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IBM Spectrum Scale vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct comparison

 

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

IBM Spectrum Scale
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Software Defined Storage (3rd)
Microsoft Storage Spaces Di...
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
8th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of IBM Spectrum Scale is 4.7%, down from 7.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is 8.3%, up from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Stanislaw Mielicki - PeerSpot reviewer
Achieve cost-effectiveness with superior performance while needing to address cluster support
I am working with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct for applications, SQL, and VRS. I am an integrator for this solution The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct. They introduced the All-Flash array using SSD or NVMe drives without cache drives. It is…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The profile share is a valuable feature."
"We are using it for monitoring all of our storage."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to share files across different platforms."
"GPFS monitoring is the best feature."
"Allows us to share files across multiple environments."
"We use GPFS Scale for parallel file access, the file management, and it's an essential part of our operations."
"It has been pretty reliable throughout the years. As far as capacity is concerned, it can handle most heavy loads."
"I rate this product ten out of ten."
"The flash ability, in terms of tiering and caching, is amazing"
"The most valuable feature is that there is no single point of failure."
"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."
"The performance, reliability, and affordability has been most valuable."
"The most valuable feature are the caching capabilities using the storage class memory."
"Its technical support is excellent."
"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
 

Cons

"The initial setup is complex, especially if trying to avoid erasure coding, as it requires more discs. Avoiding erasure coding can significantly increase costs."
"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 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 biggest problem is that it is not able to provide block storage."
"They should probably simply the Red Hat implementation portion. This portion was not as straightforward as I would like it to be."
"I believe there is no graphic user interface, so they should include it."
"Maybe it needs integration with HA."
"I wish there were some graphical user interface to access the GPFS file system creation and monitoring."
"Documentation management could be improved"
"The integration is not difficult because there is no GUI, but we need to use a PowerShell command. This makes it difficult to monitor and to see the components' statuses."
"It is difficult to get a hardware compatibility certification for the solution."
"I think the online documentation needs a lot of work and so do the sizing tools."
"It is scalable, but only beyond two nodes. If I go for two nodes it's not scalable. I need to build a complete cluster from the beginning if I'm going for two nodes."
"The management tool within this solution could be improved. We would also like to be able to access services like Azure when using this solution."
"More optimization could be done in terms of mirroring."
"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing model is complex and depends on factors such as the number of processing cores and the amount of storage."
"The solution is costly but reliable."
"The licensing is based on the number of terabytes."
"Cost-wise the product is one of the more affordable within the category of products."
"The solution is expensive."
"With the data center licensing and everything that is connected to that, this solution is relatively costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 number of servers. Using Excelero for mirroring storage helped reduce Spectrum Sc...
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Scale?
There can be improvements in fault tolerance and making erasure coding faster. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have example configurations or applications that assist in setup and configura...
How does VMware vSAN compare with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?
We found VMware’s vSAN was easy to set up, configure, and manage compared to other solutions we considered. It is best suited for small- to medium-sized organizations. It is easy to create load bal...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?
Pricing is an advantage of Storage Spaces Direct. Licenses can be on a monthly or yearly basis, depending on the addition of software assurance.
 

Also Known As

No data available
MS Storage Spaces Direct
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,388 professionals have used our research since 2012.