IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize comparison

IBM Spectrum Scale and IBM Spectrum Virtualize are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. IBM Spectrum Scale is ranked #7 with an average rating of 9.3, while IBM Spectrum Virtualize is ranked #12 with an average rating of 9.0. Additionally, 100% of IBM Spectrum Scale users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of IBM Spectrum Virtualize users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

IBM Spectrum Virtualize and IBM Spectrum Scale compete in the data management category. IBM Spectrum Scale seems to have the upper hand due to its wide-ranging features, making it valuable for data-intensive environments.

Features: IBM Spectrum Virtualize provides advanced storage virtualization with a unified view of storage resources and enhances data efficiency through compression and de-duplication. It simplifies storage management across heterogeneous systems. IBM Spectrum Scale offers scalable, high-performance data management with parallel file systems for fast access, a benefit for big data and analytics, and supports numerous data protocols.

Room for Improvement: IBM Spectrum Virtualize could improve in supporting newer storage technologies faster and enhance its performance analytics tools. It may also benefit from more cloud integration features. IBM Spectrum Scale's complexity in deployment can be reduced, and its user interface could be more intuitive. It might also expand support for emerging data protocols.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Virtualize provides an easy deployment process and excellent customer service support, integrating seamlessly into existing infrastructures. IBM Spectrum Scale requires a more detailed deployment approach due to its architecture, but is backed by comprehensive documentation and a responsive customer support team.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Spectrum Virtualize generally has lower initial costs, providing immediate ROI with storage efficiency. IBM Spectrum Scale may have higher upfront costs but offers significant long-term ROI through performance and scalability in handling data-intensive tasks.

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

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize

February 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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Bernd Stroehle.

Enterprise Architect at kosakya

Deliver improved performance in data processing and foster extensive AI initiatives

I find IBM Spectrum Scale to be an excellent product known for its fast parallel file system. It achieved the best results when integrated with IBM hardware. Even though it is complex, it provided significant performance advantages in large-scale data management. Its fault tolerance mechanisms and integration capabilities make it popular for extensive AI initiatives and data processing tasks for organizations like Daimler Benz and Bosch.

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EdwinVan Halm

Virtualization Architect at Halm-IT

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…

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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

"It is very easy to use, and it is very fast."

"It's very easy-to-use."

"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."

"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."

"The most valuable features of this solution are the rewrite speed and the nonstop services."

"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."

"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"We can have multiple systems within the same file system."

"GPFS monitoring is the best feature."

"We are using it for monitoring all of our storage."

"I find IBM Spectrum Scale to be an excellent product known for its fast parallel file system."

"The high performance of the solution is its most valuable aspect. If you compare it to other storage solutions, it's much better."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to share files across different platforms."

"Its great servicing high availability. That is what it is used for."

"It is a scalable solution."

More IBM Spectrum Scale pros

"The most valuable feature is its reliability."

"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."

"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."

"IBM offers excellent customer service."

"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."

"The biggest benefits of IBM Spectrum Virtualize are its stability, data security, and customer support."

"The scalability is very good. It can handle anywhere from very small to large enterprise class."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pros

Cons

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

"I would like to see more deduplication."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"Its configuration should be easier."

"Recently, while upgrading the version code, one of the controllers failed. Replacing the controller took between 14 to 20 days."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"It would be helpful if there was a graphical user interface that could walk you through the deployment process. The instructions surrounding setup aren't the best. They need to be more step-by-step."

"This is probably the biggest challenge, getting everything upgraded, because it just takes time. We wish it was a faster solution to be able to do everything at once, but you have do each node individually. The more nodes, the longer it takes."

"We do have some issues where Spectrum Scale does not work as expected. We have seen our Spectrum Scale servers go down unexpectedly, but because we have a cluster, it does not take out the entire organization."

"The initial setup is complex, especially if trying to avoid erasure coding, as it requires more discs. Avoiding erasure coding can significantly increase costs."

"The main issue that we have now is with the encryption. They want to use more metrics in encryption, which is not working very well."

"I wish there were some graphical user interface to access the GPFS file system creation and monitoring."

"They should probably simply the Red Hat implementation portion. This portion was not as straightforward as I would like it to be."

"There can be improvements in fault tolerance and making erasure coding faster."

More IBM Spectrum Scale cons

"GUI should be developed in HTML5 as opposed to Java."

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

"I already discussed possible improvements with some of the guys from Hearnsley. One of our frustrations is when you go to expand volumes in a global mirror environment, you have to stop everything in order to expand. So that's one of the things."

"The case logging process is efficient, but resolving software problems takes too much time."

"The Storwize port is not so stable."

"The integration would be an option that we would like, but I understand that's not how it's going to be implemented."

"I would like to see them provide a unified platform that offers block, file, and object-based protocol access."

"The disk reliability is not that good."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"The price could be cheaper."

"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

"The product is very expensive."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"The solution is costly but reliable."

"The licensing model is complex and depends on factors such as the number of processing cores and the amount of storage."

"The licensing is based on the number of terabytes."

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

37%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

12%

Real Estate/Law Firm

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...

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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.

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Scale?

It is a scalable solution.

See all answers

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

IBM Spectrum Scale is very expensive with complex pricing models usually based on the amount of storage used or the n...

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What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Scale?

There can be improvements in fault tolerance and making erasure coding faster. Additionally, it would be beneficial t...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 21% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 12% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

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Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 28% of the time

Portworx Enterprise vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 15% of the time

DDN IME vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 15% of the time

IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 8% of the time

Veritas Access vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 4% of the time

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VxRail vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 27% of the time

Dell VPLEX vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 23% of the time

VMware vSAN vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 16% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 15% 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

IBM Spectrum Scale

March 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Scale product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize

March 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Virtualize product report

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 Scale is a cluster file system that provides concurrent access to a single file system or set of file systems from multiple nodes. The nodes can be SAN attached, network attached, a mixture of SAN attached and network attached, or in a shared nothing cluster configuration. This enables access to this common set of data to support a scale-out solution or to provide a high availability platform. IBM Spectrum Scale has many features beyond common data access including data replication, policy based storage management, and multi-site operations. You can create a cluster of AIX nodes, Linux nodes, Windows server nodes, or a mix of all three. IBM Spectrum Scale can run on virtualized instances providing common data access in environments, leverage logical partitioning, or other hypervisors. Multiple IBM Spectrum Scale clusters can share data within a location or across wide area network (WAN) connections.

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

Information Not Available

Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize

February 2025

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Scale vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize

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