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IBM Storage Protect vs MSP360 Backup comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 22, 2026

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

IBM Storage Protect
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
21st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
MSP360 Backup
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
55th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (43rd), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (31st), MSP Backup (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM Storage Protect is 1.6%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MSP360 Backup is 1.1%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Storage Protect1.6%
MSP360 Backup1.1%
Other97.3%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2787573 - PeerSpot reviewer
Interim Head of Infrastructure at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Backup coverage has supported immutable protection and now needs a more modern, intuitive interface
IBM Storage Protect is from a previous generation of backup software. In those days, backup software was complex in setting up and complex to manage. The new software, such as Rubrik, is very easy to use and more relatable to younger engineers because its interface design is more similar to Office 365 and the newer controls and labels that we are accustomed to. The difficulty that we now have with IBM Storage Protect is that for this day and age, compared to other products that are out there, it seems complex. If we look back 15 years ago, all enterprise class backup software was complex, so IBM was not any different. However, many of these older systems, such as Commvault, still have the same complaint that they are very complex because they have tried to keep that same interface and the same way it works. This suits them, but it probably needed a complete overhaul to bring it into the ease of use that we have with modern software. However, that upgrade has not been done. IBM Storage Protect has not been upgraded into a modern platform. It still looks a legacy platform.
CONRAD FORREST - PeerSpot reviewer
President at MTS Consulting Group, Inc.
The solution provides the ability to backup all types of cloud drives, is inexpensive, and has decent support
MSP360 Backup provides the backup functionality, but we need to provide the storage component. We can use Azure, AWS, or another provider, but we need to choose the storage provider and create a bucket to store our data. The vendor is making changes to improve the functionality of the service and the separation of storage, but I would like to see more integration and a knowledge base of the tool. Currently trying to understand why the storage is separated and how to implement the storage properly is a challenge. Using the solution incurs additional charges for the device storage and backup which are not included in the service. Unlike other solutions such as Kohl which includes everything at one price. MSP360 Backup can be improved by adding inclusive pricing.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In the past, one of the most valuable features, and the biggest advantage, was the incremental forever feature. Not many other backup vendors provided that. In the pre-virtualization environment, it was very robust and simple technology, especially writing to tape."
"IBM Spectrum Protect has excellent integration capability."
"It integrates well with Spectrum Scale."
"Regarding technical support, if one has the entire enterprise support, I would rate it a nine out of ten...Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"Instead of taking three different backups of your systems, you're taking only one. You're able to crack that open and get what you need. The incident recovery, where it creates the VM and then you're running it, technically you're running it on Spectrum Protect. But then in the background, it's doing the storage motion and moving it off the Spectrum Protect back to your VMware environment. The users don't know the difference."
"The business value comes from the capability to overcome data losses."
"Go ahead because this solution is very good."
"The way it covers backup and archive needs. The flexibility of backup copy group always allows me to cover the customer's requests."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is its online backup capacity because you don't have to do an entire backup again and again, it just does whatever you type in, you type a, it goes a, you type b, it goes b. It doesn't take an entire site up again and again. So that incremental and bit by bit backup is important, it is a nice feature here."
"I would recommend the solution; it's a very trustworthy solution."
"Technical support is very good."
"The best feature is that it's very user-friendly to do scheduled backups and version maintenance."
"The most valuable feature for me is that I can see what has has been successfully backed up and what not. I do not mean the file or folder view, because that's problematic with GDPR, but I mean which machines have successfully backed up. It's very valuable because you don't have to check the machines. The second feature is that you can change backup settings in the portal."
"MSP360 Backup's most valuable feature is its backup interface."
"The solution is simple to use and easy to configure."
"The most valuable feature of MSP360 Backup is its reliability."
 

Cons

"The solution is expensive."
"I would not recommend Spectrum Protect at this point."
"We have run into some periods where we have found some tape issues which were causing us problems, but we resolved them. For some reason, we had a bunch of drives go offline on our disk storage (our virtual library)."
"The main admin console from the UI cannot do anything in the product. It just allows us to maintain, maybe, 30% to 40%. For the rest, we have to use the command line."
"Its management part can be better and simplified. It is kind of a beast as compared to Commvault or Veeam, but they are more user-friendly. They are also easier to learn, whereas Spectrum Protect definitely takes time. They should simplify it. Our teams are pretty comfortable with it because we have been using it for a long time, but from the perspective of a new user who is evaluating or using this solution, it is definitely more complex in terms of manageability. Its monitoring could be improved so that it can even monitor the jobs that are scheduled by external schedulers. There are situations where a database team might decide to use their own schedulers, but currently, Spectrum Protect is not able to catch those jobs in the Operation Manager console."
"Easier configuration of some of the products, e.g., VE comes to mind."
"They took some of the funding off of it for a while. Therefore, instead of being a market leader, they took their position for granted. Then some competitors developed new bells and whistles that they advertise, and due to that lag a few years ago, there are not the resources to explain the differences."
"I need to have more than two instances working together. I need a worldwide grid able to have replication between three, four, or five instances."
"The product could be more user-friendly."
"The solution's pricing is very high."
"The restore time could improve. When we had an issue the restore time was lengthy."
"We could basically use just a more concise visual dashboard reporting on the status of the various machines."
"Maybe implement an easier interface for basic users. For example, a set-up wizard with all the commonly used features as default."
"As for what can be improved, some reports could be simplified so that you know how much backup you have done and what your backup details are. That report is available but it is very tough to get. I would like to know "today I have just uploaded 35 MB, tomorrow I have loaded 10 MB so my trend of backup is increasing.""
"The graphics are looking a bit old and should be updated."
"The interface could use some updating."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have been at our size for a few years. We are not really looking to battle the licensing costs, as this is our primary system."
"The licensing is varied. If we have small environments (not many TB being managed) it is best to license by PVUs (depending on the number of cores of the machine). If we manage many TBs we look at licensing by capacity which allows us to use all the agents of the product."
"IBM Spectrum Protect, cost-wise, has way higher pricing than Veeam. By switching over to Veeam, my company saved over $600,000 in USD. The IBM Spectrum Protect pricing is a two on a scale of one to ten. My company paid additional fees for maintenance, apart from the standard licensing fees."
"Its licensing is complicated. It goes by CPUs, and it is pretty expensive as well."
"Technical support is pretty good. It is doing fine, but you pay for it."
"It is very scalable, but the downside is that it costs money."
"It can be perceived as expensive since it is designed for enterprise use."
"The solution's pricing is fair. Price-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"I rate the price of MSP360 Backup a seven out of ten."
"The solution is expensive."
"We have a very good return on investment."
"The cost is pretty inexpensive. Around four to five dollars per device, per workstation on each server."
"It includes a standard licensing fee. Once a year, there is a rebranding fee. The licensing costs are available on the internet for MSP360 Backup. There is a discount structure where if you have over 50 devices, you get a 50% discount. So, my cost is $2 a license per month."
"MSP360 is vastly cheaper than its competitors and has almost all the same features."
"Pricing is reasonable although can be quite a large upfront cost."
"It provides a good cost savings compared to our previous cloud backup."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise95
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Storage Protect?
I do not know the current licensing cost for IBM Storage Protect and how we get our support because our licensing model is not quite standard. We do not buy IBM Storage Protect direct from IBM. We ...
What needs improvement with IBM Storage Protect?
IBM Storage Protect is from a previous generation of backup software. In those days, backup software was complex in setting up and complex to manage. The new software, such as Rubrik, is very easy ...
What is your primary use case for IBM Storage Protect?
IBM Storage Protect is my primary tool for backup and recovery. We also use it for immutable backups to protect against ransomware. We use IBM Storage Protect for everything on-premises. The benefi...
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Also Known As

IBM Spectrum Discover
Cloudberry Backup
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CEMEX
StratX
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Storage Protect vs. MSP360 Backup and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,948 professionals have used our research since 2012.