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Dell Technologies DataIQ [EOL] vs IBM Storage Protect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 16, 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

Dell Technologies DataIQ [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Storage Protect
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (13th)
 

Featured Reviews

Jan Zentgraf - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at IXPACK GmbH
A stable and scalable tool that can be used to monitor and analyze data
The product is used to analyze data. It was purchased as part of a package including Isilon installation The product can be used to analyze data usage. I have a big confusion between InsightIQ and DataIQ. I do not know which product is going to be retired. There are many rumors, but we have no…
reviewer2787573 - PeerSpot reviewer
Interim Head of Infrastructure at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Backup coverage has supported immutable protection and now needs a more modern, intuitive interface
IBM Storage Protect is from a previous generation of backup software. In those days, backup software was complex in setting up and complex to manage. The new software, such as Rubrik, is very easy to use and more relatable to younger engineers because its interface design is more similar to Office 365 and the newer controls and labels that we are accustomed to. The difficulty that we now have with IBM Storage Protect is that for this day and age, compared to other products that are out there, it seems complex. If we look back 15 years ago, all enterprise class backup software was complex, so IBM was not any different. However, many of these older systems, such as Commvault, still have the same complaint that they are very complex because they have tried to keep that same interface and the same way it works. This suits them, but it probably needed a complete overhaul to bring it into the ease of use that we have with modern software. However, that upgrade has not been done. IBM Storage Protect has not been upgraded into a modern platform. It still looks a legacy platform.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product can be used to analyze data usage."
"Disk-based implementation of a data protection solution for multiple sites is a better fit for my complex data protection needs."
"They have recently added support tickets specifically engineered around performance. This has been very useful for us when we run into issues where customers are looking to try to squeeze a lot more horsepower out of older system."
"So far, Spectrum Protector has been the best."
"It allows us to have one interface."
"You can protect your data and keep it for long durations, without it spending too much time on the local disk."
"It is also a product that has been maturing for a long time. This is good because customers need reliability in their enterprise initiatives."
"From a tech perspective, utilizing deduplication is one of the most valuable features."
"With IBM Spectrum Protect, we optimize our costs of media and storage use, thanks to the Incremental Forever backup."
 

Cons

"The solution’s GUI is a little bit confusing."
"There were scalability issues only in the brand new features which were recently released."
"It has a lot of areas for improvement. Its reporting for job completion or incompletion can be improved. It should also provide a granular recovery, ease of operation, data life cycle management, and media management. It should support a backup in such a format that in case of a disaster, one can start the virtual machine out of the backup itself. Its reliability can also be better. It is also expensive, and their support is also poor."
"We would like to see bare-metal restorers."
"Some features are outdated as the product does not use the latest technologies. The graphical user interface, known as the operation center, is not very well designed. Additionally, IBM Storage Protect does not work well with virtual environments such as VMware and Hyper-V."
"Perhaps if they could add replication to a second site or third site from the same console, that would be helpful. Currently, we have to connect to another console."
"There is room for improvement in the service aspect."
"Most customers still struggle with the reporting piece, especially generating reports. I think it needs some improvements in this area."
"The solution should improve the ability to monitor backup failure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution's pricing is fair. Price-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"Licensing can be either complicated or simple depending on what type of licensing you wish to use and what works best for your environment."
"We chose IBM Spectrum Protect, because they actually have something called MSP pricing, which means managed services provider pricing. The pricing was attractive, and it seems to be a platform that IBM is totally investing on in terms of new functions and new capabilities."
"The licensing is varied. If we have small environments (not many TB being managed) it is best to license by PVUs (depending on the number of cores of the machine). If we manage many TBs we look at licensing by capacity which allows us to use all the agents of the product."
"I rate the pricing a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is not cost-effective, and ten is cost-effective."
"That's no longer my department, but I have some past experience with licensing. It is not cheap. I would rate it a three out of five in terms of licensing. In terms of additional costs, there is management overhead. It is a complex solution and a lot of work goes into managing clients. It has gotten better over the years, but compared to its competitor, it is still heavy on management overhead."
"We have capacity licensing. We use the front end. The capacity licensing is pretty okay on the licensing price. I used to use the old PVU-based licensing in the early environment, but now we use capacity-based licensing."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
12%
Educational Organization
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise95
 

Questions from the Community

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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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Storage Protect?
I do not know the current licensing cost for IBM Storage Protect and how we get our support because our licensing model is not quite standard. We do not buy IBM Storage Protect direct from IBM. We ...
What needs improvement with IBM Storage Protect?
IBM Storage Protect is from a previous generation of backup software. In those days, backup software was complex in setting up and complex to manage. The new software, such as Rubrik, is very easy ...
 

Also Known As

Dell EMC DataIQ
IBM Spectrum Discover
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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