Carbonite Server vs IBM Storage Protect comparison

OpenText and IBM are both solutions in the Backup and Recovery category. OpenText is ranked #58, while IBM is ranked #13 with an average rating of 7.3. OpenText holds a 0.7% mindshare in BRS, compared to IBM’s 2.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of OpenText users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Carbonite Server

Read 7 Carbonite Server reviews

1,298 Views
986 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM Storage Protect

Read 3 IBM Storage Protect reviews

4,461 Views
3,747 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Carbonite Server

IBM Storage Protect

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 2025

Carbonite Server and IBM Storage Protect are backup solutions in the data protection space. IBM Storage Protect often has the upper hand with advanced features, while Carbonite Server is noted for favorable pricing and support.

Features: Carbonite Server includes continuous data protection, easy recovery options, and is suitable for small to medium businesses. IBM Storage Protect offers robust scalability, integrated security features, and comprehensive data protection for larger enterprises.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Carbonite Server is known for straightforward deployment and responsive customer support. IBM Storage Protect's deployment might be more complex, but comprehensive customer support helps manage any issues.

Pricing and ROI: Carbonite Server offers lower upfront costs and significant ROI for smaller installations. IBM Storage Protect requires higher initial investments but provides superior long-term ROI for large-scale implementations.

To learn more, read our detailed Carbonite Server vs. IBM Storage Protect Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Carbonite Server vs. IBM Storage Protect

September 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

Carbonite Server

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

58th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Backup (47th)

IBM Storage Protect

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

13th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Carbonite Server is 0.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Storage Protect is 2.1%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Storage Protect	2.1%
Carbonite Server	0.7%
Other	97.2%

Backup and Recovery

Featured Reviews

Dale Dirkes

President at DIAD Consulting, Inc.

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.

Read full review

Syed Habib

Head of Infrastructure Security (S.A.V.P) at EXIM Bank Ltd

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.

Read full review

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."

"Easy verification of things is the most valuable feature."

"The solution is very stable."

"It seems reliable and easy to use."

"It does not slow down your computer or use a lot of resources as it works."

"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."

"I find the BMR/image and the recovery pieces are valuable."

"The efficiency and convenience are excellent."

More Carbonite Server pros

"The scalability of IBM Spectrum Protect is good."

"The most valuable features of the product are data deduplication and disaster recovery."

"It has increased our security, scalability, and high availability."

"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."

"The most valuable feature for data recovery in IBM Spectrum Protect is its database protection capabilities."

"It scales from very small to very large. It is easily the most scalable product out there."

"We optimize our costs of media and storage use, thanks to the Incremental Forever backup. The TDP software provides us many ways to protect our data, so we don't need to use monstrous scripts for doing backups now."

"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."

More IBM Storage Protect pros

Cons

"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 Hyper-V backup has room for improvement."

"In the next release I would like to see an improvement in the auto failover option."

"The stability has room for improvement."

"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."

"They do not yet have USB recovery but they are adding it in coming releases."

"It could be a little bit easier or faster to be able to access data files without having to download anything."

"We did not see any drawbacks to IBM Spectrum Protect before assisting a customer using Windows that wanted to migrate to using UNIX. IBM Spectrum Protect does not offer an option to migrate from other operating systems."

"Anytime you are not very current and call in with an issue, it is hard to get it resolved. It will depend on how far back you go though."

"In the next version of the solution, I would like to see cloud support."

"The Hyper-V and SQL Server backup could be improved. In the 2016 version there was a significant improvement, but I think IBM has a big challenge with these technologies."

"IBM Spectrum Protect is not a very user-friendly tool."

"The stability could be improved."

"RTO is a huge gap for us. If we had a disaster scenario and had to recover a bunch of stuff from tape, the RTO would be too long for us."

"It's difficult in terms of the configuration at set up. In our case, it required another admin, one person dedicated to the backup."

More IBM Storage Protect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is reasonable."

"The solution is open source."

"The pricing is between $120 and $150 per year."

"We pay 9,000 dollars per year for our license."

"It's very complicated. Licensing is a pain."

"IBM Spectrum Protect has a fixed price and includes no additional costs."

"I don't have an idea about the pricing. They send that over to someone else, but I know that one of the issues they had was the licensing costs. I don't think they were happy with how they were charged."

"IBM Spectrum Protect, cost-wise, has way higher pricing than Veeam. By switching over to Veeam, my company saved over $600,000 in USD. The IBM Spectrum Protect pricing is a two on a scale of one to ten. My company paid additional fees for maintenance, apart from the standard licensing fees."

"License-wise regarding IBM, it's licensed per terabyte. And that is after compression and deduplication."

"It is very scalable, but the downside is that it costs money."

"The platform is neither highly priced nor inexpensive. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten."

"IBM Spectrum Protect can be considered an averagely-priced product."

More IBM Storage Protect pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	1

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	53
Midsize Enterprise	25
Large Enterprise	94

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

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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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs IBM Storage Protect

Compared 10% of the time

HPE StoreOnce vs IBM Storage Protect

Compared 8% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Backup

September 2025

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Buyer's Guide

IBM Storage Protect

October 2025

Download IBM Storage Protect product report

Also Known As

Carbonite Recover Backup

IBM Spectrum Discover

Overview

Carbonite Server securely replicates data to the local backup server while securing a second copy in the cloud. Granular restore and local failover options ensure rapid recovery and minimal data loss. With integrated hardware and cloud failover for critical systems, Carbonite Server provides reliable data protection.

OpenText

IBM Storage Protect offers data protection and management to secure critical business information efficiently. It's designed to be a scalable and flexible solution for data backup, recovery, and archive needs in complex IT environments.

IBM Storage Protect delivers comprehensive data protection by integrating backup, recovery, and archiving functionalities. It supports a range of workloads and infrastructures, from on-premises to cloud environments, facilitating efficient data management. Its platform provides seamless scalability to meet evolving business needs, underpinned by reliable security measures. Organizations leverage its capabilities to ensure business continuity and minimize data loss risks, making it vital in a data-driven world.

What are the key features of IBM Storage Protect?

Advanced Data Protection: Offers robust encryption and data integrity for secure backup processes.
Scalability: Grows with your data demands, supporting large data volumes without compromising performance.
Cloud Integration: Seamlessly integrates with cloud platforms, enhancing backup strategies with hybrid options.
Automated Operations: Simplifies management tasks with automation, reducing manual intervention and errors.

What benefits should users expect when evaluating IBM Storage Protect?

Cost Efficiency: Reduces storage costs by optimizing backup processes and data retention strategies.
Data Safety: Ensures data accessibility and integrity during recovery efforts, building trust in data protection strategies.
Operational Efficiency: Boosts productivity through streamlined and automated backup management workflows.
Compliance Readiness: Helps maintain compliance with data protection regulations by providing thorough reporting and audit trails.

Industries like finance and healthcare implement IBM Storage Protect to safeguard sensitive information against threats. In financial services, it's crucial for maintaining client data confidentiality, while healthcare institutions use it to protect patient records, ensuring both accessibility and compliance with regulations.

IBM

Sample Customers

INLINE Commercial Construction, Hamilton County

CEMEX

Buyer's Guide

Carbonite Server vs. IBM Storage Protect

September 2025

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