IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize comparison

IBM Spectrum Accelerate and IBM Spectrum Virtualize are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. IBM Spectrum Accelerate is ranked #22, while IBM Spectrum Virtualize is ranked #12 with an average rating of 9.0. Additionally, 100% of IBM Spectrum Accelerate users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of IBM Spectrum Virtualize users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

IBM Spectrum Accelerate and IBM Spectrum Virtualize compete in the enterprise storage solutions category. IBM Spectrum Virtualize has the upper hand in advanced storage virtualization and comprehensive data mobility, making it suitable for complex environments.

Features: IBM Spectrum Accelerate offers flexibility and storage scalability with robust data protection, automated management, and cloud integration. IBM Spectrum Virtualize provides advanced virtualization with streamlined management, improved storage utilization, and superior data mobility features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Accelerate allows for straightforward deployment and efficient scalability, ideal for rapid implementation. Its customer service is agile but less involved post-deployment. IBM Spectrum Virtualize's deployment is more complex due to integration requirements, but it offers comprehensive customer support for optimal long-term management.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Spectrum Accelerate is cost-effective for rapid scaling, offering good ROI for cost-conscious expansion. IBM Spectrum Virtualize involves higher initial costs but provides better long-term ROI with enhanced management and resource utilization, suitable for larger-scale operations.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize

April 2025

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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

Featured Reviews

Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

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.

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reviewer1154616

IS Auditor at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

A robust solution with good performance and support

This is a solution that scales well, although I think that we have stabilized in terms of use. With respect to scalability, we have an open question as to whether we will be able to grow into a cloud-based deployment. We don't know in what ways this solution will assist us with the migration, or whether we can still use it for DR. We don't know about the type of backup, be it full, incremental, or otherwise. We are also looking for a cost-savings if we migrate. These are things that we will find out over time. We have about two petabytes of data.

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MD.Faisal Alam

Manager, Technical Services, IBM Storage & Backup Solutions. at Thakral

Built-in compression enhances data management efficiency

I have noticed that the technical support for software issues, such as with Spectrum Protect, needs improvement. The case logging process is efficient, but resolving software problems takes too much time. This delay can hinder customers and strain vendor relationships. For hardware issues, IBM handles them efficiently, but software-related support requires enhancement. Overall improvement in support for software cases is necessary.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool's most valuable features are data warehousing, speedy recovery, and analytics. Its latest release is cost-effective."

"The ease of deployment and management has helped us simplify our storage. We also do not have to worry about capacity management as much. A lot of these things are native to Pure Storage."

"The most valuable features include the ease of implementation, ease of use and the speed that you can do backup and recovery on."

"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."

"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."

"Among its most appealing features are its ease of handling and minimal maintenance requirements."

"It uses the same platform for connectivity so integration is seamless."

"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The ease of use is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's very user-friendly."

"The most valuable feature is the robustness, which is typical of IBM because their software generally just works."

"When we add storage behind it, the product is good for the customers because their customers do not notice that anything is happening due to the virtualization."

"Although the GUI from the XIV was used (in my view), IBM has polished and refined the GUI providing a pleasant and easy to navigate GUI experience."

"The most valuable features are the simplicity of use, the flexibility, and the options included. I mean, it's just a big time saver."

"We can failover easily, because a lot of our data is replicated from family to the second replication."

"Migration from configurations where servers have storage provisioned from older SAN disk systems to newer storage systems is almost seamless using image mode migration techniques, with only a short outage of the servers."

"We are happy with the support that IBM provides us."

"I like all the features, but the most impressive recently has been the introduction of IBM's Flash Core Modules. They are a form of a flash drive, but they have many more features."

"It has the ability to seamlessly move hardware in and out as we refresh technology."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pros

Cons

"The feature that we're waiting on is better integration with the cell services."

"I would also like to see better support for CIFS workloads."

"We initially encountered challenges with the assembly process due to issues with the documentation required during setup, an area where Pure Storage needs improvement."

"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."

"I would like to see more VM-Aware features in the next release of this solution."

"I would like to see better integration."

"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."

"The Pure Storage Orchestrator is our biggest pain point at the moment. If we can have more say in future developments of feature sets that we will need to support for our use case, that would be pretty beneficial to us."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"he interface is not user-friendly so the ease of use could be improved."

"The reporting mechanisms need improvement."

"In general, the migration is complicated. Though, it is case-by-case."

"The disk reliability is not that good."

"t is limited in terms of a single system to eight nodes or four, what they call IO groups."

"There are big arrays now, and if a customer wants add more disks to it, you have to have another array. Adding disks to existing arrays is one of the most demanded things from our customers."

"They are actually working on one bug we found, which was with flash restore. This was the user interface design for virtual environments."

"The Storwize port is not so stable."

"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."

"I would like to see more baseline replication and integration with the operating system between Vmware and IBMI."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize cons

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."

"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"Support is a separate line item. Support is a different cost, but whatever your support is now, that's what you're going to pay forever. If your support's $100 today, six years from now it's $100. It doesn't fluctuate unless you upgrade it, or change it, etc."

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"If you are cost-sensitive then this solution is not for you."

"For a database, on a yearly basis, we pay approximately $3,500 for licensing fees. The solution is sold as a subscription on a yearly basis so there are no other ancillary costs."

"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."

"This solution came as an additional cost for the TSM package we chose."

"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."

"The entry point of pricing for this product is the most amazing price ever in the industry."

"It has a lot of advanced functions for a reasonable price."

"We would like the CPU cycle to save more on the licensing costs for us."

"Do a proof of concept, if you are not comfortable jumping in, but do it."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

34%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Computer Software Company

21%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

12%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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...

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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...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Virtualize?

IBM Spectrum Virtualize is not an expensive product. It offers flexibility with different flavors, whether appliance-...

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What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Virtualize?

IBM could improve IBM Spectrum Virtualize by bundling Storage Scale and Storage Virtualize into a single appliance. T...

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What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Virtualize?

I primarily use IBM Spectrum Virtualize ( /products/ibm-spectrum-virtualize-reviews ) when I have different hardware ...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 21% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Compared 58% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Compared 42% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Accelerate Competitors

VxRail vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 28% of the time

Dell VPLEX vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 23% of the time

VMware vSAN vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 17% of the time

IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 17% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 14% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

March 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

March 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Accelerate product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize

April 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Virtualize product report

Also Known As

No data available

IBM XIV

No data available

Overview

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

IBM Spectrum Accelerate is a software-defined block storage solution designed for rapid deployment across heterogeneous infrastructure for hybrid cloud and delivering consistent service levels to a dynamic workload mix. It is based on proven grid-architecture, enterprise-scale IBM XIV technology. IBM Spectrum Accelerate can be deployed, including as hyper-converged infrastructure, on any x86 server, on pre-installed third-party appliances or on public cloud infrastructure, and is available as a service on IBM Cloud infrastructure.

IBM

IBM Spectrum Virtualize is a dependable solution that improves data value, security, and simplicity for new and existing storage infrastructure. Proven over 12 years in thousands of deployments, its innovative virtualization capabilities help organizations achieve better data economics by supporting new workloads that are critical to their success. IBM Spectrum Virtualize software helps make new and existing storage more effective and standardizes functions traditionally deployed separately in disk systems for greater flexibility and potentially lower costs.

IBM

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

Silverpop

Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize

April 2025

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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