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Carbonite Server vs IBM Storage Protect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 2025

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

Carbonite Server
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
59th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (48th)
IBM Storage Protect
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Carbonite Server is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Storage Protect is 2.2%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Storage Protect2.2%
Carbonite Server0.7%
Other97.1%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Dale Dirkes - PeerSpot reviewer
A simple, efficient, reliable product
The efficiency and convenience are excellent. The pricing is very good. It shows you what has been updated via little green dots. The solution is very automatic. I don't have to worry about it. It was easy to set up. Technical support has been helpful in the past. The solution has been problem-free.
Syed Habib - PeerSpot reviewer
Manageable and comprehensive and integrates robust backup features for core banking
It's adequate for my core banking, however, I am looking for another solution for all systems. It is not compatible with other operating systems like Windows or Linux, and lacks a consolidated dashboard from Browser Spectrum. This is why I am searching for another solution. The product also lacks any centralized graphical user interface (GUI), such as Jarek Pod, and I am limited to using a console-based text user interface, which my local partner handles completely.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support handled all our issues quickly and effectively."
"The Granular Restore of SQL feature has been a lifesaver more times than I can count. One of the main reasons for looking at Carbonite was their support for platforms like AIX and AS/400 Series."
"It seems reliable and easy to use."
"The solution is a free engine to help work with the container."
"Easy verification of things is the most valuable feature."
"It does not slow down your computer or use a lot of resources as it works."
"I find the BMR/image and the recovery pieces are valuable."
"The efficiency and convenience are excellent."
"We've found the product to be quite stable and the performance is very good."
"Performance and recoveries are better. Our clients and customers are happier with the performance of it."
"We work very closely together with IBM using their Support Center, but we have a strong contact in their development teams, and we have dedicated people from IBM working with us."
"The backup is very good. In other backup systems, you need a lot of storage to gain the same backup policy."
"Technical support is okay. We have not had many issues with them."
"The addition of the retention set feature provides a reduction in storage costs. It also reduces RTO and RPO so that you can respond quickly to your clients and services in case of data loss."
"One of the main things that I like about IBM is the versioning of the data - meaning that we can have multiple versions of a file or directory of a server."
"It helps our customers protect their data, especially with stuff like ransomware, compliance, and regulatory requirements."
 

Cons

"In the next release I would like to see an improvement in the auto failover option."
"The Hyper-V backup has room for improvement."
"The only thing that I would like to see improved is related to marketing. Currently, it is very difficult to find the right paper and stuff for me. Their marketing department should provide better information because currently, it is very difficult to find information on the internet. It was bought over by OpenText, and you won't be able to find a lot of information about this solution on their site. They should also provide training facilities for commercial purposes. Some of my colleagues recently went for pilot training, and they were technical. If I want to get trained, the training has to be more commercial. Currently, there is no such training for users like me."
"The support for object storage isn't quite there yet. Its public cloud support can be improved. I would love to see the public cloud support for object storage, and it would be great, but what I always hear from the folks at Carbonite is that in a lot of cases, it directly competes with their cloud offering. So, I don't know when or where that will go or if that will go anywhere, but we are hopeful to see something. The dashboard is a little outdated. If they gave it a facelift and put some better design around their dashboard, that would be tremendous. I generally care less about the visual aesthetics of an application as long as it does what it needed to do, which is true in the case of this solution. We also have the Microsoft 365 platform. Because they're two separate platforms, I have to log in to my Microsoft platform to manage it, and I have to log into my Carbonite server backup platform to manage it. Having these two coexist together in one management console is really what we're looking for, but we went for it knowing this. We also knew that there would be some integration coming down the road. So, we're again hoping to see some of that coming in 2021."
"The stability has room for improvement."
"It could be a little bit easier or faster to be able to access data files without having to download anything."
"They do not yet have USB recovery but they are adding it in coming releases."
"We have had some problems about using storage agents on the X6 environment. It is not quite stable, but it is also not supported in a virtualized environment."
"It needs some software upgrades to fix some of its current bugs."
"IBM's support hasn't been so good in the last few years."
"The product’s recovery process in terms of agent installation needs improvement"
"I want to see better compression than what it currently does."
"There is room for improvement in the service aspect."
"The installation process could be simplified."
"The main admin console from the UI cannot do anything in the product. It just allows us to maintain, maybe, 30% to 40%. For the rest, we have to use the command line."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is between $120 and $150 per year."
"The solution is open source."
"Its price is reasonable."
"We pay 9,000 dollars per year for our license."
"The price of IBM Spectrum Protect is expensive. However, there are a few packages and it is unclear because, for the entry suite they have both options, which are the back-end storage capacity and the front-end storage capacity."
"I rate the pricing a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is not cost-effective, and ten is cost-effective."
"IBM provides an open license policy, which is more like a gentlemen's agreement."
"One can go with either a PVU licensing model or a capacity based licensing model. Either solution does not block the usage, if over used."
"The most important feature which I wish to be added involves the GUI, the user interface."
"Licensing IBM Spectrum Protect can be somewhat confusing for new users due to the options available, such as licensing on a capacity or per server basis."
"We have been at our size for a few years. We are not really looking to battle the licensing costs, as this is our primary system."
"Technical support is pretty good. It is doing fine, but you pay for it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise94
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about IBM Storage Protect?
The best point about IBM Storage Protect is that it can use IBM tape environments, which we still use and will continue to use in the future.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Storage Protect?
IBM Storage Protect is generally an expensive tool. However, with good contracts with IBM or its partners, the cost might not be so high. New customers can expect very high prices.
What needs improvement with IBM Storage Protect?
One point for improvement for IBM Spectrum Protect is security, as IBM has not been investing as much as in the past. There is a need for additional layers of security to fill the gaps, which is wh...
 

Also Known As

Carbonite Recover Backup
IBM Spectrum Discover
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

INLINE Commercial Construction, Hamilton County
CEMEX
Find out what your peers are saying about Carbonite Server vs. IBM Storage Protect and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.