Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM Storage Protect vs Synology DSM 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
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Synology DSM
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
14th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM Storage Protect is 2.2%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Synology DSM is 1.7%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Storage Protect2.2%
Synology DSM1.7%
Other96.1%
Backup and Recovery
 

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.
Michael Adejoh - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable and cost-effective
One area where Synology DSM could improve is in enhancing its ability to detect and respond to security threats during backups and replication. Currently, it lacks the capability to automatically stop backups if it detects a virus or suspicious network activity, as some third-party solutions can. Having AI-driven analytics to identify anomalies and halt backups during potential attacks, along with notifications to administrators, would be valuable. Additionally, providing a dashboard for monitoring the backup environment's security would be a beneficial feature. These improvements would help address security concerns and make Synology more competitive in this aspect.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"IBM Spectrum Protect is a scalable solution."
"The software-defined ability to do data reduction through deduplication and compression, as well as being able to replicate data to a cloud container."
"Performance and recoveries are better. Our clients and customers are happier with the performance of it."
"SPIR is Instant Recovery for Spectrum Protect. It sends snapshots using space efficiently and blocking backups to the Spectrum Protect server. It provisions the snapshot from the backup server to the same or new server near instantly."
"Replication processes with container storage pools allow reduction of storage space and network bandwidth, using deduplication and compression."
"With Spectrum Protect, you can use any type of disk to back-end the repositories. It gave us flexibility to use whatever storage we wanted at our secondary site."
"The product helps us do data protection and restoration for disaster recovery (DR)."
"Nothing beats this solution for file backup."
"The most valuable aspect is its ability to handle multiple disks."
"It offers a variety of software options through its package center, allowing users to customize their NAS device to serve multiple purposes."
"The most valuable features are the basic storage, file management, Btrfs file system, and built-in backups that come with the solution."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it serves as a backup for our company's virtual machine."
"Synology DSM is very easy to work and operate."
"The most valuable features of Synology DSM are its security and connectivity."
"The solution's most valuable feature stems from its ease of use, making it the tool's most interesting part."
"The product performs well. It is easy to use and implement."
 

Cons

"They should have a proper technical support team serving the customers and get issues resolved earlier."
"It seems like they are a little behind on the integration to Azure Cloud as well as Amazon."
"It is not easy to manage like other products in the market. It is okay only if you are command-line driven. Even though the operation center is there, it doesn't provide a single view of everything. You have to, for example, use TSMManager on top of it, which gives you a far better management capability, but it is a third-party product. Its management needs to be improved. There should be an HTML or graphical interface. It is a very difficult product. For example, you have a backup policy where you want a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly policy standard. It is an old kind of system where you have to keep retention for daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly backups, which is very difficult in IBM Spectrum Protect. In other products, in a matter of five minutes, you can configure such a policy. In TSM, it takes you one, two, or three days because you need to configure a node for each of them. If you have 250 nodes, you have to configure each node for daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly retention. If you have 1,000 nodes, it is going to take you ages just to configure and register the nodes. You need to configure the schedule and the CAD daemons or services, depending on whether it is a Unix or Windows OS. Unfortunately, it is a very long and drawn-out process. You have to stop and start the services for changes to take effect. This is a very difficult part of TSM in IBM Spectrum Protect. To configure a backup policy, I should be able to select the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly options in one screen and finish it. After that, everything should happen in the background. All the backup products in the market already do that, and they are very simple to manage. This particular part of this solution has really been a major pain area for us, and unfortunately, we could not find a workaround. There is nobody at IBM who can give us a way to configure all this easily through a GUI or even scripts."
"I am not really impressed with the Level 1 support, but once I get past that and go to Level 2, then we will usually get some type of resolution."
"If IBM could provide a partial module, that would be great."
"The user interface (UI) for the admin is still not good. It is way too complicated to manage the product, as we still need to use command line. IBM launched the Operations Center (OC), but there are still functions lacking, especially since we cannot manage all our scheduled tasks by using the GUI."
"Customers have migrated off of it because of its lack of virtual environment functions."
"I want to see better compression than what it currently does."
"Synology DSM is a good enough solution for small and medium companies, but I have not seen a big configuration of the solution for a big organization."
"The only bothersome aspect is that the device is aging."
"Users may lose their data if they don't configure the solution properly."
"Synology DSM's user interface is not quite intuitive."
"The product's only shortcoming is pricing, as it is an expensive solution."
"One area where Synology DSM could improve is in enhancing its ability to detect and respond to security threats during backups and replication."
"There's a surveillance application that allows you to connect IP cameras and stream footage to Synology and it is a great feature, but it's not always clear that adding more cameras may require purchasing additional licenses."
"Even though Synology provides a backup solution, it does not recognize the VM movement across cluster hosts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have capacity licensing. We use the front end. The capacity licensing is pretty okay on the licensing price. I used to use the old PVU-based licensing in the early environment, but now we use capacity-based licensing."
"I rate the pricing a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is not cost-effective, and ten is cost-effective."
"Spectrum Protect is not a cheap option."
"At scale, the consumption license (per TB) is very expensive."
"Customers need to pay for licensing in order to use IBM Spectrum Protect. The customers that have been using it for a long time are okay and happy with it. From a cost point of view, it's better for them to renew their licenses than to go through the difficult process of changing a backup product in their environment, and migrate from one product to another."
"IBM provides an open license policy, which is more like a gentlemen's agreement."
"The pricing of the solution is high in comparison to other products on the market. For example, IBM and Symantec have less costly options."
"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."
"Synology DSM is a free tool."
"It is quite an affordable solution."
"Synology DSM is a cheap solution."
"The pricing varies widely, catering to a broad range of needs."
"The price of the solution is very good."
"The licensing part of the solution is free. The hardware is more expensive than the other solutions in the market, but it's okay in the long run."
"The solution’s pricing is neither cheap nor expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Backup and Recovery solutions are best for your needs.
866,956 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

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 Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise1
 

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 Synology DSM?
The most valuable features of Synology DSM are its security and connectivity.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Synology DSM?
The solution’s pricing is neither cheap nor expensive.
What needs improvement with Synology DSM?
Users may lose their data if they don't configure the solution properly.
 

Also Known As

IBM Spectrum Discover
Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM)
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CEMEX
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Storage Protect vs. Synology DSM and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
866,956 professionals have used our research since 2012.