IBM Spectrum Scale vs Zadara comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Spectrum Scale and Zadara based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Zadara Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The profile share is a valuable feature.""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.""GPFS monitoring is the best feature.""It is a scalable solution.""The high performance of the solution is its most valuable aspect. If you compare it to other storage solutions, it's much better.""Technical support has been very helpful. They provide us with pretty good solutions that we can implement moving forward.""It is incredibly scalable and stable.""The most valuable feature is the ability to share files across different platforms."

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"The processing is much faster with this product.""One of the most valuable features is its integration with other cloud solutions. We have a presence within Amazon EC2 and we leverage compute instances in there. Being able to integrate with compute, both locally within Zadara, as well as with other cloud vendors such as Amazon, is very helpful, while also being able to maintain extremely low latency between those connections.""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.""The most valuable feature is the flexibility in terms of deployment options.""The most valuable features of Zadara are its visibility and simplicity to use.""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.""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.""A nice feature is the immutable object storage, which can be used in conjunction with Veeam."

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Cons
"The pricing and licensing model for this solution are complex and it is sometimes difficult to explain it to customers.""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.""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.""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.""Maybe it needs integration with HA.""The solution's pricing could be better.""Integration with other vendors is not available."

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"In the next release, there can be some improvements to the web console by adding more features because the console is simple. Additionally, the calculator could improve.""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 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.""I would like to see them be a little bit more proactive in terms of the patches and updates that are available. I would like to see more disclosure and information around what fixes or what enhancements are available within a patch, and help in coordinating and scheduling that. Right now, it's driven more by the customer in reaching out via a support ticket.""Some of the features are a little bit slow to come to market.""Having iSCSI over the internet using a VPN, the IPSec tunnel is really the only thing that I find missing from this product.""The initial setup of the solution is complex.""There are still some storage features that they lack. For example, other vendors implemented the auto-tiering feature a long time ago, while Zadara Storage Cloud is just coming out with this feature today. So, they are a little bit late compared to the market."

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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."
  • More IBM Spectrum Scale Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "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."
  • "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 pricing is very competitive and the fact that they have very compelling discounts for multi-year commitments is great."
  • "The price of Zadara is very good and it covers everything. There is no subscription needed."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • More Zadara Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The most valuable features of Zadara are its visibility and simplicity to use.
    Top Answer:In the next release, there can be some improvements to the web console by adding more features because the console is simple. Additionally, the calculator could improve.
    Top Answer:We use services on Zadara for our customers in Brazil.
    Ranking
    Views
    1,702
    Comparisons
    1,409
    Reviews
    3
    Average Words per Review
    197
    Rating
    9.0
    Views
    742
    Comparisons
    350
    Reviews
    3
    Average Words per Review
    1,918
    Rating
    9.3
    Comparisons
    Learn More
    IBM
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    Overview
    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.

    Zadara is a powerful enterprise-level storage solution whose design enables it to handle every aspect of a user’s data storage needs. It can be deployed in any location, using any protocol, and storing any data type that an organization requires. With Zadara, organizations can do everything that they were able to do with more traditional systems in a cheaper and more efficient way. 

    Zadara Benefits

    Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy Zadara include:

    • Security. Zadara is built with data security in mind. All of a user’s data is heavily encrypted by Zadara’s software so that it is safe both while it is in storage and while it is being transferred somewhere else. It comes with role-based access controls that prevent a user’s data from being seen by those who lack the proper level of authorization. It also comes with dual-factor authentication and other similar methods of identity management. 
    • Reduced costs. While Zadara offers enterprise-level storage capabilities, the costs associated with utilizing it are far less than those of similar solutions. Some of the resources that it offers are totally free of cost. The model that it utilizes is a pay-as-you-go model. Organizations only pay for the resources that they use and nothing more. Users are not required to sign up for any particular period of time. They are in complete and total control of what they spend on the solution. 
    • Storage efficiency. Zadara ensures that users are able to store their data in the most efficient way possible. It takes a number of approaches that prevent insufficient data storage. These approaches are:

      1. 
      Thin-provision volumes. This method only allows actually written data to be counted toward the storage capacity that is consumed. 

      2. 
      Pattern removal. Zadara searches a user’s stored data for repetitive binary sequences. Once it identifies the repetitive binary sequences, it deletes them.

      3. 
      Inline deduplication (all-flash only). This method ensures that Zadara only stores unique data blocks in its system.

      4. Inline compression.
      Zadara takes data that is stored in its system and compresses it. This keeps larger blocks of data from taking up too much room. 

    Zadara Features

    • Centralized management.  Zadara comes with a centralized dashboard that enables organizations to monitor and control their storage operations from a single location. 
    • File analytics. Organizations can leverage a powerful analytics package that can provide them with critical insights. These tools can help users sort through their data and make more informed data management decisions.

    • Remote mirroring. This feature enables users to replicate data in two remote locations at the same time. This makes it easy for data to be recovered in the event of an unexpected loss. It also aids remote teams in their collaboration efforts by giving them access to the same data at the same time. 

    Reviews from Real Users

    Zadara is a highly effective solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are its extensive suite of cloud solution integrations and its object storage capability. 

    Steve H., the chief technology officer at Pratum, writes, “One of the most valuable features is its integration with other cloud solutions. We have a presence within Amazon EC2 and we leverage computer instances there. Being able to integrate with computing, both locally within Zadara, as well as with other cloud vendors such as Amazon, is very helpful, while also being able to maintain extremely low latency between those connections.”

    Mauro R., the CEO of Momit SRL, says, “The object storage feature is wonderful. With traditional storage, you have a cost per gigabyte that is extremely high or related to the number of disks. With Zadara Storage Cloud, you have a cost per gigabyte that you can cut and tailor to your needs independent of the number or size of the disks.”

    Sample Customers
    Information Not Available
    Time, Inc. A&E Network, The Washington Post, News UK, McGraw Hill, Gilt, Toshiba, Deloitte, VMware
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm63%
    Computer Software Company25%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Government8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company23%
    Manufacturing Company12%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business30%
    Large Enterprise70%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise71%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business70%
    Midsize Enterprise10%
    Large Enterprise20%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business34%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise51%
    Buyer's Guide
    IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Zadara
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Zadara and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    IBM Spectrum Scale is ranked 7th in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 10 reviews while Zadara is ranked 10th in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 9 reviews. IBM Spectrum Scale is rated 8.6, while Zadara is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of IBM Spectrum Scale writes "A stable solution with valuable profile-sharing features". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Zadara writes "We're able to scale up or down almost instantly, and changes are handled efficiently by their managed services team ". IBM Spectrum Scale is most compared with Red Hat Ceph Storage, Portworx Enterprise, VMware vSAN, DDN IME and NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, whereas Zadara is most compared with MinIO, Amazon S3, Wasabi, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and Red Hat Ceph Storage. See our IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Zadara report.

    See our list of best Software Defined Storage (SDS) vendors, best Software Defined Storage (SDS) vendors, and best Cloud Software Defined Storage vendors.

    We monitor all Software Defined Storage (SDS) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.