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IBM ProtectTIER vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 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

IBM ProtectTIER
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
69th
Average Rating
7.2
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (13th)
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
51st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM ProtectTIER is 0.6%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus1.1%
IBM ProtectTIER0.6%
Other98.3%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

AG
Technical Lead at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Provides a short-term backup, archive, and cataloging for 20,000 people in our organization
The backup for a large amount of data is slow. When there's a large amount of data, sometimes the backup isn't completed in time. I have a 24 hour cycle, so it doesn't get completed in 24 hours with the large amount of data. With Veritas NetBackup, I can take 20 terabytes of backup in a day.
AS
IT Specialist at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
Has provided straightforward backup and rapid deployment for diverse environments
There is reporting in IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, but I'm not very familiar with this area. I always concentrated on getting the customer to do the backup, restore, and related tasks, but there is reporting. IBM has made a decision to withdraw the product and replace it with IBM Data Protect. The correct direction is Data Protect, which includes ransomware detection. With IBM Data Protect, you can add more servers for backup. It's scalable, which is a key feature over Storage Protect and Storage Protect Plus, even more capable than Veritas, because Veritas has an option to make different media servers. You can scale the backup process regardless of the load of the customer. This speeds up the backup and restore process for a complete data center, which cannot be done with any other product. I rate IBM Spectrum Protect Plus 9 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The command-line interface is good."
"The cataloging is the best feature. It takes millions of frames for the backup. It's incremental, so it takes less time to complete."
"The most valuable features are the Self-Service, and the ability to search the data."
"Overall IBM ProtectTIER is a great solution. It is easy to use."
"In terms of stability, I've found it to be very stable. I've walked into the server room when it was at 60 degrees Celcius, and it was still running fine."
"The solution is highly stable."
"Reliability, recovery features, and stability are valuable to me."
"Pricing is good; it is reasonable and more reasonable than any other vendors."
"The most valuable features of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus are you have many possibilities on how to use it. We use it for backups and to create secondary and third copies. It is possible to pick up Kubernetes containers and use a different cloud provider if you need to start backups on the cloud."
"The most valuable features are the API features because it allows you to integrate with your Microsoft SQL, your Oracle, and your IBM Db2."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is the deduplication functionality. The clients moved to this solution originally because of this feature."
"The initial setup of IBM Protect Plus is simple and not complex."
"This is a multi-platform backup solution where you can take a backup from AIX, Windows, or Linux servers and restore from CD, disk, or tape."
"The support from IBM is very good."
 

Cons

"The backup for a large amount of data is slow."
"IBM ProtectTIER could improve by being more user-friendly."
"The configuration wizards are still complex and hard to navigate. These should be easier to manage."
"Setting up the system to work with legacy equipment is a bit complex at times."
"I would like the possibility to back up the infrastructure and then replicate it upon on restart, without having to orchestrate the starting of the VM."
"Not particularly user friendly."
"The Gui interface and usability are not so friendly and easy."
"Rooms for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect Plus are installation and configuration because those were difficult. They should try their best to improve those areas. In the next release of the product, better implementation and administration are what we're expecting."
"The replication feature is not available."
"I cannot determine what benefit IBM Spectrum Protect Plus brings to the organization because we deployed this solution with one customer, and that customer changed the product after one or two years because the product is not stable and it changes with every version."
"The solution should allow for backup of iOS snapshots."
"I would like to see continuous data protection (CDP). If there is machine failure, you don't have to go to the backup copy that you took 12 hours ago. You can actually go back to the backup copy made half an hour ago. That is, it would be good to have certain-point-in-time recovery."
"The backup support for IBM Power Virtualization needs to be added."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is very expensive."
"We have a capacity-based license, which is managed centrally for all the sites of my company."
"The customer can decide how they want to purchase a license. However, the price of the solution is expensive."
"IBM ProtectTIER is an expensive solution."
"Depends on the licensing options that you choose."
"The price is lower than that of some competing products."
"There is an annual license required to use IBM Spectrum Protect Plus. The cost of the license could improve, it is expensive."
"IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is a little expensive."
"If you need to extend it, it can be extended acting like a normal Spectrum Protect with a long archive."
"Unlike some other solutions, such as Veritas NetBackup where you have to pay for different licenses to use different features, there is a single license that allows you to use all of the features."
"I rate the price of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus a one on a scale of one to ten, where one is extremely expensive, and ten is very cheap."
"The price is perpetual, but the maintenance cost is annual. That is, we pay once for the product and pay annually for the maintenance and support. The price was much cheaper than what we would have had to pay for EMC or Veritas. The pricing is competitive, and I would rate it at four out of five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
Pricing is good; it is reasonable and more reasonable than any other vendors.
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is very simple to deploy for us, but for more clients or competitors, the solution is hard to deploy and to integrate. For our team, deployment of IBM Spectrum Protect Plu...
What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
We are an IT integrator and we need to have a good vision of all recovery and backup recovery solutions. Most frequently, we use Veeam Backup. We use Cohesity. For some old workloads, we use IBM TS...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Durham Police Department, Re-Store LLC, CenterGrid, pixx.io GmbH, Australian Government Department of Defence, QD, Refresco Gerber
PT Wings Surya, Tectrade, State of Ohio
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM ProtectTIER vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
883,089 professionals have used our research since 2012.