IBM Spectrum Scale vs Quest QoreStor comparison

IBM and Quest Software are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. IBM is ranked #7 with an average rating of 9.3, while Quest Software is ranked #37. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Quest Software users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

IBM Spectrum Scale and Quest QoreStor are competitive products in data management and storage. IBM Spectrum Scale leads in scalability and flexibility, while Quest QoreStor excels in data protection and performance.

Features: IBM Spectrum Scale offers exceptional scalability, high-performance file management, and multiprotocol support, perfect for complex IT environments. Quest QoreStor features global deduplication, compression, and encryption for optimized storage capacity and secure data integrity.

Room for Improvement: IBM Spectrum Scale can improve in ease of configuration and user interface simplicity. Additional documentation could enhance its learning curve, and faster updates may benefit user experience. Quest QoreStor could expand its integration options with additional backup software. Better fine-tuning for large-scale deployments and enhanced UI design may improve customer satisfaction.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Scale supports flexible deployment models but may need expert guidance for complex setups, supported by a robust network. Quest QoreStor offers simpler deployment for virtual, cloud, and on-premise environments, backed by efficient customer service for seamless integration.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Spectrum Scale has a higher initial setup cost, justified by an extensive feature set offering long-term ROI for large enterprises. Quest QoreStor's competitive pricing focuses on efficient resource use, leading to quick setup and attractive ROI for organizations focused on data compression.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Quest QoreStor Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Quest QoreStor

April 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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Jeff Manuszak

CTO at EDSI

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.

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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's very easy-to-use."

"The initial setup is pretty quick."

"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."

"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."

"Using this solution has made our backups more reliable."

"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."

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

"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

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

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

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

"It makes our file system sharing a lot easier, even across different continents. We have had file systems shared across different continents with no performance degradation."

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

"It is a scalable solution."

"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."

More IBM Spectrum Scale pros

"Quest QoreStor is very stable compared to our previous solution."

"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."

"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."

"I would rate QoreStor a ten out of ten for what it offers for the price."

"The dedupe and compression are pretty extreme. On disk, we're getting dedupe rates of up to 65 percent of data and compression of 34 percent. When you go to the cloud, it's more like 76 percent for dedupe and almost 50 percent for compression."

"It integrates with various backup software solutions, which makes it compatible with existing backup workflows and processes."

"Data deduplication and replication would be the top two features. The encryption and cloud tiering are also attractive for the future."

"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."

More Quest QoreStor pros

Cons

"The solution is expensive."

"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."

"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 like to see more deduplication."

"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."

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

"I have not seen ROI."

"In the realm of micro-services, I think that Pure Storage can do well if they start getting in there and making their arrays more micro-services ready."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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 biggest problem is that it is not able to provide block storage."

More IBM Spectrum Scale cons

"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."

"The setup of the software is definitely not the easiest thing. I worked a lot with Quest engineers, especially in the early days when we were first testing it and trying it out. I actually had some of the developers working with us at one point because they were going through these point releases, and I was having trouble getting it to work in this S3-compatible situation. We got it all working eventually, but setup is definitely not the easiest thing in the world."

"They need to increase their maximum capacity. Other than that, they're doing a pretty good job."

"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."

"The management interface is in need of improvement. The graphical user interface (GUI) for the web management tools appears clunky, and not super intuitive."

"The installation could use improvement. The initial installation was a little touchy and it's not really user-installable. You have to have a connection to support to install."

More Quest QoreStor cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"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."

"Support is a separate line item. Support is a different cost, but whatever your support is now, that's what you're going to pay forever. If your support's $100 today, six years from now it's $100. It doesn't fluctuate unless you upgrade it, or change it, etc."

"The product is very expensive."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

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

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

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

"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 cost is per terabyte, and overall, the cost was reasonable when compared to some competitors."

"Its pricing model is very attractive. You have one price, and you get everything from QoreStor."

"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."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

33%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

17%

Performing Arts

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

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.

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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 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 bac...

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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...

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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 t...

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Comparisons

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Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

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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 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

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Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs Quest QoreStor

Compared 100% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

March 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale

April 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Scale product report

Buyer's Guide

Quest QoreStor

March 2025

Download Quest QoreStor product report

Also Known As

No data available

QoreStor

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

Quest QoreStor is commonly used for deduplication, compression, backup, and restore, integrated with NetVault for robust data redundancy and cloud storage replication.

Quest QoreStor optimizes data management with its sophisticated deduplication and compression capabilities, allowing companies to efficiently handle data redundancy. By integrating seamlessly with platforms like NetVault, Veeam, and resellers utilizing SPHiNX and BackBox, Quest QoreStor serves as both local and offsite repositories. This solution manages replication between production and corporate locations, strengthening recovery and improving backup operations. QoreStor's software-based nature ensures flexibility and easy integration, although improvements in replication and installation are sought by users.

What Are Key Features of Quest QoreStor?

Deduplication: Significantly reduces storage usage, achieving deduplication rates up to 76%.
Compression: Lowers data size on disk and cloud storage by up to 50%.
Integration: Compatible with multiple backup software to enhance efficiency.
Cloud Tiering: Facilitates seamless cloud storage expansion.
Encryption & Replication: Ensures secure and reliable data transportation and protection.

What ROI and Benefits Should Be Considered?

Storage Efficiency: Reduces required storage capacity savings on costs.
Backup Optimization: Increases speed and efficiency of backup processes.
Flexibility: Software-based, allowing adaptability to existing infrastructure.
Data Security: Offers strong encryption and replication features.

In sectors such as finance, healthcare, and technology, Quest QoreStor aids in maintaining vital data management with its robust features, enhancing data recovery strategies. Its use with secondary backup targets and replication capabilities supports a wide range of industry requirements. However, challenges such as initial setup complexity and system interface improvements are areas for growth, particularly in expanding capacities and addressing specific cybersecurity concerns like ransomware protection on Linux.

Quest Software

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

American Airlines, at&t, Bank of America. Barclays, ebay, Ford

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Quest QoreStor

April 2025

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Quest QoreStor

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

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