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IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs VxRail 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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
211
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
IBM Spectrum Virtualize
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (13th)
VxRail
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
135
Ranking in other categories
HCI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Software Defined Storage (SDS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Spectrum Virtualize2.3%
Red Hat Ceph Storage11.5%
DataCore SANsymphony6.0%
Other80.2%
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VxRail11.3%
VMware vSAN9.3%
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.1%
Other70.3%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
AS
IT Specialist at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
Unified storage solution supports cross-vendor replication and diverse industries
One of the most valuable features of IBM Spectrum Virtualize is its virtualization capability. It allows for the creation of stretched clusters, which are crucial for running Linux-based workloads that need mirroring for boot disks. The solution also provides asynchronous and synchronous replication, supporting operations across different data centers. Its deployment options across public, private, and hybrid clouds add to its versatility.
Saleh Khalid - PeerSpot reviewer
computer scientist at Imam University
Experience improved integration and cost-efficiency while facing support challenges
The best features of VxRail are its compatibility with VMware, its hyper-converged solution capabilities, and its single line of support. These are the most beneficial aspects of VxRail. I switched from the previous HP solution to Dell solution because it was a good decision. With HP servers, we dealt with a vendor for the compute servers, another vendor for the storage servers, and another vendor for the networking, which required us to manage multiple vendors. Now, we have a single team who can handle VxRail and a single line of support. We don't need anything other than that, and these are the differences we noticed after we switched.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best feature is that it is easy to learn and use. We can easily do various tasks related to storage provisioning."
"It is easy to manage. You don't have to have the same people who used to manage the Dell EMC arrays because the solution is more intuitive."
"The administration is very easy and quite minimal, the performance is very good, the installation is pretty straightforward, and technical support is good."
"We currently have four Pure Storage FlashArray boxes, and all the storage boxes are on an Evergreen subscription model where we receive the latest hardware and features without any cost in a completely non-intrusive task."
"The most valuable feature is its speed."
"This is a very good product at a very good price, with very good support."
"The mobile app is very helpful."
"The all-flash disc is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"The versatility is the main benefit, since it virtualizes everything, they use it for so many different things."
"It's got full features, so we can compress volumes. We can do thin volumes and we can change them on the fly."
"I think probably one of the biggest benefits of this solution is that it is relatively easy to use and easy to understand."
"The most valuable feature is its reliability."
"I like that it can virtualize more than three hundred storage providers."
"The most valuable feature for sure is the abstraction of the storage."
"The ability to have a feature-rich software set which extends the capabilities of the back-end storage arrays."
"The IBM Spectrum Virtualize has gone from strength to strength but at the same time setting the bar for what's possible in the storage virtualization market."
"It's very easy to upgrade."
"When we have a resource contention, we can easily increase the capacity."
"VxRail can manage the whole cluster at the same time, so it's easy to expand. VxRail has more features vSAN ReadyNodes that make it easier to implement from scratch."
"It's somewhat hard to speak about specific features, but I like VxRail's simplicity and ease of use. It's a decent solution for customers with a small footprint. If you're operating a big data center, it's not easy to position VxRail or HCI solutions, but when you have a small customer managing many different components, it's easier to work only with one solution."
"Its ease of administration is extremely valuable."
"I would recommend VxRail, it works for most of the use cases."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the automation and integration points with other automation tools."
"This is a good solution for medium-sized installations especially when it will be coupled with VMware."
 

Cons

"I would like the ability to swap out the network adapters into it. So, without taking out the whole controller, I would like to be able to swap adapters."
"The price should be lower."
"Its price needs improvement. Its price is almost double than any other flash storage solution."
"I would like to see additional features like performance monitoring, configuring alerts, and the customization of alert thresholds."
"The backend of this solution utilizes an Active/Passive architecture, rather than an Active/Active architecture, which is a disadvantage, when compared to some of its competitors. Its storage capacity should be expanded in the next release."
"We do have an issue with the vCenter integration. Pure Storage says it has a lot of free space, but vCenter says it is completely full."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve in the area of cryptographic information in the consoles. The user-friendliness could improve."
"I like what they're doing, but some of my customers complain that they do not have all the bells and whistles and knobs to fine-tune workloads that some of the competitors have. In my opinion, that's good. All customers don't have dedicated storage gurus, and they can get themselves into trouble if they fine-tune too many of those high-performance knobs, but they do get knocked down. Pure Storage takes a hit in the minds and opinions of some of the customers because they cannot customize things as much as compared to a legacy storage provider's appliance such as NetApp, Dell EMC, or even HPE. I personally think 95% of my customers are better off letting the system fine-tune itself. That was something that you needed to do 12 or 15 years ago, but now with all-flash, the technology can handle what it needs to handle. Customers just end up shooting themselves in the foot if they are tweaking too many default settings."
"I had a couple isolated problems with reliability, mostly related to replication, but I have been able to work through them."
"Technical support at IBM is actually not as great as it used to be. It seems like IBM has decreased the number of people who can support this environment."
"In general, the migration is complicated. Though, it is case-by-case."
"The disk reliability is not that good."
"NBME support and support for a higher Fibre Channel lengths could be improved, but those are already on the roadmap."
"Because we're so big, they have a little bit of trouble tracking all the products and making sure we get connected with the reports, but, in general, they are very good."
"GUI should be developed in HTML5 as opposed to Java."
"We found a gap for smaller clients. Right now, the only offering is a huge, rack-sized storage device, and no more."
"I can't speak to any missing features or weak aspects of the system just yet. We haven't had a chance to really dig in."
"The product's integration could be improved. Its price is also a bit of a challenge, particularly if you want extra features or higher performance."
"My advice to anyone looking to get VxRail is to really understand your use case because from our experience this solution doesn't fit certain use cases."
"The only thing about the HCI solution is that troubleshooting is a little bit difficult because it is still a new technology."
"It still has some maturity to grow. It needs to be more tightly integrated with its own family of products. It has shown that it is open with the other products within the market, through its stack, but it needs to have the proof in the market (with use-cases), and it has to have the scalability with the integration."
"When using hybrid nodes, such as VxRail, there should not be compression and deduplication, only in All-Flash nodes."
"The one person who takes care of the maintenance of VxRail, such as upgrading the software. The upgrading takes too long; we have many nodes which takes a long time, they need to improve the speed of the upgrades."
"The initial setup between the different Dell departments is fragmented. The engineers who come to rack/stack and do the initial config should be trained on all the areas and work with the different Dell departments whilst they are onsite to give a smoother install and better experience for customer."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would prefer that they lower their pricing."
"It is cost-effective because after buying a subscription, they provide a service to upgrade hardware for free. They are providing so many features. When you consider the features provided, it is cost-effective."
"Because the price is a bit higher than other products, the data reduction equalizes the price with amount of the data reduction."
"It was less expensive than some of the alternatives. It's not as though it was a premium price to get that kind of quality. It's a very competitive product from a price perspective..."
"We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO)."
"No storage device is cheap, but Pure Storage is fairly priced and offers what you pay for. You get all the licenses in the future when you purchase a license."
"There is always room for negotiation."
"The price of the solution is not expensive."
"It has a lot of advanced functions for a reasonable price."
"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."
"The entry point of pricing for this product is the most amazing price ever in the industry."
"This solution came as an additional cost for the TSM package we chose."
"Do a proof of concept, if you are not comfortable jumping in, but do it."
"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."
"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."
"Most of hyper-converged solutions require additional licenses for the virtualization layer (like VMware)."
"We were expecting Dell EMC to bring us something that would work very quickly and easily, but also be at a reasonable price point, and they did."
"The hardware cost associated is a bit high"
"Compare it to what you spent on your last solution."
"The pricing is very accurate, and we haven't had any problems with the licensing costs."
"The price would be in the middle to the expensive range. It is not cheap."
"The solution is on the higher end of the price range."
"The VMware licenses are included and we do not have to worry about the license, everything is integrated."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Performing Arts
14%
Marketing Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business63
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise143
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise31
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business42
Midsize Enterprise43
Large Enterprise57
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I don't really know much about the pricing for Pure Storage FlashArray in terms of the absolute cost. Regarding Everg...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Despite liking Pure Storage FlashArray, there is room for improvement in automation. Pure Storage FlashArray needs to...
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-...
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...
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 ...
How does HPE Nimble Storage compare to VxRail?
HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one, z...
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...
What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?
VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not bein...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
No data available
VCE VxRail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services
World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox
Find out what your peers are saying about StarWind, Nutanix, Red Hat and others in Software Defined Storage (SDS). Updated: March 2026.
886,174 professionals have used our research since 2012.