IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP comparison

IBM and NetApp are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Additionally, 91% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Spectrum Virtualize and NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP 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 Virtualize vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

July 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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MD.Faisal Alam

Manager, Technical Services, IBM Storage & Backup Solutions. at Thakral

Built-in compression enhances data management efficiency

I have noticed that the technical support for software issues, such as with Spectrum Protect, needs improvement. The case logging process is efficient, but resolving software problems takes too much time. This delay can hinder customers and strain vendor relationships. For hardware issues, IBM handles them efficiently, but software-related support requires enhancement. Overall improvement in support for software cases is necessary.

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Pramod-Talekar

Sr Service Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution

The tool's most valuable features are the SnapLock and SnapMirror features. If something goes wrong with the data, we can restore it. This isn't a mirror; we store data in different locations. If there's an issue on the primary site, we can retrieve data from the secondary site. Multiprotocol support in NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is beneficial because it allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution. This feature eliminates the need to purchase different types of storage.

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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 main feature I have found to be product replication."

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

"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."

"We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."

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

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

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

"The most valuable features of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"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."

"One of the main features of Spectrum Virtualize is it virtualizes the servers from the storage. We have a very large infrastructure. A major advantage is when you get the aged storage arrays and you have to replace all of those."

"The SVC gives excellent performance with tiered storage behind it."

"IBM offers excellent customer service."

"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."

"I like all the features, but the most impressive recently has been the introduction of IBM's Flash Core Modules. They are a form of a flash drive, but they have many more features."

"It has the ability to seamlessly move hardware in and out as we refresh technology."

"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."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pros

"The stability has been really good."

"This solution has made everything easier to do."

"This solution has helped us because it is easy to use."

"The most valuable features of this solution are SnapShot, FlexClone, and deduplication."

"In terms of administration, the portal which provides the dashboard view is an excellent tool for operations. It gives you volume divisions, usage rates, which division is using how much data, and more. The operations portal is fantastic for the support team."

"NetApp's Integration with AWS has helped us because we had a tough time transferring data when we used an ONTAP competitor as our storage partner. They don't have integration with AWS tools, so we had to figure it out on our own. ONTAP has built-in integration and allows us to replicate a copy to our second data center."

"ONTAP's snapshot copies and thin clones in terms of operational recovery are pretty useful in recovering your data from a time in a snapshot. That's pretty useful for when you have an event where a disaster struck and then you need to recover all your data. It's pretty helpful and pretty fast in those terms."

"NetApp's Cloud Manager automation capabilities are very good because it's REST-API-driven, so we can completely automate everything. It has a good overview if you want to just have a look into your environment as well."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pros

Cons

"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."

"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."

"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 solution is expensive."

"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."

"In terms of technical support, the experience has been mixed. The support is done through email and is not that great, making it a very problematic area I've been dealing with for over four years."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"Adding features for data deduplication is one area of improvement."

"Anything which improves performance and the ability of our systems would be a nice."

"t is limited in terms of a single system to eight nodes or four, what they call IO groups."

"Level 1 technical support needs improvement."

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

"There are things that occur when you get to this size and capacity. We're very large, i.e., petabytes. When you get to that sheer volume of the numbers of things, it is too big for people to keep track of."

"There are big arrays now, and if a customer wants add more disks to it, you have to have another array. Adding disks to existing arrays is one of the most demanded things from our customers."

"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."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize cons

"If they could include clustering together multiple physical Cloud Volumes ONTAP devices as an option, that could be helpful."

"We would like to have support for high availability in multi-regions."

"In terms of improvement, I would like to see the Azure NetApp Files have the capability of doing SnapMirrors. Azure NetApp Files is, as we know, is an AFF system and it's not used in any of the Microsoft resources. It's basically NetApp hardware, so the best performance you can achieve, but the only reason we can't use that right now is because of the region that it's available in. The second was the SnapMirror capability that we didn't have that we heavily rely on right now."

"We have customers that are still using IBM mainframes and that very old SNA architecture from IBM. There are questions about how you interconnect the data on the mainframe side... But I don't know if it's worth it for NetApp to invest in developing products to include mainframes for a few customers."

"I would like to have more management tools. They are difficult to work with, so I would like them to be a bit more user-friendly."

"Something we would like to see is the ability to better manage the setup and tie it to our configuration management database. We manage our whole IT infrastructure out of that database."

"I think the challenge now is more in terms of keeping an air gap. The notion that it is in the cloud, easy to break, etc. The challenge now is mostly about the air gap and how we can protect that in the cloud."

"One difficulty is that it has no SAP HANA certification. The asset performance restrictions create challenges with the infrastructure underneath: The disks and stuff like that often have lower latencies than SAP HANA itself has to have."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP 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."

"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."

"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."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

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

"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."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

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

"The entry point of pricing for this product is the most amazing price ever in the industry."

"I think it is a good value for the price."

"Do a proof of concept, if you are not comfortable jumping in, but do it."

"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 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."

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

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

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pricing and cost advice

"They have a very good price which keeps our customers happy."

"We purchased the product directly from NetApp."

"Cost is a big factor, because a lot of companies can't afford enterprise grade equipment all the time. They skimp where they can. I would recommend that they improve the cost."

"For enterprise customers, it's a very cost effective. But in the SMB segment, yeah, pricing is a little bit challenge for your time."

"They allow a special price if you are working closely with them. Since we have a lot of NetApp systems, we got some kind of discount. That's something they do for other customers, not just for us. The price was fair. In addition to the licensing fees, you're paying Amazon for your usage..."

"In addition to the standard licensing fees, there are fees for Azure, the VMs themselves and for data transfer."

"The AWS consumer-based pricing model makes it easy for developers to use their credit cards to spin up virtual servers immediately."

"The deal with the seller was acceptable; the pricing is reasonable."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Performing Arts

10%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Educational Organization

18%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

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 of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...

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

IBM Spectrum Virtualize is not an expensive product. It offers flexibility with different flavors, whether appliance-...

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What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Virtualize?

IBM could improve IBM Spectrum Virtualize by bundling Storage Scale and Storage Virtualize into a single appliance. T...

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What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Virtualize?

I primarily use IBM Spectrum Virtualize ( /products/ibm-spectrum-virtualize-reviews ) when I have different hardware ...

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What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the licen...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

The solution's pricing is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

NetApp's support could improve.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 20% 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

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

VxRail vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 30% of the time

Dell VPLEX vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 29% of the time

IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 22% of the time

VMware vSAN vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 19% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize Competitors

Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 18% of the time

Amazon S3 vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 12% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 8% of the time

Portworx Enterprise vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 6% of the time

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

June 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize

July 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Virtualize product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

June 2025

Download NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP product report

Also Known As

No data available

ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO

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 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

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is an efficient storage management solution for managing and storing data in the cloud. It offers seamless integration with cloud providers, advanced data replication capabilities, and high data protection. With reliable performance, it is ideal for industries like healthcare and finance.

NetApp

Sample Customers

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

Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services

1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

July 2025

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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