IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs Nexenta comparison

IBM and Nexenta by DDN are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. IBM is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.7, while Nexenta by DDN is ranked #16 with an average rating of 9.0. IBM holds a 1.5% mindshare in SDS, compared to Nexenta by DDN’s 1.1% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 66% of Nexenta by DDN users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Nexenta and IBM Spectrum Virtualize compete in the storage virtualization space. IBM Spectrum Virtualize often has the upper hand due to its extensive features and robust functionality, whereas Nexenta is preferred for cost-effectiveness and flexibility.

Features: Nexenta offers software-defined storage, open-source licensing, and flexibility, ideal for cost savings. IBM Spectrum Virtualize provides advanced data services, cross-platform management, and scalability, suitable for larger complex environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Virtualize ensures a smooth deployment with structured processes and knowledgeable support. Nexenta provides quicker implementation and informal customer support, beneficial for smaller installations.

Pricing and ROI: Nexenta aligns with businesses focused on immediate ROI and tight budgets due to its lower setup cost. IBM Spectrum Virtualize requires higher initial investment, justified by long-term returns through advanced capabilities and scalability.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. Nexenta Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. Nexenta

June 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 859,129 peers since 2012

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 Virtualize is 1.5%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nexenta is 1.1%, up from 0.3% 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.

Read full review

MD.Faisal Alam

Manager, Technical Services, IBM Storage & Backup Solutions. at Thakral

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.

Read full review

Anil Rahulwar

Storage Engineer at Movate

Offers good features like Fusion and stable product with better customer service

Fusion is the only best feature, but it's a very good feature. Nexenta is a very old product. Nexenta is a well-established product used in the UK, US, India, Dubai, Qatar, and other countries. It is very good. The interface is up to date. Everything is up to date. The OS version was recently upgraded to 5.5 FP3. AI features: DataDirect Networks owns Nexenta and has won awards for AI. They continuously work on AI features. DDN also has a product called Tintri Infinia with AI features. And NVIDIA product also has AI features. I look forward to working on those products.

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

"The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power outages when we need to quickly move data between different data centers. It ensures efficient replication and helps maintain our data centers' uptime."

"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is performance."

"The solution provides many controllers."

"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."

"I like its size. It is smaller than the other competitors. We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte."

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

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The most valuable feature is its reliability."

"It lowers cost. It does so by getting more efficient use out of the technology behind it."

"It provides transparency, because of its advanced copy features."

"When we add storage behind it, the product is good for the customers because their customers do not notice that anything is happening due to the virtualization."

"The ability to have a feature-rich software set which extends the capabilities of the back-end storage arrays."

"It's got full features, so we can compress volumes. We can do thin volumes and we can change them on the fly."

"One of the main features of Spectrum Virtualize is it virtualizes the servers from the storage. We have a very large infrastructure. A major advantage is when you get the aged storage arrays and you have to replace all of those."

"The biggest benefits of IBM Spectrum Virtualize are its stability, data security, and customer support."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pros

"It has a feature called Fusion that makes it more secure and productive."

Cons

"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."

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

"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 like to see better integration."

"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 Pure Storage Orchestrator is our biggest pain point at the moment. If we can have more say in future developments of feature sets that we will need to support for our use case, that would be pretty beneficial to 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."

"We initially encountered challenges with the assembly process due to issues with the documentation required during setup, an area where Pure Storage needs improvement."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"Level 1 technical support needs improvement."

"Tighter integration with cloud storage might be useful as a target for a variety of use cases."

"There are big arrays now, and if a customer wants add more disks to it, you have to have another array. Adding disks to existing arrays is one of the most demanded things from our customers."

"There are things that occur when you get to this size and capacity. We're very large, i.e., petabytes. When you get to that sheer volume of the numbers of things, it is too big for people to keep track of."

"In general, the migration is complicated. Though, it is case-by-case."

"For improvement considerations, I would probably say multiple sites."

"The Storwize port is not so stable."

"The training program could be improved."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize cons

"There were some SMB issues, but they were resolved."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."

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

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."

"The price is a little high."

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

"The product is very expensive."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"It has a lot of advanced functions for a reasonable price."

"We would like the CPU cycle to save more on the licensing costs for us."

"Do a proof of concept, if you are not comfortable jumping in, but do it."

"The entry point of pricing for this product is the most amazing price ever in the industry."

"I think it is a good value for the price."

"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."

"This solution came as an additional cost for the TSM package we chose."

"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."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pricing and cost advice

Information not available

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Educational Organization

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Manufacturing Company

No data available

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

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

See all answers

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-...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Nexenta?

There were some SMB issues, but they were resolved in the latest version. Four to five customers faced intermittent i...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Nexenta?

It's for file systems. It's a NAS solution, and it has flexibility. There shouldn't be any outages because if one nod...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Nexenta?

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten. I would recommend using it.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 20% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% 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

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

VxRail vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 26% of the time

Dell VPLEX vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 25% of the time

VMware vSAN vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 20% of the time

IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 16% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 14% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Nexenta

Compared 71% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Nexenta

Compared 29% of the time

More Nexenta Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

June 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize

June 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Virtualize product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

May 2025

Download Nexenta 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 Virtualize is a dependable solution that improves data value, security, and simplicity for new and existing storage infrastructure. Proven over 12 years in thousands of deployments, its innovative virtualization capabilities help organizations achieve better data economics by supporting new workloads that are critical to their success. IBM Spectrum Virtualize software helps make new and existing storage more effective and standardizes functions traditionally deployed separately in disk systems for greater flexibility and potentially lower costs.

IBM

Nexenta is the global leader in Open Source-driven Software-Defined Storage - what we call Open Software-Defined Storage (OpenSDS).We uniquely integrate software-only "Open Source" collaboration with commodity hardware-centric "Software-Defined Storage" (SDS) innovation.

Nexenta by DDN

Sample Customers

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

Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services

GMO, Northern Backup, Cox Communications, University of Toronto, ScaleMatrix, Wipro, Ruhr University, Drillinginfo, George Washington University, Walton Electric, Faculty of Physics, NAU, ServerCentral

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. Nexenta

June 2025

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. Nexenta

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. Nexenta and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. Nexenta report.

See our list of best Software Defined Storage (SDS) 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.