expert Care Advanced and Premium service and support are available. Simply
select the level of support and term of service to support your business needs.

Storage made simple for hybrid cloud

IBM FlashSystem 9500 solutions provide a single enterprise class platform to address the full
spectrum of 21st-century data storage requirements. From NVMe-powered all-flash
performance and IBM FlashCore reliability, through easy hybrid cloud integration and almost
unlimited scalability, to data services that can transform and modernize existing systems, IBM
FlashSystem 9500 is designed to simplify storage and accelerate business productivity.

IBM FlashSystem 9500 at a glance

Models • Control enclosures 4666-AH8, UH8

• Expansion enclosures AFF, A9F
Clustering IBM FlashSystem 9500 systems can cluster for high availability HyperSwap
configurations as well as for scale out.
Software • IBM Spectrum Virtualize
• IBM Storage Insights
Host Interface Hot swappable.
Ports per control enclosure:
• Up to 48 x 16/32 Gbps Fibre Channel (FC, NVMeoF)
• Up to 20 x 10/25 Gbps Ethernet (iSCSI and NVMe RDMA)
• Up to 12 x 100 Gbps Ethernet (iSCSI and NVMe RDMA)
User Interface GUI, CLI, REST API
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Data Sheet

Maximum drives supported • 48 NVMe drives per control enclosure

• 24 2.5" SAS drives per AFF expansion enclosure
• 92 2.5" SAS drives per A9F expansion enclosure
• Up to a maximum of 184 SAS drives in expansion enclosures per control
enclosure
Supported NVMe drives FlashCore Modules
• 4.8 TB, 9.6 TB, 19.2 TB and 38.4 TB with hardware compression
Storage Class Memory (SCM)
• 1.6 TB
Industry-standard NVMe
• 1.92 TB, 3.84 TB, 7.68 TB, 15.36 TB, and 30.72 TB
Supported SAS drives 2.5-Inch SAS SSD
1.92 TB, 3,84 TB, 7.68 TB, 15.36 TB and 30.72 TB
RAID levels DRAID 1 and 6 with dynamic DRAID expansion
Max IOPS (4K read hit) 8 million
Minimum latency (4K read <50 μs
hit)
Maximum IOPS (4K read 2.5 million
miss)
Maximum bandwidth 100 GB/s
(256KB read miss)
Core per control enclosure Four 24-core 2.4GHz Intel Ice Lake processors per control enclosure
Cache per control enclosure From 1024 GB up to 3,072 GB per control enclosure
Fans and Power Supplies Fully redundant, Hot Swappable
Rack Support Standard 19-Inch
Advanced features • Data reduction via thin provisioning, UNMAP, Compression and
deduplication
• Data-at-rest AES-XTS 256 encryption
• Easy Tier
• Data migration
• External virtualization
• Safeguarded Copy
Replication features • Snapshots
• Hyperswap (high availability)
• 2- and 3- site replication with synchronous and asynchronous options
Additional available • IBM FlashSystem Cyber Vault
advanced features • IBM Storage Insights Pro
• IBM Spectrum Virtualize for Public Cloud
• IBM Spectrum Control
• IBM Spectrum Protect
• IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
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Data Sheet

Warranty and Support IBM FlashSystem 9500 (machine type 9846) hardware warranty:
• IBM installation
• One year standard warranty
• IBM On-Site Repair: 24x7; Same Day Software Maintenance

• IBM Storage Expert Care Advanced:

⚬ Available in 1-5 years
⚬ IBM On-Site Repair: 24x7; Same Day Software Maintenance
⚬ IBM Storage Expert Care Services:
▪ Guidance on installation, usage, and configuration
▪ Automated ticket management and alerting
▪ Predictive support
▪ IBM Storage Insights entitlement

• IBM Storage Expert Care Premium:

⚬ Available in 1-5 years
⚬ IBM On-Site Repair: 24x7; Same Day Software Maintenance
⚬ IBM Storage Expert Care Services:
▪ Guidance on installation, usage, and configuration
▪ Automated ticket management and alerting
▪ Predictive support
▪ Storage Insights Pro entitlement
▪ Remote code upgrades (two per year)
▪ Technical Account Manager
▪ 30 minutes response on severity 1 or 2 issue
Dimensions Control enclosures
• Height: 17.43 cm (6.8 in.)
• Width: 44.6 cm (17.6 in.)
• Depth: 82.6 cm (32.6 in.)
Weight Fully configured FlashSystem 9500 control enclosure (48 drive modules
installed): 70.5 kg (155.5 lb)
Supported systems For a list of currently supported servers, operating systems, host bus
adapters, clustering applications and SAN switches and directors,
refer to the IBM System Storage Interoperation Center:
https://www.ibm.com/systems/support/storage/ssic/interoperability.
wss
Independent software vendor For a list of high-quality solutions with our partner ISVs, including
(ISV) solutions
access to solution briefs and white papers, refer to the ISV Solutions
Resource Library:
https://www.ibm.com/partnerworld/wps/pub/systems/whyibm/progra
ms
IBM Systems
Data Sheet

Why IBM? For more information

IBM offers a vast portfolio of hardware, Visit our solutions page to learn more about
software and services to help organizations the FlashSystem family of data systems, or
cost-effectively address their IT contact your IBM representative or IBM
infrastructure needs. These include robust Business Partner. If you need to be
data-storage solutions to enable always-on, connected, fill out this form to schedule a
trustworthy storage and recovery from consult with an IBM storage expert.
disaster. Because business needs shift, IBM
solutions emphasize interoperability and the Additionally, IBM Global Financing provides
integration of new use cases or approaches, numerous payment options to help you
from analytics to multi-site backup to near- acquire the technology you need to grow
instant recovery. With IBM, organizations can your business. We provide full lifecycle
create flexible, robust and resilient storage management of IT products and services,
infrastructure to support critical operations from acquisition to disposition. Visit:
for smooth operations and regulatory https://www.ibm.com/financing/flash
compliance.

Powerful all-flash block storage solutions

that provide affordable, high-performance
enterprise-grade functionality for businesses
of all sizes. Unique IBM FlashCore Modules
provide unparalleled density, endurance, and
performance. Built with IBM Spectrum
Virtualize and the AI-powered storage
management and proactive support of IBM
Storage Insights, FlashSystem delivers
consistent rich data services across on-
premises, hybrid cloud, containerized or
virtualized environments.
IBM Systems
Data Sheet

IBM Spectrum®
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