IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs SwiftStack [EOL] comparison

The compared IBM and NVIDIA solutions aren't in the same category. IBM is ranked #14 in SDS , with an average rating of 8.7, and holds a 1.9% mindshare in the category. Additionally, 91% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NVIDIA users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Spectrum Virtualize and SwiftStack [EOL] 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 Virtualize vs. SwiftStack [EOL] Report (Updated: September 2024).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. SwiftStack [EOL]

September 2024

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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

Featured Reviews

MikaelHellström

IT Manager at Regin Dalarna

Has handled backup storage needs reliably and supports seamless upgrades

In environments requiring high throughput and low latency, Pure Storage FlashBlade provides high throughput and normal latency, but we do not have any application that requires low latency right now, so the latency of three to five milliseconds is considered kind of high. Pure Storage FlashBlade's ability to integrate with enterprise applications is not important for us, as we only want to present an S3 bucket for our backup, which we have done, and it works very fast. We use the Purity software's data reduction techniques; we have a backup software that compresses everything before sending it to the S3 bucket, achieving a data reduction of 1.1 to one. I would recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade to other companies because it's a very fast and scalable solution for anyone who needs it. On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution an 8.

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AhmedSorour

IT Specialist at Saudi Business Machines - SBM

Unified storage solution supports cross-vendor replication and diverse industries

One of the most valuable features of IBM Spectrum Virtualize is its virtualization capability. It allows for the creation of stretched clusters, which are crucial for running Linux-based workloads that need mirroring for boot disks. The solution also provides asynchronous and synchronous replication, supporting operations across different data centers. Its deployment options across public, private, and hybrid clouds add to its versatility.

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reviewer1759539

System administrator at a library with 11-50 employees

A nicely-done product that provides a lot of graphs and reports to see what's happening in the background and makes configuration easier

It's very well done for what it's supposed to do, and I don't have anything to add, but I would like them to keep it available to the public. SwiftStack is going out of the market. NVIDIA purchased SwiftStack a couple of years ago, and they won't be making it available to the public anymore. Our license is up to March 31st.

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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 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."

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

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

"Approximately 40% to 50% of my time is saved using Pure Storage FlashBlade compared to different products."

"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."

"Among its most appealing features are its ease of handling and minimal maintenance requirements."

"It uses the same platform for connectivity so integration is seamless."

"The solution provides many controllers."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

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

"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."

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

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

"We can failover easily, because a lot of our data is replicated from family to the second replication."

"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 most valuable features are the simplicity of use, the flexibility, and the options included. I mean, it's just a big time saver."

"IBM provides exceptional technical support, which I rate as the best along with Cisco."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pros

"The general consensus on what we've done is that the restores coming back from it have been faster than they were from our prior vendor. Ingest speeds are fine. The restore speeds have improved."

"The most valuable feature is its versatility. We use 1space and we can use it for almost anything: for our cloud service, for backups of VMs."

"SwiftStack is also quite flexible when it comes to hardware. It depends, of course, on the use case and the kind of hardware you want to buy. But you have quite a bit of choice in hardware. The SwiftStack software itself does not impose anything on you."

"The performance is good. It is a secondary storage platform designed for archive and backup, so performance for the right use cases is very good. We have been pretty happy in that regard."

"The biggest feature, the biggest reason we went with SwiftStack, rather than deploying our own model with OpenStack Swift, was their deployment model. That was really the primary point in our purchase decision, back when we initially deployed. It took my installation time from days to hours, for deployment in our environment, versus deploying OpenStack Swift ourselves, manually."

"The scalability is phenomenal. It seems infinite, as long as you put enough storage in place, add enough nodes."

"In terms of the hardware flexibility, with SwiftStack not being a hardware company, I literally buy any hardware that's the least expensive, from any vendor... from a flexibility standpoint, I think it's fantastic. I can go to anybody, anywhere - any vendor - and get my hardware."

"The SwiftStack Controller, which is the web UI, provides out of band management. This has been one of the best features of it. It allows us to be able to do upgrades and look at performance metrics. It is a top feature and reason to choose the product."

More SwiftStack [EOL] pros

Cons

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

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

"Its configuration should be easier."

"I want efficiency. FlashBlade doesn't have efficiency now."

"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."

"In terms of scalability, it doesn't expand out quite as robustly as some of the others, but it covers 90% of the market in what it does."

"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 documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"Level 1 technical support needs improvement."

"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."

"The case logging process is efficient, but resolving software problems takes too much time."

"t is limited in terms of a single system to eight nodes or four, what they call IO groups."

"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."

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

"They are actually working on one bug we found, which was with flash restore. This was the user interface design for virtual environments."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize cons

"On the controller features, there needs to be a bit more clean up of the user interface. There are a lot of options available on the GUI which might be better organized or compartmentalized. There are times when you are going through the user interface and you have to look around for where the setting may be. A little bit more attention to the organization of the user interface would be helpful."

"The file access needs improvement. The NFS was rolled out as a single service. It needs to be fully integrated into the proxy in a highly available fashion, like the regular proxy access is. I know it's on the roadmap."

"It's very well done for what it's supposed to do, and I don't have anything to add, but I would like them to keep it available to the public. SwiftStack is going out of the market. NVIDIA purchased SwiftStack a couple of years ago, and they won't be making it available to the public anymore. Our license is up to March 31st."

"At the moment we are using Erasure coding in an 8+4 setting. What would be nice is if, for some standard configurations like 15+4 and 8+4, there were more versatility so we could, for example, select 8+6, or the like."

"I would like to see better client integrations, support for a broader client library. SwiftStack could be a little bit more involved in the client side: Python, Java, C, etc."

"They should provide a more concise hardware calculator when you're putting your capacity together."

"[One] thing that I've been looking for, for years as an end user and customer, for any object store, including SwiftStack, is some type of automated method for data archiving. Something where you would have a metadata tagging policy engine and a data mover all built into a single system that would automatically be able to take your data off your primary and put it into an object store in a non-proprietary way - which is key."

"The biggest room for improvement is the maturity of the proxyFS solution. That piece of code is relatively new, so most of our issues have been around the proxyFS."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

"The price is a little high."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

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

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

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pricing and cost advice

"We are able to dynamically grow storage at a lower cost. We can repurpose hardware and buy commodity hardware. There is a huge cost savings, on average $100,000 a year compared to traditional storage for what we have at our size."

"All in, with hardware and everything else - and I hate to say a dollar amount because it's been awhile since I computed it - I know I'm under the $300 to $500 per terabyte mark. I call that my "all in" price, which has replications built in and protections built in."

"Dollar per gigabyte, it costs us more because we are storing more. However, if you look at it from a cost per gigabyte perspective, we have dropped our costs significantly."

"It's pricey for us because we're a nonprofit. I'm not privy to any amount or cost, but I have been told that it is pricey. There are no costs in addition to the licensing fees, and it seems to come with the support."

"We find the pricing rather steep. Of course, you get quality for your money, that's absolutely true... [But] when you look at the prices of the licensing and the prices of your hardware, it's quite substantial."

"The pricing model is great and makes sense. We have talked about how to get into more of a frequent billing cycle than once a year. That would be an interesting concept to add into the product, having the ability to have monthly billing instead of having to do a one-year licensing renewal. However, the way the license works by charging for storage consumed is definitely what makes them the most competitive."

"The annual support and maintenance costs compared to our old solution for backups had about a two-thirds savings, so about a 60% annual savings on our support and maintenance contract. That savings funded additional expansion for what it was costing us for the support and maintenance contracts on old solution."

"We have had a 40 to 50 percent reduction in CAPEX on the acquisition of new hardware, which is probably conservative."

More SwiftStack [EOL] pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Performing Arts

16%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Performing Arts

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	21

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

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

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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Regarding pricing, it is okay; we needed exactly this in size, and the price was a lot lower than competitors, making...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

In my opinion, one way Pure Storage FlashBlade can be improved is by having more compatibility between the FlashArray...

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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-...

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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...

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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 ...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 7% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 6% of the time

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IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 15% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 11% of the time

VxRail vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 11% of the time

IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 10% of the time

VMware vSAN vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 9% of the time

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Dell ObjectScale vs SwiftStack [EOL]

Compared 69% of the time

Peaxy vs SwiftStack [EOL]

Compared 31% of the time

More SwiftStack [EOL] Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

December 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize

December 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Virtualize product report

Buyer's Guide

SwiftStack [EOL]

December 2025

Download SwiftStack [EOL] 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

SwiftStack [EOL] offers robust cloud integration, rapid deployment, and hardware-agnostic capabilities, making it a preferred choice for organizations needing scalable and flexible storage solutions. It supports a variety of storage needs from object storage to enterprise-grade backup systems.

SwiftStack [EOL] is recognized for its seamless cloud integration and platform independence, enabling rapid deployment and superior scalability. Its metadata search, proxyFS, and 1space feature enhance versatility and backup efficiency. SwiftStack Controller provides an enhanced management experience with easy system upgrades and performance monitoring. While the management UI and ProxyFS maturity have room for improvement, users seek more organized interfaces and better REST API support. Enhancements in erasure coding configurations and data archiving, along with improved client library integrations, are highlighted needs. The demand for NFS integration improvements and options for data movement between storage policies is noted.

What are the key features of SwiftStack?

Rapid Deployment: Fast and efficient system setup.
Scalability: Easily adapts to growing storage needs.
Flexibility: Hardware-agnostic and platform independent.
Resiliency: Robust data protection mechanisms.
Cloud Integration: Seamlessly integrates with cloud services.
Metadata Search: Facilitates efficient data retrieval.
ProxyFS Capability: Offers versatile storage solutions.
1space Feature: Enhances backup efficiency.

What benefits and ROI should be expected in reviews?

Cost Efficiency: Reduces deployment and operational costs.
Performance: Fast data ingestion and access speed.
Enhanced Management: Simplifies system management with advanced tools.
Versatility: Supports diverse storage needs from backups to cloud services.

SwiftStack [EOL] is implemented in industries as a backup platform for Commvault and Veeam, cloud storage similar to Amazon S3 or Azure Blob. It's essential for SaaS platforms, data sharing in research, preproduction object storage, data center operations, and archival management for OpenStack Swift servers in educational and research institutions.

NVIDIA

Sample Customers

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

Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services

Pac-12 Networks, Georgia Institute of Technology, Budd Van Lines

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. SwiftStack [EOL]

September 2024

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. SwiftStack [EOL]

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