IBM Spectrum Scale vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct comparison

IBM and Microsoft are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. IBM is ranked #10 with an average rating of 9.0, while Microsoft is ranked #9 with an average rating of 7.8. IBM holds a 4.2% mindshare in SDS, compared to Microsoft’s 7.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

IBM Spectrum Scale and Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct are storage solutions competing in scalability and ease of integration with existing infrastructures. IBM Spectrum Scale appears to have the upper hand in scalability and data management, while Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct offers superior integration with Windows environments.

Features: IBM Spectrum Scale has strengths in handling large datasets with strong cloud integration and efficient data management. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, on the other hand, supports hyper-converged infrastructures, offers built-in fault tolerance, and seamless integration with Windows Server.

Room for Improvement: IBM Spectrum Scale could benefit from simpler integration processes by enhancing user interface and more affordable entry-level options. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct might improve by increasing support for non-Windows environments, offering more customization tools, and further refining its scalability features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Scale requires a complex deployment process, which is bolstered by robust support for intricate enterprise needs but demands dedicated IT resources. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is easier to deploy within Windows ecosystems and benefits from responsive customer service tailored for smaller teams.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Spectrum Scale involves a higher initial setup cost but offers long-term ROI through adaptable scaling. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct has a lower initial investment with quicker ROI, thanks to reduced operational costs, making it accessible for businesses focusing on cost-efficiency.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

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

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 IBM Spectrum Scale is 4.2%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is 7.3%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Pure Storage FlashBlade	4.2%
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct	7.3%
IBM Spectrum Scale	4.2%
Other	84.3%

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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Bernd Stroehle.

Enterprise Architect at kosakya

Deliver improved performance in data processing and foster extensive AI initiatives

I find IBM Spectrum Scale to be an excellent product known for its fast parallel file system. It achieved the best results when integrated with IBM hardware. Even though it is complex, it provided significant performance advantages in large-scale data management. Its fault tolerance mechanisms and integration capabilities make it popular for extensive AI initiatives and data processing tasks for organizations like Daimler Benz and Bosch.

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Stanislaw Mielicki

Solution architect at Netland

Achieve cost-effectiveness with superior performance while needing to address cluster support

I am working with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct for applications, SQL, and VRS. I am an integrator for this solution The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct. They introduced the All-Flash array using SSD or NVMe drives without cache drives. It is…

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

"The initial setup is pretty quick."

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

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

"The ease of deployment and management has helped us simplify our storage. We also do not have to worry about capacity management as much. A lot of these things are native to Pure Storage."

"Among its most appealing features are its ease of handling and minimal maintenance requirements."

"The solution provides many controllers."

"It's very easy-to-use."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"It makes our file system sharing a lot easier, even across different continents. We have had file systems shared across different continents with no performance degradation."

"We can have multiple systems within the same file system."

"Allows us to share files across multiple environments."

"It is incredibly scalable and stable."

"It is a scalable solution."

"We are using it for monitoring all of our storage."

"We use GPFS Scale for parallel file access, the file management, and it's an essential part of our operations."

"I rate this product ten out of ten."

More IBM Spectrum Scale pros

"It's mainly about the storage expansion, like in hyper-converged solutions."

"Its technical support is excellent."

"The most valuable feature is that there is no single point of failure."

"The flash ability, in terms of tiering and caching, is amazing"

"The main positive impact that Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct has had on my company over the years is increasing performance; our checks show it is three times faster than VMware, making us extremely happy and motivated to keep using it."

"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct pros

Cons

"I would like to see better integration."

"We haven't been able to use much of the cloud area of Pure Storage. We have a storage server and it would be better if it could integrate with other cloud features of this solution."

"We initially encountered challenges with the assembly process due to issues with the documentation required during setup, an area where Pure Storage needs improvement."

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

"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."

"In terms of scalability, it doesn't expand out quite as robustly as some of the others, but it covers 90% of the market in what it does."

"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."

"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"Integration with other vendors is not available."

"There can be improvements in fault tolerance and making erasure coding faster."

"Maybe it needs integration with HA."

"The biggest problem is that it is not able to provide block storage."

"They should probably simply the Red Hat implementation portion. This portion was not as straightforward as I would like it to be."

"The solution's pricing could be better."

"It would be helpful if there was a graphical user interface that could walk you through the deployment process. The instructions surrounding setup aren't the best. They need to be more step-by-step."

"The pricing and licensing model for this solution are complex and it is sometimes difficult to explain it to customers."

More IBM Spectrum Scale cons

"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."

"Documentation management could be improved"

"It is difficult to get a hardware compatibility certification for the solution."

"On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the customer service and technical support of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct a three, as there were issues that the Microsoft team could not pinpoint, leading to delays in finding solutions."

"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."

"More optimization could be done in terms of mirroring."

"The integration is not difficult because there is no GUI, but we need to use a PowerShell command. This makes it difficult to monitor and to see the components' statuses."

"There is a lot of room for improvement. I would like to have more tools to monitor the function and problems."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"The product is very expensive."

"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."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"The licensing is based on the number of terabytes."

"The licensing model is complex and depends on factors such as the number of processing cores and the amount of storage."

"The solution is costly but reliable."

"The solution is expensive."

"Cost-wise the product is one of the more affordable within the category of products."

"With the data center licensing and everything that is connected to that, this solution is relatively costly."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

20%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

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	6
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	3

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 IBM Spectrum Scale?

IBM Spectrum Scale is very expensive with complex pricing models usually based on the amount of storage used or the n...

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What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Scale?

There is room for improvement in the web interface. There could be more information available, such as charts and gra...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Scale?

My personal use of this product is for parallel writing or reading files.

See all answers

How does VMware vSAN compare with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

We found VMware’s vSAN was easy to set up, configure, and manage compared to other solutions we considered. It is bes...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

Overall, I find the cost of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct to be affordable for the on-prem Windows pure solution, b...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

Microsoft should improve the management aspect of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, as we have raised multiple recomme...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 20% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 23% of the time

DDN IME vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 12% of the time

Portworx Enterprise vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 11% of the time

VMware vSAN vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat Gluster Storage vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 8% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Scale Competitors

VMware vSAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 58% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 17% of the time

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 8% of the time

StarWind Virtual SAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 6% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

August 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale

September 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Scale product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

August 2025

Download Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct product report

Also Known As

No data available

MS Storage Spaces Direct

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

IBM Spectrum Scale is a cluster file system that provides concurrent access to a single file system or set of file systems from multiple nodes. The nodes can be SAN attached, network attached, a mixture of SAN attached and network attached, or in a shared nothing cluster configuration. This enables access to this common set of data to support a scale-out solution or to provide a high availability platform. IBM Spectrum Scale has many features beyond common data access including data replication, policy based storage management, and multi-site operations. You can create a cluster of AIX nodes, Linux nodes, Windows server nodes, or a mix of all three. IBM Spectrum Scale can run on virtualized instances providing common data access in environments, leverage logical partitioning, or other hypervisors. Multiple IBM Spectrum Scale clusters can share data within a location or across wide area network (WAN) connections.

IBM

Storage Spaces Direct uses industry-standard servers with local-attached drives to create highly available, highly scalable software-defined storage at a fraction of the cost of traditional SAN or NAS arrays. Its converged or hyper-converged architecture radically simplifies procurement and deployment, while features like caching, storage tiers, and erasure coding, together with the latest hardware innovation like RDMA networking and NVMe drives, deliver unrivaled efficiency and performance.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

September 2025

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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