Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM Spectrum Protect vs Quest QoreStor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Spectrum Protect
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
149
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Quest QoreStor
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
96th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Data Replication (22nd), Disk Based Backup Systems (7th), Storage Software (7th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (44th), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (37th), Copy Data Management (9th), File and Object Storage (49th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect is 2.2%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quest QoreStor is 0.0%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Syed Habib - PeerSpot reviewer
Manageable and comprehensive and integrates robust backup features for core banking
It's adequate for my core banking, however, I am looking for another solution for all systems. It is not compatible with other operating systems like Windows or Linux, and lacks a consolidated dashboard from Browser Spectrum. This is why I am searching for another solution. The product also lacks any centralized graphical user interface (GUI), such as Jarek Pod, and I am limited to using a console-based text user interface, which my local partner handles completely.
Jeff Manuszak - PeerSpot reviewer
Cost-efficient, highly scalable, and installable on different types of hardware
They could improve on support a little bit. We have not had to engage their support much, but when we do have issues, it can take longer to get things resolved. We are pretty lenient as we do a lot of IT support ourselves. We are not very hard on support organizations, but when a customer has a support issue, it would be easier if the support processes were a little bit more automated. It would be beneficial to have an easier way to upload diagnostic dump files. They can make it easy for the customer to collect the diagnostic data. There can be some kind of monitoring solutions to alert users to issues with the appliance or software, making it easy for customers to monitor their systems in the field. This is especially critical because it stores customers' backups, and a failure can have significant business impacts. If a customer does not have the backups and has a disaster, they can be out of business, so monitoring is key.

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 feature of this solution is the centralized enterprise backup."
"It scales from very small to very large. It is easily the most scalable product out there."
"I find the whole product useful. The backup archive client, snapshot, spectrum for virtual environments are beneficial features."
"The licensing isn't very clear. They should work to simply or clarify the cost structure."
"Since the technology is reliable, it simplifies the backup process significantly. Now, our focus can primarily be on managing full backups and creating some offline copies."
"One of the features which is most interesting in Spectrum Protect is the ability to scale out to great environments. This is something that not many vendors have on the market."
"We apply the new dedupe and compression technology, using maintenance and time to give more time for the backup window and less time for the overhead related to the daily housekeeping."
"The most valuable feature for data recovery in IBM Spectrum Protect is its database protection capabilities."
"Deduplication is the most valuable feature. It saves us a lot of space. When we back up 100 terabytes of data, after dedupe, it only uses maybe five to six terabytes for the disk space in QoreStor."
"Data deduplication and replication would be the top two features. The encryption and cloud tiering are also attractive for the future."
"The features we use for the data deduplication are nice because we're able to back up a much larger amount of data, yet it doesn't necessarily take up that much data on the devices."
"The extreme compression of data is a big thing for us. We were looking for an online backup solution, and QoreStor is very good in terms of data compression. It helps us minimize the required storage in the Blob Storage environment."
"We need revisions and safe backup so that it could be held up in court, but deduplication and compression are the main features why we have Quest QoreStor. That's where it really shines. I use ZFS and XFS at home, and Quest QoreStor is even better."
"I would rate QoreStor a ten out of ten for what it offers for the price."
"Quest QoreStor is very stable compared to our previous solution."
"QoreStor has helped us to reduce our backup storage requirements on-premises. We've been using the same devices for quite a while, and so it lets us keep using them as opposed to having to rip out all that hardware and create a new on-prem solution. The advantage here is even if we had to retire the hardware tomorrow, the QoreStor part doesn't change. We just have to have additional hardware and put the solution back on whatever hardware we pick and it'll do the same thing."
 

Cons

"Stability is very good now. It used to be rocky years ago."
"The Hyper-V and SQL Server backup could be improved. In the 2016 version there was a significant improvement, but I think IBM has a big challenge with these technologies."
"It can be improved for large file systems with many files. Spectrum Protect can restore large files very well, but if you're restoring millions of little files, it is not as great. At one point, we tried to implement the VMware module with it, and it was awful and terrible. I don't know if that has improved. If it hasn't, this would be one big improvement."
"The solution's ability to integrate with a cloud solution is one area that needs improvement."
"There have been some sizing issues now, and we are dealing with those."
"It could use single store. The ability to mark an archive from my backup for long-term retention."
"Their support is lacking. I've talked to their developers and stuff in the last couple of weeks and they reassure me that some people have retired, and they're working on getting that bumped back up. But the support lacks a lot to be desired at this point."
"Perhaps if they could add replication to a second site or third site from the same console, that would be helpful. Currently, we have to connect to another console."
"They need to increase their maximum capacity. Other than that, they're doing a pretty good job."
"The ransomware protection of QoreStor could use improvement."
"They could improve on support a little bit. We have not had to engage their support much, but when we do have issues, it can take longer to get things resolved."
"Overall, I am happy with this solution, but a way to export configuration settings would be beneficial."
"There can be some kind of monitoring solutions to alert users to issues with the appliance or software, making it easy for customers to monitor their systems in the field."
"In terms of improvement, we would like to have an Air Gap feature to prevent a virus from attaching to something. So that when we don't do a backup, we want the QoreStor to stay offline. It would be a nice feature to have."
"Support is one point of improvement for Quest QoreStor. Support is sometimes not adequate."
"The importance of support is significant to me. I was working for a service provider, and all of our customers had a Quest or warning. Sometimes the support really underperforms."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You need to put it in a PoC and test it out if you can."
"The solution is expensive."
"The license model that they have at IBM, which is due to volume, from a certain volume onward is not the right license model."
"IBM provides an open license policy, which is more like a gentlemen's agreement."
"Spectrum Protect is not a cheap option."
"We worked our licensing into a capacity model, which is nice. Now, everything is much simpler to manage from a licensing perspective.​"
"At scale, the consumption license (per TB) is very expensive."
"The solution's pricing is fair. Price-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"Quest QoreStor's pricing is affordable. We evaluated Veeam, a well-known company for backup solutions, but found their pricing to be quite high. Veeam's price was almost double. For us, Quest QoreStor is very affordable."
"Its pricing model is very attractive. You have one price, and you get everything from QoreStor."
"The pricing is good. It is competitive for a managed services provider. I like the ability to pay by the terabyte, allowing for an incremental cost that we and our customers can afford, so the solution grows with the customer."
"The cost is per terabyte, and overall, the cost was reasonable when compared to some competitors."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Backup and Recovery solutions are best for your needs.
848,476 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Performing Arts
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Real Estate/Law Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect?
It's adequate for my core banking, however, I am looking for another solution for all systems. It is not compatible with other operating systems like Windows or Linux, and lacks a consolidated dash...
What else besides data replication does QoreStor offer?
Quest QoreStor can be used for multiple things besides data replication. For example, it can be trusted to make a backup of your data. You know that replication and backups are different, right? Re...
How does Quest QoreStore protect your data?
One of our favorite features of Quest QoreStore for data protection isn't the backup, actually, though we're using it actively (maybe just as much as data replication, to be honest). We absolutely ...
How does Quest QoreStore solve repetitive data replicas?
When I first found out about data replication and the many benefits it had, I couldn't help but wonder - what about the copies you don't need? Like it's unavoidable for some of the copies to get da...
 

Also Known As

IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
QoreStor
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CERN, Einstein Healthcare, Nyherji, Allianz Australia, TZM, ABT Online, NCT, Kindred Healthcare Inc., Cobalt Iron, TransGrid, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Cash America, Piedmont Healthcare, RWGV, Arkansas Tech University, British Columbia Institute of Technology
American Airlines, at&t, Bank of America. Barclays, ebay, Ford
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Protect vs. Quest QoreStor and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,476 professionals have used our research since 2012.