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IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs VMware vSAN comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
218
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
IBM Spectrum Virtualize
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (13th)
VMware vSAN
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
234
Ranking in other categories
HCI (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Software Defined Storage (SDS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Spectrum Virtualize2.7%
Red Hat Ceph Storage10.9%
DataCore SANsymphony6.5%
Other79.9%
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware vSAN8.9%
VxRail10.6%
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.2%
Other71.3%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
AS
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.
ShyamikaThamel - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Tech Specialists at Seatrium
Managing mixed RAID workloads has improved data protection and delivers strong performance
VMware vSAN can be improved in certain areas. In cases involving our large data stores with large VMs, we experience some latency, not during normal operation, but during database backup operations. We observed latency due to buffer issues from the top-of-the-rack switches. These issues are mostly network-related because all storage data traffic travels through the network. I have recently used Nutanix, and I observed that Nutanix provides better performance than VMware vSAN due to its data locality features. VMware vSAN is now providing data locality, but we did not use that option. If VMware vSAN provides additional features in the next release, such as the VM balancing feature called DRS on the cluster that VMware previously had, it would be beneficial. With DRS, VMs can move easily from one node to another within the same cluster. Nutanix does not provide that flexibility. When placing a VM on a cluster in Nutanix, the placement uses a balancing component. After that, the VM remains on the same host. If any contention occurs on the CPU or memory side, the VM stays in place until contention happens. If issues occur, the VM migrates to another host while transferring all objects to the same host. This is how their data locality is maintained. When a VM moves to any host, it moves with all VM objects. VMware vSAN does not currently offer this option. If a VM moves to another host, it accesses the disk object through the network, which increases latency. VMware vSAN now offers an option to select data locality, but it does not function like Nutanix. This is why some latency remains. If VMware vSAN can improve this feature, it would be very helpful and VMware would regain its top position.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is easy to deploy and it's all-flash, so it's very fast."
"Because of the encryption, we have different storage and the encryption can go over both."
"It gives us capacity planning."
"The speed is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"The biggest lesson that I have learned from using Pure FlashArray is that it's user-friendly, easy to manage, and very flexible."
"It reduces space and the polar consumption. It also accelerates the application."
"This solution has helped my organization by cutting down on provisioning time. I used to have to provision a VM and it would take ten minutes. Now, it takes thirty seconds."
"We were previously on legacy storage systems, and after moving to Pure Storage, our stability and performance both drastically improved."
"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."
"We can failover easily, because a lot of our data is replicated from family to the second replication."
"The most valuable feature is its reliability."
"Our disaster recovery plan tests are always successful, which is good."
"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."
"We look for reliability of the product itself."
"In my opinion, the quick restore, the low latency, and the ease of use are some of the most valuable features."
"I like that it can virtualize more than three hundred storage providers."
"The most valuable features are its performance, simplicity, and synchronicity with vSphere."
"I have found that the multi-homing feature is very valuable in VMware vSAN. It is an easy-to-use solution."
"Simplified datacenter failover in the VMware environment is the most valuable feature of this product."
"I like this solution because policies (such as resiliency) are applied per virtual disk instead of applied on an entire volume."
"The most valuable features of VSAN are consistent and increased performance with a linear cost which helped us in our data center."
"The implementation is simple, it was very straightforward. It took us approximately three weeks because it was installed in four locations."
"It is a good solution for customers that are looking for performance, storage efficiency, and scalability."
"As long as you don't have a very high IOPS-oriented application, it's a great way to go."
 

Cons

"Part of our company works on Dell EMC because Pure Storage did not have synchronous applications when we were purchasing our products."
"Going forward, don't complicate things for the customers."
"The price of Pure Storage FlashArray could be better."
"If I need to change or troubleshoot the dashboard, I cannot do it without calling support. If I want to move something critical, I cannot do it by myself. The dashboard blocks me from changing those critical things."
"The backend of this solution utilizes an Active/Passive architecture, rather than an Active/Active architecture, which is a disadvantage, when compared to some of its competitors. Its storage capacity should be expanded in the next release."
"It would be beneficial to have a separate pricing point for environments with lower performance requirements or less workload."
"I would rate this solution an eight because we have had outages. The commit times went very high in the database, the whole array went down, so our customers were down for around eight hours."
"The solution needs an integrated NAS platform, file platform."
"There are some caveats with scalability, such as volume count. We are highly limited by volume count at this point in time."
"The disk reliability is not that good."
"The product should have better management capabilities."
"The feature that's kind of missing is getting us up to the point where we can help the application owners see where their data is at, understand it, and potentially help us breakout."
"There are a few little GUI issues and stuff like that, but nothing major."
"Tighter integration with cloud storage might be useful as a target for a variety of use cases."
"The case logging process is efficient, but resolving software problems takes too much time."
"They are actually working on one bug we found, which was with flash restore."
"Because of virtual storage, the system reaches reserve storage for its functions. It also consumes a certain amount of storage, which then results in the creation of a fault tolerance for the system."
"There is room for improvement in vSAN's ability to debug. When it's not working well, debugging becomes quite challenging. Identifying issues when it's lagging or not functioning properly can be difficult."
"This product is very expensive."
"I would love to see vSAN integrate Persistent Memory and NVDIMMs. I know they're supposed to be working on an elastic tier so that we don't have the issues with destaging from the cache to the capacity. Those are the things that I'm interested in."
"Better options would be clustered nodes, or even cloud configuration. There is room for improvement in cloud configuration, we typically do web browsing for management."
"I would like to be able to limit IOPS."
"Troubleshooting tools could be improved."
"I would like compression and deduplication to be offered for offloading hardware, instead of doing it with software."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"FlashArray is expensive, but the quality justifies the price."
"The cost was initially high, but once more people were using it, the costs came down. This was because the University was reselling it to other departments."
"It's a good price point and it's a solid product for the price."
"For pricing, you have to take into account their performance on deduplication and compression in a $/GB comparison."
"The price-to-performance is good. I looked at Pure about three to four years back, but the price-to-performance wasn't right for us. Now, it's right."
"The price was slightly higher than others, but competitive, if you consider all the other features that you get from it."
"It is a cheaper solution."
"We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO)."
"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."
"I think it is a good value for the price."
"It has a lot of advanced functions for a reasonable 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."
"We would like the CPU cycle to save more on the licensing costs for us."
"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."
"The product’s pricing is a bit higher than other solutions."
"The first 1-2 years of purchasing vSAN will be expensive. Thereafter, the longer you are running it, the more cost savings you will have."
"It is not a subscription model. It is a purchase model, but it is very important that you also buy technical support from VMware. This is probably the only disadvantage of vSAN. It depends on the use case, but it can be very expensive."
"Cost-wise, the Nutanix licenses were cheaper, but in terms of the hardware, there was some contention around it. So, in terms of implementation, the way Nutanix was projecting the implementation on their end was that there were a lot of open-source admin platforms. vSAN is a licensed product in VMware, and Nutanix was proposing a KVM solution, which is open source. That's why their pricing was a bit cheaper, but when we were trying to compare it with an enterprise version of their management platform, it boiled down to the VMware vSAN being most effective in the long run."
"This solution requires the purchase of a license."
"Perhaps a bundle, like Essentials, would allow more businesses to make the leap to the product."
"It is expensive. It should be cheaper. It has a perpetual license as well as a subscription-based license, but they are moving towards subscription-based licenses."
"It is not that expensive, and it is not even cheap. If it is designed in a proper way, it has good pricing, but if you do oversizing, the price will be high. There are different licensing models."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Performing Arts
14%
Marketing Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business66
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise152
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise31
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business101
Midsize Enterprise58
Large Enterprise135
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...
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 Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?
While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an e...
How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?
HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We resea...
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...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
No data available
vSAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services
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Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.