IBM Spectrum Scale vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

IBM and StarWind are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. IBM is ranked #10 with an average rating of 9.0, while StarWind is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.4. IBM holds a 4.2% mindshare in SDS, compared to StarWind’s 6.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

StarWind Virtual SAN and IBM Spectrum Scale are competitive in the area of virtual storage solutions. StarWind Virtual SAN has the advantage in support and ease of use, making it a compelling choice for those with limited budgets.

Features: StarWind Virtual SAN is appreciated for its ease of use, excellent support, and high availability. It integrates simply with commodity hardware and offers support for Microsoft clustering. IBM Spectrum Scale provides high-end performance and robust scalability, with platform-agnostic operations and reliability for high-performance computing needs.

Room for Improvement: StarWind could improve its documentation and GUI, automate connection management, and enhance monitoring systems. Users suggest better alert systems and broader encryption options. IBM Spectrum Scale should streamline its licensing model, simplify deployment, and offer a graphical interface to ease the setup process.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: StarWind Virtual SAN offers straightforward deployment and reliable customer service, with attentive support that enhances integration. IBM Spectrum Scale's deployment is more complex, often necessitating technical expertise, though its service is satisfactory, focusing on technical accuracy.

Pricing and ROI: StarWind Virtual SAN is cost-effective with a transparent pricing model, ideal for smaller businesses, and offers long-term savings on deployment and maintenance. IBM Spectrum Scale is priced higher but provides significant ROI in scalable and performance-intensive environments.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Scale vs. StarWind Virtual SAN Report (Updated: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

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 IBM Spectrum Scale is 4.2%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 6.2%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
StarWind Virtual SAN	6.2%
Pure Storage FlashBlade	4.2%
IBM Spectrum Scale	4.2%
Other	85.4%

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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Vladimir Simion

Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer

Achieving seamless cost-saving implementation with exceptional support

The best features that StarWind Virtual SAN offers include the price because comparing to other virtual SAN solutions, this one is the best, and it also has a great support team behind it. My experience with their support has been positive, as their guides regarding the integration are very useful. They have some awesome guides online that show you exactly how to configure the product, how to do the initial setup, and you can speak with them directly. They will be able to connect and verify your setup, run its parameters and see exactly what's working and what is not, and they really help you with that. StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization and my customer through initial cost saving. They use this product in a dark site, so I'm not able to provide any additional details about this, but they were really glad about it, they're still using it, and they asked for extending the capacity for it and the support. They really want to use it and are enjoying using it.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Approximately 40% to 50% of my time is saved using Pure Storage FlashBlade compared to different products."

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

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

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

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

"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."

"The product is scalable and easy to expand."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

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

"The profile share is a valuable feature."

"I find IBM Spectrum Scale to be an excellent product known for its fast parallel file system."

"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."

"Its great servicing high availability. That is what it is used for."

"It is a scalable solution."

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

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

More IBM Spectrum Scale pros

"The top-notch support before, during, and after deployments are better than any other vendor I have come across."

"Their support goes above and beyond with the integration of their software."

"The software is easy to setup and manage, and the support is excellent."

"It's very easy to resize disks and they show up in VMware almost instantly."

"When we need additional storage but want to keep the size of the SANs manageable, the StarWind Virtual SAN has allowed me to do everything needed."

"The support team is available to solve any problem efficiently."

"The configuration is so much simpler than that of a traditional SAN with fewer points of failure to worry about."

"The biggest benefit was that it allowed us to provide SAN services on a limited hardware budget."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

Cons

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

"Its configuration should be easier."

"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

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

"The solution is expensive."

"I would like to see more deduplication."

"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."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"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."

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

"Maybe it needs integration with HA."

"The solution's pricing could be better."

"I wish there were some graphical user interface to access the GPFS file system creation and monitoring."

"The initial setup is complex, especially if trying to avoid erasure coding, as it requires more discs. Avoiding erasure coding can significantly increase costs."

"Making it a little easier to add bad file sets would help. There is a transition to how you add storage and how you add a file set, so making that a little smoother would probably be my recommendation."

"Integration with other vendors is not available."

More IBM Spectrum Scale cons

"Having more support plan options would be nice."

"If there was a way to automatically put disks in maintenance mode when shutting the host down and exit maintenance mode automatically, that would simplify things."

"I struggled when bit figuring out how to go about doing the evaluation."

"For me, the product could be improved by it being made cheaper."

"If it's possible to make a driver/solution that does not make use of the iSCSI targets of Windows, that would be great. I don't know if that's possible, however, it could make the configuration a little easier."

"One point for improvement is to increase the performance capabilities of the Windows-based executable as compared to its Linux Controller Virtual Machine (CVM) equivalent."

"The most disappointing side of the application is the free edition. There used to be GUI attached. That has recently changed to only CLI management of the application."

"The dashboard is functional, but it could benefit from a more modern and visually appealing design."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"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."

"The price could be cheaper."

"The price is a little high."

"The product is very expensive."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"The solution is costly but reliable."

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

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

"The cost, including OPEX, is lower compared to other solutions."

"The cost seems a bit steep, and I wish it was less expensive."

"The pricing is more than reasonable."

"We are happy with the price."

"I think the cost of this solution is quite fair."

"The free version is great to use for labs or test environments."

"The Price/Performance ratio for this solution is outstanding!"

"We evaluated other options and this one was the most cost-effective."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

20%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

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	159
Midsize Enterprise	54
Large Enterprise	33

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

What do you like most about StarWind Virtual SAN?

It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combin...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?

I had experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing through using the free version of StarWind Virtual SAN for t...

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What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

One area for improvement regarding StarWind Virtual SAN is the lack of a full-feature trial. At the time I tested it,...

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 StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 23% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 17% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 14% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 14% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 11% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

August 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale

August 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Scale product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

August 2025

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Also Known As

No data available

StarWind SAN & NAS

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

StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments without the need for dedicated SAN hardware. It allows for real-time replication between servers, shared storage for Hyper-V clusters, and enables vMotion and High Availability features for VMware vSphere. The solution reduces costs and leverages existing hardware while providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure. Valuable features include ease of use, scalability, top-tier support, hardware agnosticism, and the ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space. StarWind VSAN has helped organizations improve performance, data availability, and data security while reducing downtime and providing cost-saving storage options.

StarWind

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

August 2025

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Scale vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Scale vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.

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