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IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

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
Sponsored
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (15th), File and Object Storage (8th)
IBM Spectrum Virtualize
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
14th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Storage Spaces Di...
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.4%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Virtualize is 1.5%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is 7.4%, up from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

Eric Black - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
MD.Faisal Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Built-in compression enhances data management efficiency
I have noticed that the technical support for software issues, such as with Spectrum Protect, needs improvement. The case logging process is efficient, but resolving software problems takes too much time. This delay can hinder customers and strain vendor relationships. For hardware issues, IBM handles them efficiently, but software-related support requires enhancement. Overall improvement in support for software cases is necessary.
Stanislaw Mielicki - PeerSpot reviewer
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."
"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."
"The solution provides many controllers."
"I would rate this solution an eight plus. It has has good flexibility and stability, it's easy to manage and the response time is good."
"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."
"The initial setup is pretty quick."
"Speed and ease of use are the two most valuable features."
"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."
"The scalability is very good. It can handle anywhere from very small to large enterprise class."
"The ability to add the virtual machine on the Spectrum environment to sort out the data movers(DMs) and their schedules is a valuable feature. You are able to have, for example, four data movers to balance them so you do not have too much work on one data mover."
"IBM offers excellent customer service."
"Although the GUI from the XIV was used (in my view), IBM has polished and refined the GUI providing a pleasant and easy to navigate GUI experience."
"Migration from configurations where servers have storage provisioned from older SAN disk systems to newer storage systems is almost seamless using image mode migration techniques, with only a short outage of the servers."
"It's got full features, so we can compress volumes. We can do thin volumes and we can change them on the fly."
"It is a single pane of glass management interface, so once the storage is allocated to SVC, they only have one place to go to manage it for everything."
"The most valuable feature is its reliability."
"The flash ability, in terms of tiering and caching, is amazing"
"It's mainly about the storage expansion, like in hyper-converged solutions."
"The most valuable feature is that there is no single point of failure."
"Its technical support is excellent."
"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."
"The most valuable feature are the caching capabilities using the storage class memory."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."
 

Cons

"To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."
"An area for improvement in Pure Storage FlashBlade is its price. It could be reduced. The technical support for Pure Storage FlashBlade also needs improvement. It used to be good, with more experienced engineers. Nowadays, it isn't, and it takes longer for support to solve problems."
"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."
"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 speed could be improved."
"I would like to see better integration."
"It would be beneficial if the layer could support the S3 protocol and be container ready in the next release."
"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."
"Anything which improves performance and the ability of our systems would be a nice."
"Tighter integration with cloud storage might be useful as a target for a variety of use cases."
"The only errors I find sometimes is the solution tells me I cannot operate it because a service has turned off, you can just go back to the VM, go to services, and turn back the services. However, this should improve."
"I would like to see them provide a unified platform that offers block, file, and object-based protocol access."
"The training program could be improved."
"Level 1 technical support needs improvement."
"For improvement considerations, I would probably say multiple sites."
"The disk reliability is not that good."
"The management tool within this solution could be improved. We would also like to be able to access services like Azure when using this solution."
"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."
"More optimization could be done in terms of mirroring."
"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."
"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."
"Documentation management could be improved"
"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."
"It is scalable, but only beyond two nodes. If I go for two nodes it's not scalable. I need to build a complete cluster from the beginning if I'm going for two nodes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."
"I feel that the price could always be lowered."
"The product is very expensive."
"The price could be cheaper."
"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."
"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."
"Our licensing is renewed annually."
"Do a proof of concept, if you are not comfortable jumping in, but do it."
"We have struggled with Pure Storage, but people are understanding that much of Pure has been consumer grade SSDs. Therefore, when the customer is really understands what they are getting, they realize that IBM presents the same sort of value as existing vendors."
"I am very happy with the pricing. There is no comparison when it comes to pricing. I have looked at all solutions from EMC, Veritas, Hitachi, Dell, etc. None of them compares to IBM when it comes to pricing. I get great pricing from them."
"It has a lot of advanced functions for a reasonable price."
"I think it is a good value for the price."
"This solution came as an additional cost for the TSM package we chose."
"Generally the bundled licensing is more cost effective and gives flexibility to the solution. Linking into the Spectrum Suite can also be advantageous, but depends on the scale of the enterprise."
"We would like the CPU cycle to save more on the licensing costs for us."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Performing Arts
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

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 of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Virtualize?
IBM Spectrum Virtualize is not an expensive product. It offers flexibility with different flavors, whether appliance-...
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Virtualize?
IBM could improve IBM Spectrum Virtualize by bundling Storage Scale and Storage Virtualize into a single appliance. T...
What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Virtualize?
I primarily use IBM Spectrum Virtualize ( /products/ibm-spectrum-virtualize-reviews ) when I have different hardware ...
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...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
MS Storage Spaces Direct
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services
Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.