IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs StarWind Storage Appliance comparison

IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. StarWind Storage Appliance

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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

Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Spectrum Virtualize	1.6%
Red Hat Ceph Storage	18.4%
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct	7.3%
Other	72.7%

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

NAS Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
StarWind Storage Appliance	1.0%
Dell PowerScale (Isilon)	16.5%
Dell PowerStore	11.3%
Other	71.2%

NAS

Featured Reviews

Parul-Patel

Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

High performance and throughput enhance IT backup management

The multi-dimensional scale-out design feature of Pure Storage FlashBlade is not in use in our environment. Regarding data reduction technologies, we don't get much deduplication because the data is already deduplicated from our FlashArray before we get to backup, so there is no benefit of deduplication. Regarding the integration with cloud-native ecosystem tools, we are not on cloud; we are strictly an on-premises solution. Pure Storage FlashBlade is not used by any end-user; it's used only for IT backup, with only about four people in our group managing it. I cannot recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade to other users depending upon their financial situation because it's an expensive solution, and the cost is very high, including licensing and renewal every year. I rate Pure Storage FlashBlade an eight out of ten.

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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.

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Kishore CA

Senior Engineering Assistant at Bharat Electronics Limited

Offers stable performance even with a single node failure and manages everything with just two nodes.

The only drawback is that it takes a bit of time during initial synchronization, especially after restarting the environment. This is a potential area of improvement. There's a synchronization time, but it takes time. Initially, when we start the first environment deployment, it starts synchronizing between the storage. So, it is taking time. One thing is that even when you restart. Let's assume that the synchronization is completed and the storage is synchronized. Both storages are fully synchronized, and it is in sync mode. Now, if we want to restart both nodes, there is a case for maintenance purposes. You took both nodes for maintenance, and we rebooted it. Then, it should not synchronize again. It should be a checksum. And if there is a checksum match, there should be no synchronization again. So, one thing that should be taken care of. Another thing is that I used freeware- the community version, free license, which we deployed using PowerShare. In that case, it was very difficult to bring back another node when one node was faulty. Let's assume that both the nodes are working fine. And we found one node faulty. And we destroyed all the volumes in that and tried to bring it back. So that was a difficult factor. The final solution is that we were not able to bring back the failed node. So, we reconstructed a new data source for that. That is another drawback. In future releases, I would like to see the integration with VMware or some other things as a plugin model for VMware.

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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

"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."

"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."

"The solution provides many controllers."

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."

"Using this solution has made our backups more reliable."

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

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The abstraction flair and the abstraction layer. We had a mixture of different storage arrays, and the wonderful thing about SVC is is that it normalizes all it into a single driver. A single view that all hosts see simultaneously."

"I like all the features, but the most impressive recently has been the introduction of IBM's Flash Core Modules. They are a form of a flash drive, but they have many more 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."

"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."

"The most valuable feature is its reliability."

"Using SBC, a valuable feature is the mirroring, which is the virtualization of the disk between disparate places."

"The SVC gives excellent performance with tiered storage behind it."

"The ease of management, the simplicity of the CLI, the speed of that interface, and the well-architected design of the product in general are valuable features."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pros

"StarWind Storage Appliance is simpler and more effective than using Microsoft products. We chose it because it can be easily integrated with Microsoft."

"The management interface is the most valuable feature for us."

"They call us when monitoring shows a possible issue and are very flexible in working with our schedule to troubleshoot when it is convenient for us."

"Having instant failover redundancy helps me sleep easier at night."

"It is very easy to use and very cost effective."

"I would say data protection and easy management are the most valuable features of the product...I rate the technical support a nine out of ten."

"The integration is excellent."

"We saw an ROI. We have saved both time and money by using it."

More StarWind Storage Appliance pros

Cons

"In the realm of micro-services, I think that Pure Storage can do well if they start getting in there and making their arrays more micro-services ready."

"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."

"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."

"I would like to see better integration."

"It would be nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

"It would be beneficial if the layer could support the S3 protocol and be container ready in the next release."

"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

"Adding features for data deduplication is one area of improvement."

"I would like to see more baseline replication and integration with the operating system between Vmware and IBMI."

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

"GUI should be developed in HTML5 as opposed to Java."

"I already discussed possible improvements with some of the guys from Hearnsley. One of our frustrations is when you go to expand volumes in a global mirror environment, you have to stop everything in order to expand. So that's one of the things."

"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."

"NBME support and support for a higher Fibre Channel lengths could be improved, but those are already on the roadmap."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize cons

"It needs more integration with backup vendors so there is native integration with it that will allow storage level backup/snapshots. I would love to see integration with Veeam and Commvault so it can be recognized by them directly and added as network storage."

"StarWind no longer sells HDDs for primary storage."

"An improvement would be if they reached out to education customers with other available products."

"Other solutions, such as StorMagic, offer more flexibility in terms of handling caching and moving data between additional nodes."

"StarWind Storage Appliance's demo version should be similar to the paid one."

"They could improve by providing integration with HP."

"The dashboard features are not in the free version."

"They offered onsite installation, but we chose to do it ourselves. That took longer and was more work for us but saved us a ton of money in the end."

More StarWind Storage Appliance cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The product is very expensive."

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

"The price is a little high."

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

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

"The price could be cheaper."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pricing and cost advice

"I rate StarWind Storage Appliance's pricing an eight out of ten."

"On the homepage, you can not see the pricing."

"StarWind by far provides the best bang for the buck."

"We found that the price of StarWind was very good compared to VMware or Nutanix."

"It costs about 50,000 euros."

"The cost is determined by various factors, including the amount of terabyte storage you require, the number of nodes you want to purchase, and the duration of your maintenance agreement"

"With StarWind Storage Appliance, the payments made towards the licensing part of the product are on a per-node basis, making it cost-effective for us to use the solution in our company."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Performing Arts

14%

Financial Services Firm

Government

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	20

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	31

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	2

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 ...

What do you like most about StarWind Storage Appliance?

I would say data protection and easy management are the most valuable features of the product...I rate the technical ...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Storage Appliance?

I rate StarWind Storage Appliance's pricing an eight out of ten.

What needs improvement with StarWind Storage Appliance?

StarWind Storage Appliance's demo version should be similar to the paid one.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Comparisons

Compared 19% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 7% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 21% of the time

Dell VPLEX vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 17% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 16% of the time

VxRail vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 16% of the time

VMware vSAN vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 15% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize Competitors

FreeNAS vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 33% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 26% of the time

Scality RING vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 21% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 21% of the time

More StarWind Storage Appliance Competitors

Product Reports

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Download IBM Spectrum Virtualize product report

StarWind Storage Appliance

Download StarWind Storage Appliance 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

For SMB and Enterprises who are looking for high performance primary storage for server virtualization, VDI, database and Big Data scenarios, or inexpensive secondary backup tier, our solution is StarWind Storage Appliance. It unifies commodity servers, disks and flash, and associated software into an easily scalable storage platform.

Additionally, the appliance features an optional gateway to Azure public cloud, which helps to implement an effective Disaster Recovery plan or meet regulatory requirements. StarWind SA scales up by adding individual disks and flash modules, or JBODs, while adding ready controller nodes allows scaling out.

StarWind SA targets those, who need high-performance primary storage or secondary storage for backup. In case there is a whole virtualization infrastructure to build from scratch, StarWind HCA will come in handy. Otherwise, if all the required hardware is present, StarWind Virtual SAN will be enough to build a high-performance virtualization setup.

StarWind

Sample Customers

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

Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services

Bosch, EC2 IT, Solid Earth Inc., Canon

IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. StarWind Storage Appliance