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IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs Red Hat Ceph Storage 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 Virtualize
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
12th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat Ceph Storage
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of IBM Spectrum Virtualize is 1.6%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ceph Storage is 20.3%, down from 21.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

EdwinVan Halm - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
ANDRE VINICIUS HAMERSKI - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers cost-effective scalability through open-source storage integration
Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage. We appreciate the scalability of the open-source solution, allowing us to address our growing data needs without encountering major issues. Having used it as a pilot system in Brazil, we gained significant knowledge and the ability to manage our infrastructure as code.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The SVC gives excellent performance with tiered storage behind it."
"It has the ability to seamlessly move hardware in and out as we refresh technology."
"We are happy with the support that IBM provides us."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is its reliability."
"We can failover easily, because a lot of our data is replicated from family to the second replication."
"The scalability is very good. It can handle anywhere from very small to large enterprise class."
"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 has helped to save money and scale the storage without limits."
"Most of the features are beneficial and one does not stand out above the rest."
"Most valuable features include replication and compression."
"We have some legacy servers that can be associated with this structure. With Ceph, we can rearrange these machines and reuse our investment."
"The configuration of the solution and the user interface are both quite good."
"The most valuable feature is the stability of the product."
"Replicated and erasure coded pools have allowed for multiple copies to be kept, easy scale-out of additional nodes, and easy replacement of failed hard drives. The solution continues working even when there are errors."
"High reliability with commodity hardware."
 

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."
"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."
"Tighter integration with cloud storage might be useful as a target for a variety of use cases."
"The integration would be an option that we would like, but I understand that's not how it's going to be implemented."
"In general, the migration is complicated. Though, it is case-by-case."
"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."
"They are actually working on one bug we found, which was with flash restore. This was the user interface design for virtual environments."
"While the documentation for Ceph Storage is helpful, it could be improved."
"The licensing cost is excessively high. This is a significant issue from my perspective."
"It took me a long time to get the storage drivers for the communication with Kubernetes up and running. The documentation could improve it is lacking information. I'm not sure if this is a Ceph problem or if Ceph should address this, but it was something I ran into. Additionally, there is a performance issue I am having that I am looking into, but overall I am satisfied with the performance."
"I've heard the integration with OpenShift is great, however, the licensing cost is excessively high."
"It needs a better UI for easier installation and management."
"Ceph does not deal very well with, or takes a long time to recover from, certain kinds of network failures and individual storage node failures."
"Geo-replication needs improvement. It is a new feature, and not well supported yet."
"The management features are pretty good, but they still have room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The entry point of pricing for this product is the most amazing price ever in the industry."
"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 would like the CPU cycle to save more on the licensing costs for us."
"I am very happy with the pricing. There is no comparison when it comes to pricing. I have looked at all solutions from EMC, Veritas, Hitachi, Dell, etc. None of them compares to IBM when it comes to pricing. I get great pricing from them."
"Do a proof of concept, if you are not comfortable jumping in, but do it."
"It has a lot of advanced functions for a reasonable price."
"I think it is a good value for the price."
"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."
"If you can afford a product like Red Hat Ceph Storage then go for it. If you cannot, then you need to test Ceph and get your hands dirty."
"Most of time, you can get Ceph with the OpenStack solution in a subscription​​ as a bundle.​"
"The other big advantage is that Ceph is free software. Compared to traditional SAN based storage, it is very economical."
"We never used the paid support."
"There is no cost for software."
"The price of this product isn't high."
"I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten."
"The operational overhead is higher compared to Azure because we own the hardware."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
10%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
 

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 Virtualize?
I have no idea of the pricing as I am not part of the sales team. However, the product is a little bit more expensive due to the high-end enterprise features it offers.
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Virtualize?
The training program could be improved. It would be beneficial to have a lab environment to train myself before implementing it at a customer's location.
What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Virtualize?
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.
How does Red Hat Ceph Storage compare with MiniO?
Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This solution allows for multiple copies of replicated and coded pools to be kept, ea...
What do you like most about Red Hat Ceph Storage?
The high availability of the solution is important to us.
What needs improvement with Red Hat Ceph Storage?
While the documentation for Ceph Storage is helpful, it could be improved. There are instances where we needed to consult additional online forums and communities for solutions to particular issues.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Ceph
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services
Dell, DreamHost
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. Red Hat Ceph Storage and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.