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IBM Storage Protect vs Quest Rapid Recovery [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 2025

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
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (13th)
Quest Rapid Recovery [EOL]
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Syed Habib - PeerSpot reviewer
Manageable and comprehensive and integrates robust backup features for core banking
It's adequate for my core banking, however, I am looking for another solution for all systems. It is not compatible with other operating systems like Windows or Linux, and lacks a consolidated dashboard from Browser Spectrum. This is why I am searching for another solution. The product also lacks any centralized graphical user interface (GUI), such as Jarek Pod, and I am limited to using a console-based text user interface, which my local partner handles completely.
Adam Augustín - PeerSpot reviewer
Granular recovery, replication is good and offers good speed
It is for any kind of company that uses their own servers. From a global perspective, our clients are small-sized companies. All the SMEs, compared to the Slovakian market, are quite small. It's a small market with small companies. They just want to enhance security and follow regulations It's…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a really scalable solution. We can scale it up. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"Space efficient data reduction, using progressive incremental forever in combination with deduplication and compression."
"It is also a product that has been maturing for a long time. This is good because customers need reliability in their enterprise initiatives."
"IBM Spectrum Protect offers stable software and products."
"I find the whole product useful. The backup archive client, snapshot, spectrum for virtual environments are beneficial features."
"We work very closely together with IBM using their Support Center, but we have a strong contact in their development teams, and we have dedicated people from IBM working with us."
"Spectrum Protect's best feature is that I can use it practically anywhere, on any platform, and for any servers or clients."
"You can protect your data and keep it for long durations, without it spending too much time on the local disk."
"The compression and deduplication features have helped to save on storage costs."
"It is very easy to use and very easy to manage. The fact that I can easily recover data is valuable. I don't use it much. The only way I have been using it is that sometimes, people ask to recover the data, which is a very easy process. It takes only a few minutes to get in and get the data from the server."
"The general backup for replication and virtual standby are the most valuable aspects. It does what it says it does. It's a decent tool for not a big budget."
"The best feature of the solution is the user interface."
"Probably the point-in-time recovery is most valuable. The other piece that is really nice is that you can mount a whole server at any point in time. So, you can mount the server with all the drives to a Z drive or something like that. It will just mount it all up, and your data is accessible right there on one drive, which is nice."
"The most valuable feature is the disaster recovery process from the data center."
"Definitely, the mount and recovery points are the most valuable, because if someone deletes a file or something, or if something gets corrupted, we can always revert back to an old change because our repository goes about a month back. The ability to roll back files and the ability to roll back servers is really important."
"Not having to switch tapes is wonderful. It makes it so easy. We have an on-prem deployment that we also replicate to an offsite replication host. So by not having to deal with tapes and moving them off-site every day and every week, that's amazing ease of use for us."
 

Cons

"Generally, the implementation of virtualization could be improved. The workflow service and so on are not working properly."
"It can be improved for large file systems with many files. Spectrum Protect can restore large files very well, but if you're restoring millions of little files, it is not as great. At one point, we tried to implement the VMware module with it, and it was awful and terrible. I don't know if that has improved. If it hasn't, this would be one big improvement."
"The Hyper-V and SQL Server backup could be improved. In the 2016 version there was a significant improvement, but I think IBM has a big challenge with these technologies."
"IBM Spectrum Protect could be improved by making the installation easier. Once it's implemented, it's okay. IBM started lagging behind when things started moving to storage and cloud-based solutions. Even though they've recently released updates that give cloud-based protection, personally, I still believe they are not up to par with the likes of Rubrik. The entire product is a little bit clumsy because they have co-joined two different products, so it's complex. Even from a sales/explaining to people what it does point of view, it's complex. Whereas, if you take more current products, it's a single box solution. You reel it in, you fire it up, you do a couple of points and clicks, and off you go, whereas the IBM system is seriously complex. There's a lot of training involved and it's a massively difficult product to sell at this point in time."
"It needs BMR (bare machine recovery) solutions for both Windows and Linux systems."
"I would like to see integration with Copy Data Management, which is an IBM product. Right now, these two products are siloed, so if these two become integrated, the product would become a bit of a powerhouse."
"I would like to see the operations center be a lot more functional. It was nowhere near as functional as the admin center, and I'm doing a lot of command line with it."
"Some features are outdated as the product does not use the latest technologies. The graphical user interface, known as the operation center, is not very well designed. Additionally, IBM Storage Protect does not work well with virtual environments such as VMware and Hyper-V."
"When you do a full backup, all of the memory resources on the server are used, which is something that should be improved."
"For the most part, it is really good in terms of flexibility and choice of recovery methods. What we found lacking was being able to back up virtual volumes that are clustered. We ran out of luck there. There should be an option for backing up clustered virtual volumes."
"Sometimes, when we have certain batches for Windows, it needs to be restarted. When it's restarted, the service is configured as a delayed start. Sometimes, you need to wait too long until it rights itself, or you have to do it manually."
"I don't really think that there is a whole lot that needs to be changed. It would be nice if you could deploy the agent without having to reboot. When I upgraded my core to the latest version, I also wanted to update all of my servers, but I had to put that off because I can't just shoot it out there. I have to make sure it is at a time when I can do a reboot right away."
"There could be better space management for incremental data. When you use incremental data, the space in the appliance keeps on going up. There should be a better way to manage the space. You have to manage the incremental data to reduce the time."
"The initial setup can be tricky, and if not done right, the whole solution needs to be reinstalled."
"There is room for improvement in customer service and support. I would like to see faster response time."
"In case, if there is anything, it would be the speed of the operation to be finished. Even then, I can easily work on the storing function before the operation is finished."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its licensing is complex, and its price is not really reasonable. It is on the expensive side. IBM, in general, is slightly expensive, but with IBM Spectrum for the virtual environment, they are looking into the aspect of helping customers with the cost and providing a cost-effective solution."
"The solution is not cheap."
"When compared to the cost of other enterprise products, it seems to be in the same range. However, compared to the cost of non-enterprise products, it is really high."
"Use capacity licensing. It's easier and cheaper."
"Some of the new advanced features are definitely more into cost savings, e.g., dedupe compression, so doing more with less."
"We pay for a terabyte license to support our backend usage."
"It is really expensive. Its price is not good for Latin America. Its price is good for the United States or Europe."
"It is expensive."
"I don't think the licensing for the product is very expensive."
"I believe the basic license comes with six terabytes, whereas a lot of the other ones are four terabytes. From the price point, it seemed a lot better than the comparative models, such as Datto, Barracuda, and some of the others. I believe Barracuda was about $15,000 for four terabytes, and Quest was around $12,000 for six terabytes. Pricing is based on the period. There is just the maintenance fee that you have to pay annually, or you can pay for a three-year or four-year contract. This includes Premier Support."
"Licensing fees are based on the amount of data that you want to store, which is related to how many customers you want to cover."
"The pricing is on the higher end."
"It's very expensive which is why I want to drop it. They charge us per core and we have a six-core server. It's expensive to pay for maintenance charges. I want to switch to something cheaper."
"I'm not aware of the exact cost of Quest Rapid Recovery because I'm from the technical team, but in general, the solution is quite competitive cost-wise."
"It is a little expensive. However, I haven't compared it to other solutions. Being a nonprofit, it is always good to have nonprofit discounts on products."
"When I purchased the change to the license, it was $1,600. I think that was for changing the license. I don't believe that I had to purchase technical support in a while, so I must've bought maybe for five years, but I don't feel there was a huge cost involved in technical support. Its cost was definitely worth it because we've had a fantastic experience with them."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Performing Arts
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Non Profit
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise94
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Storage Protect?
The best point about IBM Storage Protect is that it can use IBM tape environments, which we still use and will continue to use in the future.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Storage Protect?
IBM Storage Protect is generally an expensive tool. However, with good contracts with IBM or its partners, the cost might not be so high. New customers can expect very high prices.
What needs improvement with IBM Storage Protect?
One point for improvement for IBM Spectrum Protect is security, as IBM has not been investing as much as in the past. There is a need for additional layers of security to fill the gaps, which is wh...
What do you like most about Quest Rapid Recovery?
The most valuable feature of Quest Rapid Recovery for our organization is the VM recovery functionality.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Quest Rapid Recovery?
Dell solutions are approximately 30% to 35% more expensive than Veeam.
 

Also Known As

IBM Spectrum Discover
Dell AppAssure
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CEMEX
PRIME aerostructures GmbH, Tamworth Regional Council, Rhondda Housing Association, Stadtwerke Pforzheim GmbH & Co., Guangdong Aiyingdao Childrens Department Store, Nspyre, Tarrant Technology Partners, CloudRunner
Find out what your peers are saying about Veeam Software, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Commvault and others in Backup and Recovery. Updated: August 2025.
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