DataCore SANsymphony vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate comparison

DataCore and IBM are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. DataCore is ranked #4 with an average rating of 9.3, while IBM is ranked #24. DataCore holds a 7.1% mindshare in SDS, compared to IBM’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of DataCore users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

DataCore SANsymphony and IBM Spectrum Accelerate compete in the software-defined storage market. DataCore SANsymphony holds an edge in pricing and support, favored for its affordability and flexibility, while IBM Spectrum Accelerate offers a superior feature set appealing to those seeking a robust solution.

Features: DataCore SANsymphony is known for data availability, advanced caching, and enhanced performance. IBM Spectrum Accelerate is distinguished by scalability, integration capabilities, and comprehensive support for diverse workloads.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: DataCore SANsymphony provides straightforward deployment and excellent customer support. IBM Spectrum Accelerate offers intricate deployment with comprehensive integration options, supporting large enterprise customization.

Pricing and ROI: DataCore SANsymphony provides a cost-effective setup with favorable ROI, ideal for budget-conscious businesses. IBM Spectrum Accelerate involves a higher initial investment but yields significant long-term returns through scalability and efficiency.

To learn more, read our detailed DataCore SANsymphony vs. IBM Spectrum Accelerate Report (Updated: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony vs. IBM Spectrum Accelerate

August 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

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.2%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DataCore SANsymphony is 7.1%, up from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Accelerate is 2.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
DataCore SANsymphony	7.1%
Pure Storage FlashBlade	4.2%
IBM Spectrum Accelerate	2.0%
Other	86.7%

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Featured Reviews

Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

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.

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SigfridCecillon

Owner at Arsium

High availability and user-friendliness enhance infrastructure health and redundancy

I would rate technical support from DataCore SANsymphony a 10. Each time I contact the technical support, it's when I don't have a choice because it's very difficult for me on site, and each time, I have good people online who are able to help me solve the problem. Usually, the problems are not very technically difficult, but sometimes they are, and the support team is still there to help us resolve them. The majority of the problems are linked to licensing, so when the license has expired or the number is not correct, they are proactive and change things live, which is very good.

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reviewer1154616

IS Auditor at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

A robust solution with good performance and support

This is a solution that scales well, although I think that we have stabilized in terms of use. With respect to scalability, we have an open question as to whether we will be able to grow into a cloud-based deployment. We don't know in what ways this solution will assist us with the migration, or whether we can still use it for DR. We don't know about the type of backup, be it full, incremental, or otherwise. We are also looking for a cost-savings if we migrate. These are things that we will find out over time. We have about two petabytes of data.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would rate this solution an eight plus. It has has good flexibility and stability, it's easy to manage and the response time is good."

"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."

"It performs well and it is also very fast."

"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."

"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."

"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."

"The snapshots, replication, and the ability to have immutable blades are the most valuable features. You're putting data snapshots out in those blades, and they cannot be touched. Its performance is great."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is performance."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"It is a stable solution."

"The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are many counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like when a backup is in progress)."

"Active-active is the most valuable aspect for us."

"The synchronous mirror allows us to operate a fully redundant storage solution that is distributed across two sites."

"Supporting of Automated-Storage-Tiering (AST) is a good feature that saves money."

"DataCore's ability to seamlessly move virtual volume data between storage pools as well as their synchronous mirroring has made maintenance and disaster recovery planning achievable."

"For us, fault tolerance is the most important feature of DataCore."

"The platform's most valuable feature is its synchronous mirroring capability, which ensures bit-identical copies of data and offers excellent failover capacity."

More DataCore SANsymphony pros

"The ease of use is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's very user-friendly."

"The most valuable feature is the robustness, which is typical of IBM because their software generally just works."

Cons

"The technical support needs to improve. When we open a case, it is auto assigned to a support tech person. Nine out of ten times, we get an email right back saying that person is off until tomorrow. I cannot handle that. They just did this over the weekend to us, too. I had to call our rep and have them do something about it."

"The feature that we're waiting on is better integration with the cell services."

"To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."

"I would also like to see better support for CIFS workloads."

"File storage needs a lot of improvement. Mainframe connectivity also needs improvement because it requires additional components to be integrated with Pure Storage FlashBlade. If you want to keep your backup data, then this becomes an even more expensive solution because Pure Storage FlashBlade will not be able to meet your backup needs."

"The solution is expensive."

"In terms of technical support, the experience has been mixed. The support is done through email and is not that great, making it a very problematic area I've been dealing with for over four years."

"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."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"I would like to see reporting added, such as a monthly connectivity report."

"Its interface could be better."

"NVMeoF should be implemented. This protocol will play a major role in storage infrastructure in the future."

"If it could integrate to a cloud gateway, then we could carry it directly to storage, instead of having middleware in between the storage and the cloud."

"We'd like to manage the raid on the disk directly in SanSymphony."

"For customers or technicians that don't speak and understand English, it could be great to have other languages support, all the more so given the number of countries in which SanSymphony is used."

"I found it a little unnecessary to have to rename the configurations within the graphics console in order to have unique names."

"I'd like to see the company make the renewal of the software cheaper."

More DataCore SANsymphony cons

"The reporting mechanisms need improvement."

"he interface is not user-friendly so the ease of use could be improved."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"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."

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."

"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"The pricing and licensing are better with DataCore."

"The solution is cost effective."

"Make sure you are made aware of the annual subscription cost when purchasing."

"In my case, the licensing per terabytes is very high and it must be licensed for each extra functionality."

"This product has a good ratio between quality and price. In many cases, it's less expensive to work with DataCore than other storage systems."

"It is relatively expensive, and the additional costs for hardware and storage can make it a significant investment for customers."

"We have licensing costs on a yearly basis. They charge per terabyte, so in terms of cost, it can be very costly. They have three different features, and you have to pay extra for those."

"This solution allows the use of off-the-shelf hardware and charges by the TB of storage."

More DataCore SANsymphony pricing and cost advice

"If you are cost-sensitive then this solution is not for you."

"For a database, on a yearly basis, we pay approximately $3,500 for licensing fees. The solution is sold as a subscription on a yearly basis so there are no other ancillary costs."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Government

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	20

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	35
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	21

No data available

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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore SANsymphony SDS?

The cost changed from a perpetual license to a subscription model, and it seems reasonable. I am technical personnel ...

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What do you like most about DataCore SANsymphony?

The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are a lot of counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like...

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What needs improvement with DataCore SANsymphony?

In my opinion, there should be improvements in how to get and filter logs. However, this is not a frequent need becau...

See all answers

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Comparisons

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Compared 10% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 8% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 8% of the time

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StorMagic SvSAN vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Compared 43% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Compared 32% of the time

IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Compared 25% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

August 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony

September 2025

Download DataCore SANsymphony product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

September 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Accelerate product report

Also Known As

No data available

DataCore Virtual SAN

IBM XIV

Overview

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

Experience peace of mind with DataCore SANsymphony, the ultimate software-defined storage solution alleviating storage management challenges. Say goodbye to the complexities of managing different storage tiers and disruptions with SANsymphony's block-level storage virtualization technology, empowering you to automate capacity provisioning and data placement across diverse storage environments including SAN, DAS, HCI, and JBOD. Break down silos, control data placement, meet business continuity objectives, boost performance, and seamlessly expand or refresh hardware with SANsymphony. Benefit from features like asynchronous replication for disaster recovery, minimizing data loss, accelerating application responsiveness, and integrating new technology non-disruptively. Trusted by industry leaders like NASA, Thorntons, Inc., and TUI Cruises, DataCore SANsymphony guarantees unparalleled flexibility, scalability, and reliability, ensuring uninterrupted data access and application availability while reducing storage costs and inefficiencies.

DataCore

IBM Spectrum Accelerate is a software-defined block storage solution designed for rapid deployment across heterogeneous infrastructure for hybrid cloud and delivering consistent service levels to a dynamic workload mix. It is based on proven grid-architecture, enterprise-scale IBM XIV technology. IBM Spectrum Accelerate can be deployed, including as hyper-converged infrastructure, on any x86 server, on pre-installed third-party appliances or on public cloud infrastructure, and is available as a service on IBM Cloud infrastructure.

IBM

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

Volkswagen , Maimonides Medical Center, NASA, Thorntons, Inc., TUI, ISCO Industries, Pee Dee Electric Cooperative, United Financial Credit Union, Derby Supply Chain Solutions, Mission Community Hospital, Bellarmine College Preparatory, Colby-Sawyer College, Mount Sinai Health System, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Quorn Foods, Bitburger, University of Birmingham, Stadtverwaltung Heidelberg, NetEnt to name a few.

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Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony vs. IBM Spectrum Accelerate

August 2025

Free Report: DataCore SANsymphony vs. IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Find out what your peers are saying about DataCore SANsymphony vs. IBM Spectrum Accelerate and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.

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See our DataCore SANsymphony vs. IBM Spectrum Accelerate report.

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