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: February 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

February 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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EdwinVan Halm

Virtualization Architect at Halm-IT

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…

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Pramod-Talekar

Sr Service Engineer at Evolent Health

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

"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."

"Among its most appealing features are its ease of handling and minimal maintenance requirements."

"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."

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

"The initial setup was straightforward. If you know how to plug in power and network you're pretty much qualified. They were on site to configure the network, the box to fit into our network architecture. Other than that, we self-managed from there."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is performance."

"It has absolutely simplified our storage because the dashboards on the consoles show a clear understanding of where you are, and it is also very easy to provision. This been a big help for our teams."

"It uses the same platform for connectivity so integration is seamless."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"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."

"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."

"We are happy with the support that IBM provides us."

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

"The ease of management, the simplicity of the CLI, the speed of that interface, and the well-architected design of the product in general are valuable features."

"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."

"I like that it can virtualize more than three hundred storage providers."

"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."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pros

"The most valuable features are that it's reliable, simple, and performs well."

"The Cloud Manager application that's on the NetApp cloud site is easy to use. You can set up and schedule replications from there, so you don't have to go into the ONTAP system. Another feature we've recently started using is the scheduled power off. We started with one client and have been slowly implementing it with others. We can cut costs by not having the VM run all the time. It's only on when it's doing replication, but it powers off after."

"It offers ease of use and a comprehensive suite of applications, including features like SnapMirror, SnapVault, and unified snapshot management, all bundled into a single product."

"We use the mirroring to mirror our volumes to our DR location. We also create snapshots for backups. Snapshots will create a specified snapshot to be able to do a DR test without disrupting our standard mirrors. That means we can create a point-in-time snapshot, then use the ability of FlexClones to make a writeable volume to test with, and then blow it away after the DR test."

"Its features help us to have a backup of our volumes using the native technology of NetApp ONTAP. That way, we don't have to invest in other solutions for our backup requirement. Also, it helps us to replicate the data to another geographic location so that helps us to save on the costs of backup products."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it makes our data readily available and we don't have to go through a lot of trouble to access it."

"The solution’s Snapshot copies and thin clones in terms of operational recovery are good. Snapshot copies are pretty much the write-in time data backups. Obviously, critical data is snapshotted a lot more frequently, and even clients and end users find it easier to restore whatever they need if it's file-based, statical, etc."

"The most valuable feature is the ease of file storage."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pros

Cons

"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."

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

"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."

"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."

"It would be nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."

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

"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."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"Level 1 technical support needs improvement."

"The disk reliability is not that good."

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

"The training program could be improved."

"NBME support and support for a higher Fibre Channel lengths could be improved, but those are already on the roadmap."

"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."

"For improvement considerations, I would probably say multiple sites."

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

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize cons

"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."

"The solution is not stable when using single nodes. This is a problem. NetApp should work on this solution to make it more stable with HA nodes and resolve this issue."

"There is room for improvement in tier one support, especially with potential language barriers and communication challenges."

"We've just been dealing with general pre-requisite infrastructure configuration challenges. Once those are out of the way, it is easy."

"I would like some more performance matrices to know what it is doing. It has some matrices inherent to the Cloud Volumes ONTAP. But inside Cloud Manager, it would also be nice to see. You can have a little Snapshot, then drill down if you go a little deeper."

"NetApp CVO needs to have more exposure and mature further before it will have greater acceptance."

"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."

"Some of the licensing is a little kludgy. We just created an HA environment in Azure and their licensing for SVMs per node is a little kludgy. They're working on it right now."

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."

"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."

"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 price could be cheaper."

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

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

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pricing and cost advice

"The cost is quite high."

"The solution's pricing is reasonable."

"It is expensive. There are no costs in addition to their standard licensing fees."

"Our licensing costs are folded into the hardware purchases and I have never differentiated between the two."

"Cloud is cloud. It's still expensive. Any good solution comes with a price tag. That's where we are looking to see how well we can manage our data in the cloud by trying to optimize the costs."

"Once we deploy the pay as you go model, we cannot convert this product as a BYOL model. This is a concern that we have."

"Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was good, but it was a test system, not a real purchase."

"Overall, the pricing of NetApp is aggressive and the pricing becomes more aggressive as the amount of data increases. The cost for a given volume of data that you are storing becomes lower. The greater the volume of data, the cheaper the license."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

37%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

12%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Educational Organization

55%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

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...

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

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...

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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...

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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...

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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 21% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 12% 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

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

VxRail vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 27% of the time

Dell VPLEX vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 23% of the time

IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 19% of the time

VMware vSAN vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 16% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 15% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize Competitors

Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 16% of the time

Amazon S3 vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 14% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 12% of the time

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

Compared 11% of the time

Portworx Enterprise vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 7% of the time

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

March 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize

March 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Virtualize product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

March 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

February 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: February 2025.

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