DataCore SANsymphony vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize 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 #14 with an average rating of 8.7. DataCore holds a 7.0% mindshare in SDS, compared to IBM’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of DataCore users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of IBM users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

DataCore SANsymphony and IBM Spectrum Virtualize compete in the storage management software category. DataCore SANsymphony seems to have the upper hand due to its flexibility and rapid deployment, while IBM Spectrum Virtualize is known for its robust disaster recovery and competitive pricing.

Features: DataCore SANsymphony is valued for its ability to integrate with different storage solutions and VMware environments. Key features include high availability with mirroring, seamless auto-tiering, and compatibility with commodity hardware to deliver fast, stable performance. IBM Spectrum Virtualize offers a strong abstraction layer and ease of storage migration. Its important features include thin provisioning, compression, and seamless cloud tiering, making it effective for disaster recovery and multi-vendor storage management.

Room for Improvement: DataCore SANsymphony could benefit from less complex pricing and improved support quality. Users suggest better iSCSI connectivity, enhanced performance reporting, and improved integration with backup solutions like Veeam. IBM Spectrum Virtualize users would like a simplified management interface and improved support for cross-cluster migration. Enhancing data deduplication and scalability features are also recommended.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both products offer on-premises solutions, with DataCore also supporting hybrid cloud deployments. DataCore SANsymphony is praised for its rapid deployment, often within a day, and for its responsive customer service. IBM Spectrum Virtualize is similarly regarded for its straightforward deployment process and excellent technical support, though the consistent updates and customer-centric support from DataCore are highlighted.

Pricing and ROI: DataCore SANsymphony's pricing is perceived as high due to a shift to subscription models, despite its long-term cost-effectiveness from hardware flexibility and efficient storage use. IBM Spectrum Virtualize provides competitive pricing with bundled licensing options, offering a balance between enterprise features and affordability. Users see positive ROI with high availability and cost savings over time.

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

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize

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 August 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.4%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DataCore SANsymphony is 7.0%, up from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Virtualize is 1.5%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

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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OliverPalz

Senior Consultant at SJT SOLUTIONS GMBH

Provides efficient synchronous mirroring capability and dynamic data management functionality

The initial setup is relatively easy but requires a certified DataCore implementation engineer to deploy the solution in a production environment. The deployment following the qualified procedure, typically takes about a week, depending on the amount of storage and the specific environment. With my experience, I can set up the system within two to four hours; however, the qualification process, which includes detailed planning and testing, adds additional time. It involves gathering the customer's requirements, preparing comprehensive documentation for validation, and conducting tests in collaboration with the customer. This documentation includes a site planning checklist, a pre-installation checklist, and a functional test plan to ensure everything is in order before deployment. Overall, I rate the process an eight.

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MD.Faisal Alam

Manager, Technical Services, IBM Storage & Backup Solutions. at Thakral

Built-in compression enhances data management efficiency

I have noticed that the technical support for software issues, such as with Spectrum Protect, needs improvement. The case logging process is efficient, but resolving software problems takes too much time. This delay can hinder customers and strain vendor relationships. For hardware issues, IBM handles them efficiently, but software-related support requires enhancement. Overall improvement in support for software cases is necessary.

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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

"The most valuable features are the Metro clustering, and disaster recovery."

"The most valuable features of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."

"It has also helped to simplify storage for us in the way that it's easy to manage. Their automatic monitoring really helps when things break or are about to break. They see a problem coming and alert us even before our own system does."

"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 solution provides many controllers."

"The main feature I have found to be product replication."

"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."

"The product is scalable and easy to expand."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The most useful feature of SANsymphony is that it's able to manage any brand of block storage."

"SANsymphony is flexible, with many potential options for implementation. SANsymphony's can be used with VMware, Hyper-V, or even with a hypervisor agnostic approach. It can also be used for strictly physical non-virtualized solutions."

"Our central storage has very high availability. DataCore SANsymphony ensures high business continuity."

"DataCore SANsymphony's stability is okay."

"The most valuable feature for us is that we can adjust the size of the storage very easily, without stopping production."

"CDP is an important feature for avoiding data loss in the event of ransomware attacks. You need more storage capacity, however, you get the possibility to return at any time and use the data saved up to that point. The recovery is much faster than with a classic restore."

"The DataCore system has been rock solid since we have been using it - from 2007 on."

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

More DataCore SANsymphony pros

"Migration from configurations where servers have storage provisioned from older SAN disk systems to newer storage systems is almost seamless using image mode migration techniques, with only a short outage of the servers."

"The ability to have a feature-rich software set which extends the capabilities of the back-end storage arrays."

"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."

"IBM offers excellent customer service."

"I like all the features, but the most impressive recently has been the introduction of IBM's Flash Core Modules. They are a form of a flash drive, but they have many more features."

"When we add storage behind it, the product is good for the customers because their customers do not notice that anything is happening due to the virtualization."

"The most valuable feature is its reliability."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pros

Cons

"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."

"It would be beneficial if the layer could support the S3 protocol and be container ready in the next release."

"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."

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

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

"It usually comes down to just what you hit and the value you're getting when you spend the money and license the products. I would always go, "If you want to make things better, lower your price and make your licensing simpler." There's always an opportunity around that."

"I want efficiency. FlashBlade doesn't have efficiency now."

"Commvault has mainly driven the Analytics, providing data and reports. However, the product has room for improvement, especially regarding storage analytics. Upgrading firmware has caused issues, requiring feature disabling to revert to traditional backups. The firmware upgrades sometimes affect Commvault backups."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"SANsymphony is missing some features that vSAN has. For example, vSAN has a special feature called continuous data protection. It provides the ability to go back in time to a given moment. You can see what was on your disk in the past up to two weeks. That's a great feature because ransomware attacks are increasingly common, and that provides you some kind of protection."

"One limitation of this solution is that it's Windows-based, e.g. one requirement to install DataCore SANsymphony SDS is putting it on a Windows server machine. It relies on Windows and that is a limitation because there are some customers who are looking for non Windows systems."

"I think the performance reporting can be improved by adding historical statistics into a database for the purpose of comparing."

"Datacore is developing a new WebUI with new dashboards. It is a good idea as the classic GUI is lacking dashboards."

"The graphical interface is not always very stable."

"DataCore should integrate its own file server into SANsymphony."

"Problem detection could be easier. It should help customers identify problems very quickly because it's not easy to analyze on the platform today."

"The cost is becoming prohibitive since they moved to a subscription model."

More DataCore SANsymphony cons

"GUI should be developed in HTML5 as opposed to Java."

"Level 1 technical support needs improvement."

"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."

"The disk reliability is not that good."

"I would like to see more baseline replication and integration with the operating system between Vmware and IBMI."

"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."

"NBME support and support for a higher Fibre Channel lengths could be improved, but those are already on the roadmap."

"Anything which improves performance and the ability of our systems would be a nice."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize cons

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."

"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."

"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 product is very expensive."

"The price is a little high."

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

"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"DataCore SANsymphony's pricing is very high and should be much cheaper."

"Pricing has improved but it is still expensive."

"The pricing and licensing are better with DataCore."

"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."

"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."

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

"The cost is at the same level as other storage solutions and it is easy to understand the licensing."

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

More DataCore SANsymphony pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"Do a proof of concept, if you are not comfortable jumping in, but do it."

"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."

"It has a lot of advanced functions for a reasonable price."

"I think it is a good value for the price."

"The entry point of pricing for this product is the most amazing price ever in the industry."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Performing Arts

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

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...

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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...

See all answers

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

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-...

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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...

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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 ...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 19% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

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StarWind Virtual SAN vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 12% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 11% of the time

VMware vSAN vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 11% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 8% of the time

NetApp ONTAP vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 7% of the time

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VxRail vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 25% of the time

IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 23% of the time

Dell VPLEX vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 21% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 16% of the time

VMware vSAN vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 15% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

August 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony

August 2025

Download DataCore SANsymphony product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize

August 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Virtualize product report

Also Known As

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DataCore Virtual SAN

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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 Virtualize is a dependable solution that improves data value, security, and simplicity for new and existing storage infrastructure. Proven over 12 years in thousands of deployments, its innovative virtualization capabilities help organizations achieve better data economics by supporting new workloads that are critical to their success. IBM Spectrum Virtualize software helps make new and existing storage more effective and standardizes functions traditionally deployed separately in disk systems for greater flexibility and potentially lower costs.

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.

Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize

August 2025

Free Report: DataCore SANsymphony vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize

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

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