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IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs Zadara comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

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
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (17th), File and Object Storage (6th)
IBM Spectrum Accelerate
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (22nd), Cloud Software Defined Storage (4th)
Zadara
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (33rd), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (16th), Compute Service (10th), Public Cloud Storage Services (15th), File and Object Storage (22nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.2%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Accelerate is 1.6%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zadara is 1.8%, 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 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer1154616 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Kirubel Behailu - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhancing storage management efficiency with user-friendly experience
Our customers are using Zadara for their research and development environments. We provide infrastructure for government projects, but we are often not fully aware of their specific usage.  I typically use it for our infrastructure and offer both Zadara and Microsoft Azure to our customers Zadara…

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 include the ease of implementation, ease of use and the speed that you can do backup and recovery on."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade is user-friendly. It's replication feature is great because it has active replication and active DR. That's the beauty of the product. It's a perfect solution for block storage."
"It is very easy to use, and it is very fast."
"I like its size. It is smaller than the other competitors. We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the rewrite speed and the nonstop services."
"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."
"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."
"Speed and ease of use are the two most valuable features."
"The most valuable feature is the robustness, which is typical of IBM because their software generally just works."
"The ease of use is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's very user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature of Zadara is its ease of use and safety. Overall the solution is a complete package, it has all the features needed."
"Zadara Storage Cloud having 24/7 management saves me support and engineering costs because the storage and computing are managed by a third-party. We are able to focus more attention on the customer, which is truly our core business. Even at 1:00 AM or 2:00 AM at night, someone will answer, which is important."
"It provides very satisfactory storage performance."
"A nice feature is the immutable object storage, which can be used in conjunction with Veeam."
"The most valuable feature is the flexibility in terms of deployment options."
"Being able to scale on demand, and being able to get out of our security operation center, and not having to purchase hardware upfront, has drastically reduced the overhead that was required to maintain our information. We have also gained additional capabilities in terms of speed of replicating that information."
"It's very easy to expand and compared to other storage systems that we've used, it's a lot more expandable and a lot more flexible in how it's deployed."
"The processing is much faster with this product."
 

Cons

"In the realm of micro-services, I think that Pure Storage can do well if they start getting in there and making their arrays more micro-services ready."
"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."
"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."
"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 also like to see better support for CIFS workloads."
"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."
"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."
"he interface is not user-friendly so the ease of use could be improved."
"The reporting mechanisms need improvement."
"Some of the features are a little bit slow to come to market."
"The range of support of VMware could be better. It can support Windows, however, it cannot support other operating systems like IBM AIX. This needs to improve."
"Currently, when we do firmware upgrades, it sometimes causes issues and is not as nondisruptive as desired."
"Having iSCSI over the internet using a VPN, the IPSec tunnel is really the only thing that I find missing from this product."
"The cost is not favorable as Zadara does not provide competitive rates for regions like South Africa and Ethiopia."
"Cost-wise, because it's a pay-per-use model, it may ultimately end up costing us more in the long run than something we developed ourselves."
"The initial installation was difficult because many steps required the command line interface (CLI). Maintenance can also be complicated, especially when deeper troubleshooting requires navigating the CLI and searching for logs."
"The initial setup of the solution is complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."
"Our licensing is renewed annually."
"Licensing fees are paid yearly."
"The product is very expensive."
"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."
"We used a reseller for the purchase."
"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."
"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."
"If you just take the street price of Zadara Storage Cloud and look up the price or cost per hour, then you could think that Zadara Storage Cloud is extremely expensive or a solution only for enterprise use. That is not true. You need to compare the entire system. This means that you don't stop looking at just the street price, but you need to consider all the features, requirements, and costs of support as well as the extra cost that other vendors have. Other players just play with hidden, additional costs. Everything is included in Zadara Storage Cloud's licensing cost; what you get is what you pay for."
"The pricing is very competitive and the fact that they have very compelling discounts for multi-year commitments is great."
"One of the factors that ruled out several providers was cost. They were way too expensive for the volume of data that we needed and the speed at which we needed to be able to manage it. There aren't a lot of providers that can do that."
"It is a nice licensing model and it makes it quite simple because we just pay for what we use, and the bill that comes shows us exactly what customers are using what resources."
"The price of Zadara is very good and it covers everything. There is no subscription needed."
"For our use, it's appropriately priced and overall, it's proved to be very cost-effective against other tier-one vendors."
"The pricing and licensing are very simple and the cost is predictable, although, like everything that you pay for as you use, you have to be mindful of what you're using."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
29%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
No data available
Computer Software Company
23%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?
The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.
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What needs improvement with Zadara?
The initial installation was difficult because many steps required the command line interface (CLI). Maintenance can ...
What is your primary use case for Zadara?
I use this product as storage. Specifically, I use it as big storage. That's the main use case for Zadara ( /products...
What advice do you have for others considering Zadara?
As for the pros and cons, the main concerns are the complexity of the initial installation and the complicated mainte...
 

Also Known As

No data available
IBM XIV
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Silverpop
Time, Inc. A&E Network, The Washington Post, News UK, McGraw Hill, Gilt, Toshiba, Deloitte, VMware
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. Zadara and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.