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IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs VMware vSAN comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (17th), File and Object Storage (6th)
IBM Spectrum Virtualize
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (12th)
VMware vSAN
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
230
Ranking in other categories
HCI (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Software Defined Storage (SDS)
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Eric Black - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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…
Yves Sandfort - PeerSpot reviewer
Gives us a lot of advantages when we need to expand resources
Stability can be improved. Adding all these new features is nice, but we are now at the level where most of the features you need in production are there. The stability is not from a day-to-day operations perspective, but more from a supportability perspective, because currently some of the support scenarios require you to completely evacuate hosts or the complete cluster. That sometimes can be a stretch. This would clearly be an improvement if the support teams were given additional tools to make that easier. Upgradability could be a bit easier sometimes. We are now where vSAN can be updated without ESXi, but there is still enough dependency. So that would be good if that actually would be uncoupled even more. Dashboards are there, and we use vROps as well. So, we have all the beauty of capacity planning and everything over there. That's not really something where we need a lot of other things.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is performance."
"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."
"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."
"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 is very easy to use, and it is very fast."
"It's very easy-to-use."
"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."
"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 the ability to seamlessly move hardware in and out as we refresh technology."
"It's got full features, so we can compress volumes. We can do thin volumes and we can change them on the fly."
"We are happy with the support that IBM provides us."
"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."
"IBM offers excellent customer service."
"The most valuable features are the simplicity of use, the flexibility, and the options included. I mean, it's just a big time saver."
"Although the GUI from the XIV was used (in my view), IBM has polished and refined the GUI providing a pleasant and easy to navigate GUI experience."
"It is more stable now than it was before. It's not like it was in the first year. Now it is stable, and we trust it more."
"The performance of VMware vSAN is very good."
"The most valuable features are ease of deployment, and ease of management. If you compare it to other software-defined storage products, it's much easier. It's a checkbox. It's lot easier to manage."
"Overall the solution is very good."
"The solution is stable."
"Flexibility, growth, and expansion are probably the more important features for us. As our environment grows, the more users come on, the more VDI workstations that we need, we can easily expand either horizontally or vertically with the environment"
"It's completely hyper-converged, so it's very convenient."
"The technical support is good. We are always thankful for the technical support from VMware. They are very supportive when we have a technical problem."
 

Cons

"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."
"It would be nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."
"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."
"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."
"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."
"Recently, while upgrading the version code, one of the controllers failed. Replacing the controller took between 14 to 20 days."
"In terms of scalability, it doesn't expand out quite as robustly as some of the others, but it covers 90% of the market in what it does."
"I would also like to see better support for CIFS workloads."
"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."
"In general, the migration is complicated. Though, it is case-by-case."
"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."
"Level 1 technical support needs improvement."
"Tighter integration with cloud storage might be useful as a target for a variety of use cases."
"The only errors I find sometimes is the solution tells me I cannot operate it because a service has turned off, you can just go back to the VM, go to services, and turn back the services. However, this should improve."
"I hate I/O groups. If you start swapping I/O groups, they can be potentially risky. If they could get rid of the whole I/O group principle, the risk is not there anymore. I understand the fundamental thing about I/O groups, but they are risky."
"t is limited in terms of a single system to eight nodes or four, what they call IO groups."
"When designing the implementation for vSAN, I have noticed that it requires a minimum of six nodes, and this creates a problem when it comes to maintenance. If, out of the six nodes, I put one node in maintenance mode, then vSAN does not create other VM components."
"The architecture of vSAN is not good. vSAN works with objects, such as disks, and it causes problems with availability."
"Integration could be better."
"Hackers are able to manage to leak information or data from the product using some corrupt files, making it an area of major concern where improvements are required."
"When you upgrade the vSAN, there are some issues like lost data and problems with the log. The log disappears. When you upgrade the solution, you must have several logs, so if you have some problems, you can check the log server to find them."
"It would be much improved if we could somehow integrate a better backup with it. Right now, we're using Veeam and it's okay, but I would like more of a VDP vSAN solution. That would be excellent. The VDP, at least the last time we looked at, it was just not quite there."
"I see room for improvement for vSAN just around general hardware compatibility and expanding that sort of matrix."
"vSAN does not have online dedup. When opening the inline dedupe, the performance will be lower than off inline."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."
"We used a reseller for the purchase."
"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."
"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."
"The product is very expensive."
"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."
"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."
"We would like the CPU cycle to save more on the licensing costs for us."
"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."
"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."
"It has a lot of advanced functions for a reasonable price."
"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."
"The product's price is not high. The tool is available at a normal price."
"Due to recent changes in VMware's licensing approach by Broadcom, the cost has increased significantly, making it less attractive from a cost perspective."
"VMware is not a cost effective solution, especially if you have a Microsoft shop. In this case, you would have to purchase the VMware license when there are already Hyper-V solutions that could do it for much cheaper."
"vSAN has many versions with standard and advanced including Enterprise and Enterprise Plus. Regarding the Enterprise and the Advanced, it could be lower."
"VMware vSAN is a little bit expensive and we pay annually. We have an educational institute where we receive discount prices from VMware. We do receive a reasonable discount but it's still expensive."
"It is fairly cost-effective for entry to mid-level performance based on the underlying hardware components."
"Perhaps a bundle, like Essentials, would allow more businesses to make the leap to the product."
"The product is quite expensive, regarding the open source solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
37%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
12%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
Educational Organization
53%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

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...
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...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.
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...
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...
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...
What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?
While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an e...
Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interfa...
How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?
HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We resea...
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
vSAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services
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Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.