IBM Spectrum Scale vs StarWind Virtual Tape Library comparison

IBM and StarWind are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. IBM is ranked #9 with an average rating of 9.3, while StarWind is ranked #13 with an average rating of 10.0. IBM holds a 4.6% mindshare in SDS, compared to StarWind’s 1.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

StarWind Virtual Tape Library and IBM Spectrum Scale compete in the data management and storage domain. IBM Spectrum Scale gains an upper hand with its advanced scalability options and comprehensive features, particularly appealing to enterprise-level needs.

Features: StarWind Virtual Tape Library enhances data backup with tape-to-disk replacement, advanced data replication, and cost-efficient backup solutions. IBM Spectrum Scale stands out with comprehensive data management capabilities, high availability features, and distributed storage solutions.

Room for Improvement: StarWind Virtual Tape Library could benefit from enhanced scalability, improved user interface, and broader integration options. IBM Spectrum Scale might improve in simplifying its extensive setup process, providing more intuitive user documentation, and offering more competitive pricing options for smaller enterprises.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: StarWind Virtual Tape Library is recognized for its straightforward deployment and responsive support, suitable for businesses with limited IT resources. IBM Spectrum Scale, while robust, comes with a steeper learning curve and an extensive setup but benefits from strong technical support for complex environments.

Pricing and ROI: StarWind Virtual Tape Library is valued for its competitive pricing and significant ROI, appealing to budget-conscious buyers focusing on efficient data backup solutions. IBM Spectrum Scale, though higher priced, offers long-term ROI with its scalability and comprehensive features, suitable for extensive data management needs.

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

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library

May 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 June 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 Scale is 4.6%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual Tape Library is 1.4%, up from 1.3% 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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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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KellyVon Der Heyden

Sales Director at CLOUD READY SOLUTIONS

Scalable solution with a good technical support team

We use the solution for data backups and ransomware protection The solution is compatible with cloud storage platforms, such as Amazon S3. Also, it efficiently reduces the storage cost for archiving. The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough. We have been…

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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 initial setup is pretty quick."

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

"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."

"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."

"The performance of FlashBlade is excellent. It does not necessarily leverage the SOS API that some of the newer products leverage, but I found its speed pretty much on par and comparable. It is fast, and it does what it is supposed to do."

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

"It is very easy to use, and it is very fast."

"The solution provides many controllers."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"I rate this product ten out of ten."

"I would rate my overall experience with IBM Spectrum Scale as nine out of ten."

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

"The profile share is a valuable feature."

"It is incredibly scalable and stable."

"The high performance of the solution is its most valuable aspect. If you compare it to other storage solutions, it's much better."

"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."

"It has been pretty reliable throughout the years. As far as capacity is concerned, it can handle most heavy loads."

More IBM Spectrum Scale pros

"I like the fact that we can simultaneously upload the virtual tapes to different cloud providers, and the settings can be adjusted to speed up the upload times even further."

"The solution made our backups way more reliable."

"It is a stable solution."

"StarWind VTL allowed us to back up to virtual tape that was created within Veeam and upload the tape to the cloud."

"The most valuable feature of the StarWind Virtual Tape Library is the archiving to the AWS cloud."

Cons

"I have not seen ROI."

"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."

"In terms of technical support, the experience has been mixed. The support is done through email and is not that great, making it a very problematic area I've been dealing with for over four years."

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

"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 would like to see better integration."

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

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"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."

"This is probably the biggest challenge, getting everything upgraded, because it just takes time. We wish it was a faster solution to be able to do everything at once, but you have do each node individually. The more nodes, the longer it takes."

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

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

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

"The main issue that we have now is with the encryption. They want to use more metrics in encryption, which is not working very well."

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

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

More IBM Spectrum Scale cons

"The main thing that I felt could be improved was having an estimated time of completion for the virtual tape uploads to the cloud."

"The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough."

"I am not sure if this is a limitation of my physical hardware or if it is the software itself. However, I would like the throughput to be faster."

"The initial installation can be complex and should be simplified."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."

"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."

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."

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

"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."

"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."

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 pricing of the solution could be more flexible to meet the needs of smaller to mid-market size companies."

"The initial setup and deployment are also covered in the purchase at no additional cost."

"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."

"The solution is cost-effective."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Educational Organization

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

Legal Firm

13%

Media Company

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...

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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...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Scale?

It is a scalable solution.

See all answers

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...

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Comparisons

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Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Gluster Storage vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 33% of the time

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Compared 22% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual Tape Library

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

June 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale

June 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Scale product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

May 2025

Download StarWind Virtual Tape Library product report

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

For SMB and Enterprises, who either look to get rid of backup tapes completely, or are willing to accelerate backup process and add an extra level of protection, our solution is StarWind Virtual Tape Library (VTL). It is an appliance that eliminates the need in physical tape and “pretends” to be a supported tape drive or autoloader, keeping all data on inexpensive, fast and high-capacity spinning disks.

Even with explosive data growth, StarWind VTL fits the backup into backup window by accelerating it, so the process does not overlap with production time. Optionally, it creates additional copy of backup data for better safety. It is also available in a software-only form, as part of StarWind VSAN functionality.

StarWind VTL targets those, who need to replace existing tape backup infrastructure or accelerate it if regulatory requirements prohibit replacement. In case the goal is just virtualizing tape backup or creating a stretched backup infrastructure, StarWind Tape Redirector will come in handy.

StarWind

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

Volvo, Sony, Samsung, Hitachi

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library

May 2025

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Scale vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library

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

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