IBM Spectrum Scale vs Pure Storage FlashBlade comparison

IBM and Pure Storage are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Pure Storage users who would recommend it.

IBM Spectrum Scale

Read 13 IBM Spectrum Scale reviews

1,091 Views
782 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Read 37 Pure Storage FlashBlade reviews

97% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Scale

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Spectrum Scale and Pure Storage FlashBlade based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Pure Storage FlashBlade Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Pure Storage FlashBlade

April 2025

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Helped 848,207 peers since 2012

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

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (7th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (3rd)

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

All-Flash Storage (17th), File and Object Storage (6th)

Featured Reviews

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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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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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."

"Technical support has been very helpful. They provide us with pretty good solutions that we can implement moving forward."

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

"It has been pretty reliable throughout the years. As far as capacity is concerned, it can handle most heavy loads."

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

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

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

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

More IBM Spectrum Scale pros

"The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power outages when we need to quickly move data between different data centers. It ensures efficient replication and helps maintain our data centers' uptime."

"It performs well and it is also very fast."

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

"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."

"I like its size. It is smaller than the other competitors. We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte."

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

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

"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

Cons

"The pricing and licensing model for this solution are complex and it is sometimes difficult to explain it to customers."

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

"Making it a little easier to add bad file sets would help. There is a transition to how you add storage and how you add a file set, so making that a little smoother would probably be my recommendation."

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

"I believe there is no graphic user interface, so they should include it."

"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."

"Maybe it needs integration with HA."

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

More IBM Spectrum Scale cons

"On our dedupe during our initial buy, we were expecting a number a little higher like 4x. However, we are getting about 3.6. While it is close enough, it doesn't quite hit the numbers. So, this has been a challenge."

"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."

"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 technical support needs to improve. When we open a case, it is auto assigned to a support tech person. Nine out of ten times, we get an email right back saying that person is off until tomorrow. I cannot handle that. They just did this over the weekend to us, too. I had to call our rep and have them do something about it."

"It would be beneficial if the layer could support the S3 protocol and be container ready in the next release."

"To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."

"Its configuration should be easier."

"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

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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Educational Organization

33%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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 number of servers. Using Excelero for mirroring storage helped reduce Spectrum Sc...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 outages when we need to quickly move data between different data centers. It ensure...

See all answers

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 performance it delivers, including quick response times.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

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

See all answers

Comparisons

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 27% of the time

Portworx Enterprise vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 15% of the time

DDN IME vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 14% of the time

IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 8% of the time

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 8% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Scale Competitors

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

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale

April 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Scale product report

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

March 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Overview

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

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

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

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

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Pure Storage FlashBlade

April 2025

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Pure Storage FlashBlade

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Pure Storage FlashBlade and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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