IBM SAN Volume Control vs IBM Spectrum Control comparison

IBM SAN Volume Control and IBM Spectrum Control are both solutions in the Storage Management category. IBM SAN Volume Control is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.5, while IBM Spectrum Control is ranked #6 with an average rating of 6.0. IBM SAN Volume Control holds a 5.6% mindshare in SM, compared to IBM Spectrum Control’s 9.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM SAN Volume Control users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of IBM Spectrum Control users who would recommend it.

IBM SAN Volume Control

Read 5 IBM SAN Volume Control reviews

385 Views
153 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Control

Read 8 IBM Spectrum Control reviews

429 Views
192 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

IBM SAN Volume Control

IBM Spectrum Control

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM SAN Volume Control and IBM Spectrum Control based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Storage Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM SAN Volume Control vs. IBM Spectrum Control Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM SAN Volume Control vs. IBM Spectrum Control

April 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 848,989 peers since 2012

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 SAN Volume Control

Ranking in Storage Management

4th

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM Spectrum Control

Ranking in Storage Management

6th

Average Rating

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Storage Management category, the mindshare of IBM SAN Volume Control is 5.6%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Control is 9.7%, up from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Storage Management

Featured Reviews

Nagendra Nekkala.

Senior Manager ICT & at Bangalore International Airport Limited

A sustainable product that has ultra-low latency and reliable security features

Initially, we had some challenges with massive amounts of customer data. We have an airport segment where the passenger data are required, and it’s huge data. We needed a system that could store bulk data with low latency and provide a good customer experience. The solution is very famous. Ultra latency provides miraculous performance and productivity. It also enables advanced virtualization for good scalability. Anyone can opt to use the product. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

Read full review

Aamir Jameel

Senior Systems Manager at Tapal tea

Scalable but not user-friendly

Spectrum Control could be more user-friendly. IBM also needs to provide proper training to handle Spectrum Control because it's a complicated solution I've been using Spectrum Control for almost three years. Spectrum Control's stability is fine. Spectrum Control's scalability is fine - we can…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of IBM SAN Volume Control are the copy services, performance metrics, and analysis. Additionally, they have upgraded and introduced visual volumes."

"The solution is easy to use, easily configurable, and easy to upgrade, manipulate, and add new storage."

"The product has an ultra-low latency."

"With SVC it is very easy to manage and to use for migration, meaning that when we want to move or to keep control of the volume or update a server database, it is very easy. That's why we use it."

"The virtualization layer has been great."

"The most valuable feature is the ease of use. The ability to get into a storage device and look at whatever you are trying to look at as far as performance, then obtain the reports that you need to do your analytical work."

"In my opinion, it's the best monitoring and report creation tool for IBM storage devices. You can do a lot of performance stats and reports with very nice tools for IBM storage devices."

"The installation was very easy. You just install an agent on a server, and you give that agent access to your storage device, then it just collects the data. It took five minutes to set up."

"Spectrum Control is highly secure and competitively priced."

"The benefits would be mostly the ability to diagnose a problem."

"The product keeps historical data for a very long time."

"Spectrum Control's scalability is fine - we can extend it for the backup requirement."

"The granularity of this solution has been most useful. Customers can click on a single item and get the information only for the single item they choose."

More IBM Spectrum Control pros

Cons

"They just need to put in the snap volume because now they use what is called a flash copy. This means that you have to take all the volume instead of NetApp which uses their snapshot."

"I would like to see the usage of virtualized storage boxes improved. I'd like to see this feature fixed, especially for SVC controller, and to be able to hold more storage."

"IBM support can be very slow."

"IBM SAN Volume Control could improve by better integrations with other vendor systems. IBM SAN Volume Control can store the environment and are able to integrate with Veeam, but I don't know if they can integrate as well with SVC or other vendors' systems."

"Patch management and upgrades must be made easier."

"I would like to see is more information regarding the copy groups (the replication)."

"If we were to add VM level performance being able to monitor VMs on a VM level, then that would be good."

"Spectrum Control could be more user-friendly."

"The solution must support multi-vendor storage."

"The initial setup for IBM Spectrum Control is a bit complicated. They should also make it easier to integrate and use the Cosmos Analytics tool, which is very complicated."

"The database could be improved so that the complexity of installation could be easier. We would also like to have more granularity in the profiles and products for users. We would like to link the users to the tool to managers or auditors."

"The pain points were, and may still continue to be, the fact that there are multiple components of the product which are installed, you might say, somewhat individually."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The initial price of IBM SAN Volume Control is steep."

"With SAN Volume Controller, we need to license by terabyte."

"It is pay for the amount of storage that you are monitoring. The more that we use the tool and like the tool, we may want to extend it to other storage platforms. This is just a matter of cost."

"The solution is reasonably priced."

"We were already licensing Spectrum Control. This was one reasons why we went to Control rather than using the other product."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Storage Management solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

848,989 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Energy/Utilities Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM SAN Volume Control?

The product has an ultra-low latency.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM SAN Volume Control?

Heterogenous Storage management.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering IBM SAN Volume Control?

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Control?

The product keeps historical data for a very long time.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Control?

The solution must support multi-vendor storage.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Control?

The solution can be used for monitoring storage.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell VPLEX vs IBM SAN Volume Control

Compared 69% of the time

CA TLMS Tape Management (CA TLMS) vs IBM SAN Volume Control

Compared 31% of the time

More IBM SAN Volume Control Competitors

IBM Storage Insights vs IBM Spectrum Control

Compared 69% of the time

Dell Storage Resource Manager vs IBM Spectrum Control

Compared 31% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Control Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Storage Management

April 2025

Download IBM SAN Volume Control product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Control

April 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Control product report

Also Known As

IBM SVC

Spectrum Control

Overview

Built with IBM Spectrum Virtualize software—part of the IBM Spectrum Storage family—IBM SAN Volume Controller (SVC) is an enterprise-class storage system that helps organizations achieve better data economics by supporting the new large scale workloads that are critical to success. SVC systems can handle the massive volumes of data from mobile and social applications and enable flexible hybrid multicloud deployments and deliver the performance and scalability needed to gain insights from the latest analytics technologies.

IBM

IBM Spectrum Control is a comprehensive solution that can significantly improve monitoring, automation and analytics capabilities in multi-vendor storage environments. IBM Spectrum Control helps manage storage systems, software-defined storage, storage-area network (SAN) fabrics and devices. Storage can be seen from multiple perspectives, including departmental, application and server views. IBM Spectrum Control helps simplify provisioning, tier optimization, performance management and data replication processes.

IBM

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Nuance

Buyer's Guide

IBM SAN Volume Control vs. IBM Spectrum Control

April 2025

Free Report: IBM SAN Volume Control vs. IBM Spectrum Control

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SAN Volume Control vs. IBM Spectrum Control and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

848,989 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our IBM SAN Volume Control vs. IBM Spectrum Control report.

See our list of best Storage Management vendors.

We monitor all Storage Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.