The new IBM Storage FlashSystem 5600, 7600, and 9600 arrays use EDSFF and a new fifth-generation FlashCore module to bring more capacity and performance to its arrays. Two of the arrays can support well over 1PB raw. What is more, the new arrays use FlashSystem.ai to bring agentic AI to storage administration.
New IBM Storage FlashSystem Gets an AI Infusion
The lower end of the three new models is the IBM Storage FlashSystem 5600. This is a 1U 12-drive enclosure with two 12-core Intel Xeon’s. It also supports PCIe Gen4, which is interesting since that would make this an Intel Ice Lake generation storage array.
IBM says this can support up to 633TB of raw capacity, 30GB/s of read bandwidth and up to 2.6M IOPS.
The midrange option is the IBM Storage FlashSystem 7600. This is the 2U 32-drive enclosure. IBM says it is using two 16-core AMD EPYC CPUs, and this supports PCIe Gen5. Between the jump to AMD EPYC on the CPU side, and PCIe Gen5 on the I/O side, this is a notably more capable system.
IBM says this supports up to 1.68PB of raw capacity, 55GB/s of read bandwidth, and up to 4.3 million IOPS.
At the higher-end is the IBM Storage FlashSystem 9600. Like the FlashSystem 7600, this is a 2U 32-drive array. It also supports AMD EPYC and PCIe Gen5 with a major difference being that it supports two 48-core CPUs.
The max raw capacity is 3.37PB. With the faster system, IBM says this can support up to 86GB/s of read bandwidth and 6.3 million IOPS.
Final Words
This is going to be a trend we see in the industry. There is a lot of pressure on companies to show value from AI. IBM is embracing the trend to show how it can use agentic AI to automate routine maintenance tasks. Something similar is happening on the networking side, which will be a major theme this year.
