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DataCore SANsymphony vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Pure Storage FlashBlade
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (17th), File and Object Storage (6th)
DataCore SANsymphony
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Storage Software (2nd), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (5th), HCI (7th), Storage Performance (2nd)
IBM Spectrum Virtualize
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (12th)
 

Featured Reviews

Eric Black - PeerSpot reviewer
The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us
The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.
TempreviewerD - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust with good replication and access protection
The solution is constantly evolving. Recently, deduplication and compression have been further improved to meet customer needs, and updates are easily implemented without stopping production. The update assistant checks the state of health before using good practices, during checks that the data is still presented for service continuity, and afterward, if the actions carried out are indeed active. Technical support is truly available even without a production incident. This is really essential right now.
EdwinVan Halm - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise product that delivers high performance features
The primary use case is high availability and disaster recovery. They use it as an active-active cluster located in two physical locations for quick recovery using immutable snapshots The quick restore, the low latency, and the ease of use are some of the most valuable features. The product is…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Speed and ease of use are the two most valuable features."
"The most valuable features are the Metro clustering, and disaster recovery."
"The most valuable features of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."
"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is performance."
"The product is scalable and easy to expand."
"The initial setup was straightforward. If you know how to plug in power and network you're pretty much qualified. They were on site to configure the network, the box to fit into our network architecture. Other than that, we self-managed from there."
"It has absolutely simplified our storage because the dashboards on the consoles show a clear understanding of where you are, and it is also very easy to provision. This been a big help for our teams."
"It is a stable solution."
"Supporting of Automated-Storage-Tiering (AST) is a good feature that saves money."
"The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are many counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like when a backup is in progress)."
"SANsymphony is flexible, with many potential options for implementation. SANsymphony's can be used with VMware, Hyper-V, or even with a hypervisor agnostic approach. It can also be used for strictly physical non-virtualized solutions."
"The synchronous mirror allows us to operate a fully redundant storage solution that is distributed across two sites."
"The most useful feature of SANsymphony is that it's able to manage any brand of block storage."
"I am very happy with this product's ability to adapt, increase, and modify existing infrastructures."
"The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are a lot of counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like when a backup is in progress)."
"Using SBC, a valuable feature is the mirroring, which is the virtualization of the disk between disparate places."
"It is a single pane of glass management interface, so once the storage is allocated to SVC, they only have one place to go to manage it for everything."
"There are many benefits to this solution. Storage virtualization and the ability to migrate massive amounts of data to other systems without impacting your client are the most valuable. It is non-disruptive for my users. We migrated 350 terabytes of data in one night to a new machine without a small system going down and a single user complaining about the performance. You have to fine-tune a lot of storage machines constantly for performance and for making sure that they are optimal, but IBM Spectrum Virtualize does this by itself. It does the adjustment on its own, and it does it right. That's what makes it different. I had a huge VSP from Hitachi, which is also a type of virtualization-based engine but with a decent size. It was a continuous performance-tuning exercise. I never had that issue with IBM Spectrum Virtualize."
"In my opinion, the quick restore, the low latency, and the ease of use are some of the most valuable features."
"I like that it can virtualize more than three hundred storage providers."
"The abstraction flair and the abstraction layer. We had a mixture of different storage arrays, and the wonderful thing about SVC is is that it normalizes all it into a single driver. A single view that all hosts see simultaneously."
"We can failover easily, because a lot of our data is replicated from family to the second replication."
"The most valuable features are the simplicity of use, the flexibility, and the options included. I mean, it's just a big time saver."
 

Cons

"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."
"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."
"We haven't been able to use much of the cloud area of Pure Storage. We have a storage server and it would be better if it could integrate with other cloud features of this solution."
"The speed could be improved."
"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."
"There is some room for new features related to authentication and integration with Kubernetes, and other solution using S3 Bucket."
"Its configuration should be easier."
"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."
"The cloud reporting interface is quite poor compared to other vendors."
"The main problem is there is no DataCore OS."
"There is room for improvement in the graphical interface."
"Problem detection could be easier. It should help customers identify problems very quickly because it's not easy to analyze on the platform today."
"Unified storage (all block, objects, and files) should be in a single storage pool with unified storage concepts, hence providing the user with whatever they want."
"There is no way of quickly matching the exact size of a vDisk to a disk pool."
"When I sometimes reboot for maintenance, the connectivity from the iSCSI initiator host could be improved."
"I still see room for improvement with DataCore SANsymphony in the area of alarm and task management."
"In general, the migration is complicated. Though, it is case-by-case."
"The case logging process is efficient, but resolving software problems takes too much time."
"Anything which improves performance and the ability of our systems would be a nice."
"There are things that occur when you get to this size and capacity. We're very large, i.e., petabytes. When you get to that sheer volume of the numbers of things, it is too big for people to keep track of."
"Tighter integration with cloud storage might be useful as a target for a variety of use cases."
"I hate I/O groups. If you start swapping I/O groups, they can be potentially risky. If they could get rid of the whole I/O group principle, the risk is not there anymore. I understand the fundamental thing about I/O groups, but they are risky."
"IBM could improve IBM Spectrum Virtualize by bundling Storage Scale and Storage Virtualize into a single appliance. This would provide a more appealing and cost-effective solution."
"The disk reliability is not that good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."
"Our licensing is renewed annually."
"The product is very expensive."
"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."
"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."
"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."
"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."
"Make sure you are made aware of the annual subscription cost when purchasing."
"The cost is at the same level as other storage solutions and it is easy to understand the licensing."
"It is relatively expensive, and the additional costs for hardware and storage can make it a significant investment for customers."
"DataCore SANsymphony's pricing is very high and should be much cheaper."
"The pricing and licensing are better with DataCore."
"Pricing has improved but it is still expensive."
"This solution allows the use of off-the-shelf hardware and charges by the TB of storage."
"The solution is cost effective."
"This solution came as an additional cost for the TSM package we chose."
"It has a lot of advanced functions for a reasonable price."
"We have struggled with Pure Storage, but people are understanding that much of Pure has been consumer grade SSDs. Therefore, when the customer is really understands what they are getting, they realize that IBM presents the same sort of value as existing vendors."
"I think it is a good value for the price."
"Generally the bundled licensing is more cost effective and gives flexibility to the solution. Linking into the Spectrum Suite can also be advantageous, but depends on the scale of the enterprise."
"Do a proof of concept, if you are not comfortable jumping in, but do it."
"The entry point of pricing for this product is the most amazing price ever in the industry."
"I am very happy with the pricing. There is no comparison when it comes to pricing. I have looked at all solutions from EMC, Veritas, Hitachi, Dell, etc. None of them compares to IBM when it comes to pricing. I get great pricing from them."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions are best for your needs.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
37%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
21%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
12%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?
The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?
The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore SANsymphony SDS?
The cost changed from a perpetual license to a subscription model, and it seems reasonable. I am technical personnel ...
What do you like most about DataCore SANsymphony?
The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are a lot of counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like...
What needs improvement with DataCore SANsymphony?
In my opinion, there should be improvements in how to get and filter logs. However, this is not a frequent need becau...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Virtualize?
As a customer of IBM, I can often secure discounts of seventy to ninety percent, depending on the purchase volume, wh...
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Virtualize?
I would like to see them provide a unified platform that offers block, file, and object-based protocol access. Presen...
What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Virtualize?
I use IBM Spectrum Virtualize as a storage device that provides storage to servers needing storage. I utilize it in m...
 

Also Known As

No data available
DataCore Virtual SAN
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Volkswagen , Maimonides Medical Center, NASA, Thorntons, Inc., TUI, ISCO Industries, Pee Dee Electric Cooperative, United Financial Credit Union, Derby Supply Chain Solutions, Mission Community Hospital, Bellarmine College Preparatory, Colby-Sawyer College, Mount Sinai Health System, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Quorn Foods, Bitburger, University of Birmingham, Stadtverwaltung Heidelberg, NetEnt to name a few.
Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services
Find out what your peers are saying about DataCore SANsymphony vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.