IBM Spectrum Scale vs VMware Software Defined Storage comparison

IBM Spectrum Scale vs. VMware Software Defined Storage

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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 July 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 4.7%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Software Defined Storage is 1.0%, up from 1.0% 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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Achilles Lobo

Infrastructure Architect at Grupo Protege

Simple to configure and provides good performance

The solution is simple to configure and provides good performance and less footprint. Dell deployed the solution, and it's very simple to use. VMware software is widely used by IT administrators VMware Software Defined Storage can be improved in the replication area. The solution has some…

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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 tool's most valuable features are data warehousing, speedy recovery, and analytics. Its latest release is cost-effective."

"The snapshots, replication, and the ability to have immutable blades are the most valuable features. You're putting data snapshots out in those blades, and they cannot be touched. Its performance is great."

"We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."

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

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

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."

"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."

"The initial setup was straightforward. If you know how to plug in power and network you're pretty much qualified. They were on site to configure the network, the box to fit into our network architecture. Other than that, we self-managed from there."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"Allows us to share files across multiple environments."

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

"It is incredibly scalable and stable."

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

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

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

"The most valuable feature is the ability to share files across different platforms."

"GPFS monitoring is the best feature."

More IBM Spectrum Scale pros

"The most valuable features of VMware Software Defined Storage are scalability, high availability, and performance."

"VMware Software Defined Storage gives higher availability against data corruption."

"The best part of the solution is that you can actually scale up to a large number of operating systems without additional hardware."

"The most valuable features of VMware Software Defined Storage are scalability, high availability, and performance."

"The solution is simple to configure and provides good performance and less footprint."

"The single management panel is the main feature that is wonderful for the customer."

"The most valuable features of the solution are that it is easy to deploy and the support is really good."

"This is an easy-to-use product for adding flexibility to your storage solution."

Cons

"Its configuration should be easier."

"File storage needs a lot of improvement. Mainframe connectivity also needs improvement because it requires additional components to be integrated with Pure Storage FlashBlade. If you want to keep your backup data, then this becomes an even more expensive solution because Pure Storage FlashBlade will not be able to meet your backup needs."

"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."

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

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

"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."

"I have not seen ROI."

"Compared to, for example, Hitachi NAS, the solution is not mature at all. It's just in its infancy as far as technology goes."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

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

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

"I believe there is no graphic user interface, so they should include it."

"We do have some issues where Spectrum Scale does not work as expected. We have seen our Spectrum Scale servers go down unexpectedly, but because we have a cluster, it does not take out the entire organization."

"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."

"Maybe it needs integration with HA."

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

"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."

More IBM Spectrum Scale cons

"There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages."

"The performance is not as good as some competing products and reporting can be improved."

"It doesn't have the ability to be deployed on any kind of hardware and network connectors."

"I'd like to see improved hardware compatibility"

"VMware Software Defined Storage should include a shared database on a standard version."

"The license model of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"The solution has some limitations in terms of replication to remote sites or cloud infrastructure, which need improvement."

"Simplifying the licensing model and making it cheaper would improve the solution."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."

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

"The price is a little high."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

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

"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."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"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 licensing is based on the number of terabytes."

"A single socket costs you around US $6,000 for three years. At a minimum, you have a three load cluster for a medium or enterprise-scale company. It can get quite expensive because you're likely to need four to six sockets on the other side. It comes to around $30,000."

"VMware Software Defined Storage is a slightly expensive solution."

"I believe there is a yearly licensing fee of around $2000 - $5000. I don't think there are additional costs above that but it depends on the type of infrastructure you're booting."

"The solution is very expensive."

"The product is quite expensive and is among the most expensive for this type of solution."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Educational Organization

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Educational Organization

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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.

What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Scale?

It is a scalable solution.

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...

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...

What do you like most about VMware Software Defined Storage?

VMware Software Defined Storage gives higher availability against data corruption.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Software Defined Storage?

The price of VMware Software Defined Storage is on the pricey side, rated four out of five in cost. There is room for...

What needs improvement with VMware Software Defined Storage?

There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages. More automation, such as using Playbook on Ansibl...

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Comparisons

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Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 27% of the time

DDN IME vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 14% of the time

Portworx Enterprise vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 12% of the time

Red Hat Gluster Storage vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 8% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Scale Competitors

DataCore SANsymphony vs VMware Software Defined Storage

Compared 38% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs VMware Software Defined Storage

Compared 30% of the time

More VMware Software Defined Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

IBM Spectrum Scale

Download IBM Spectrum Scale product report

VMware Software Defined Storage

Download VMware Software Defined Storage product report

Also Known As

No data available

VMware SDS

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

VMware software-defined storage is a simple, yet intelligent, storage data center architecture that aligns with business and application demands—eliminating static, purpose-built and inefficient hardware with dynamic, agile and automated solutions.

VMware

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

Helse Nord, Sky

IBM Spectrum Scale vs. VMware Software Defined Storage