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IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 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

Pure Storage FlashBlade
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (17th), File and Object Storage (6th)
IBM Spectrum Scale
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (7th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (3rd)
IBM Spectrum Virtualize
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (12th)
 

Featured Reviews

Eric Black - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Bernd Stroehle. - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
EdwinVan Halm - PeerSpot reviewer
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…

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 helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."
"I would rate this solution an eight plus. It has has good flexibility and stability, it's easy to manage and the response time is good."
"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."
"It's very easy-to-use."
"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."
"What I like best about Pure Storage FlashBlade is its object storage functionality, plus it has fast underlying hardware. Pure Storage FlashBlade is also very stable. I find its stability one of its valuable features."
"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."
"We are using it for monitoring all of our storage."
"I rate this product ten out of ten."
"Allows us to share files across multiple environments."
"Technical support has been very helpful. They provide us with pretty good solutions that we can implement moving forward."
"The high performance of the solution is its most valuable aspect. If you compare it to other storage solutions, it's much better."
"It has been pretty reliable throughout the years. As far as capacity is concerned, it can handle most heavy loads."
"We use GPFS Scale for parallel file access, the file management, and it's an essential part of our operations."
"The profile share is a valuable feature."
"It is a single pane of glass management interface, so once the storage is allocated to SVC, they only have one place to go to manage it for everything."
"The scalability is very good. It can handle anywhere from very small to large enterprise class."
"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."
"The biggest benefits of IBM Spectrum Virtualize are its stability, data security, and customer support."
"The ability to add the virtual machine on the Spectrum environment to sort out the data movers(DMs) and their schedules is a valuable feature. You are able to have, for example, four data movers to balance them so you do not have too much work on one data mover."
"The SVC gives excellent performance with tiered storage behind it."
"We can failover easily, because a lot of our data is replicated from family to the second replication."
 

Cons

"Commvault has mainly driven the Analytics, providing data and reports. However, the product has room for improvement, especially regarding storage analytics. Upgrading firmware has caused issues, requiring feature disabling to revert to traditional backups. The firmware upgrades sometimes affect Commvault backups."
"Its configuration should be easier."
"In terms of scalability, it doesn't expand out quite as robustly as some of the others, but it covers 90% of the market in what it does."
"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."
"It usually comes down to just what you hit and the value you're getting when you spend the money and license the products. I would always go, "If you want to make things better, lower your price and make your licensing simpler." There's always an opportunity around that."
"I would also like to see better support for CIFS workloads."
"I would like to see better integration."
"There is some room for new features related to authentication and integration with Kubernetes, and other solution using S3 Bucket."
"Integration with other vendors is not available."
"I wish there were some graphical user interface to access the GPFS file system creation and monitoring."
"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."
"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."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"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."
"The pricing and licensing model for this solution are complex and it is sometimes difficult to explain it to customers."
"t is limited in terms of a single system to eight nodes or four, what they call IO groups."
"The case logging process is efficient, but resolving software problems takes too much time."
"GUI should be developed in HTML5 as opposed to Java."
"Adding features for data deduplication is one area of improvement."
"In general, the migration is complicated. Though, it is case-by-case."
"The only errors I find sometimes is the solution tells me I cannot operate it because a service has turned off, you can just go back to the VM, go to services, and turn back the services. However, this should improve."
"The Storwize port is not so stable."
"IBM could improve IBM Spectrum Virtualize by bundling Storage Scale and Storage Virtualize into a single appliance. This would provide a more appealing and cost-effective solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."
"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."
"The product is very expensive."
"Licensing fees are paid yearly."
"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."
"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."
"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."
"The licensing is based on the number of terabytes."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Do a proof of concept, if you are not comfortable jumping in, but do it."
"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."
"We would like the CPU cycle to save more on the licensing costs for us."
"It has a lot of advanced functions for a reasonable price."
"I think it is a good value for the price."
"This solution came as an additional cost for the TSM package we chose."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
37%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
12%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
 

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...
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...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Information Not Available
Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Scale vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.