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Arcserve UDP vs IBM Spectrum Protect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

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

Arcserve UDP
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
19th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (10th)
IBM Spectrum Protect
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
149
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Arcserve UDP is 1.2%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect is 2.2%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

MukundKambli - PeerSpot reviewer
Global deduplication, stable, and flexible licensing options
I give the solution ten out of ten. This solution offers one dashboard to manage the BC con, disaster recovery plan, DR solution, and backup as well as different licensing options, unlike other OEM products. We are the system integrators for our clients, so we design the solution as per the customer's requirements. We provide several solutions options to our clients such as Druva inSync, Druva Phoenix, and Arcserve UDP with the specifications and the client makes a decision based on their requirements. I would advise potential users to first be clear on whether they are going to use it as a backup solution for compliance purposes, just wanting to take the backups of files and servers, or for instant recovery. The IQ and RPO discussion with our customers usually takes 30 minutes. I recommend this solution.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of this solution are that I can by just one click, copy and paste anything that I would want. I do not have to restore the whole virtual machine."
"Global deduplication is the best feature of this solution."
"The ease of use is the best feature of the product."
"Our customers are happy with the product’s functionality."
"The ability to switch between different hardware platforms and utilization tools are some of this solution's most valuable features."
"One of the things that I do like about it is that it has a very good deduplication feature."
"I would recommend it if there is a general case."
"This product is extremely user-friendly and it is capable of performing large-scale archive/backup (five+ years worth). It is easy to store, maintain, and check backups."
"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."
"The most valuable features are the stability and also how it's seamlessly integrated with other IBM offerings."
"It helps our customers protect their data, especially with stuff like ransomware, compliance, and regulatory requirements."
"IBM Spectrum Protect offers stable software and products."
"High availability (HA): It is one of the best features."
"With data deduplication and compression, we are reducing our overall storage footprint for our disk histories. Therefore, we are reducing the actual cost of the disk for our data protection and data backups."
"Enterprise-wide type of architecture supports a lot of different platforms."
"It is pretty easy to use and maintain."
 

Cons

"In the most recent version of premium plus the replication has been removed, and it should re-added to the solution."
"The solution could improve by being more user-friendly. It can be difficult to assign destinations and choose which files and folders we need to back up. There are some aspects that are unclear."
"The only problem with the solution is that when I change the drive capacity, it has to do a full backup. It's a problem when I have five servers to backup. When I only want to change the size of the drive, I have to do a full backup that can take one week."
"They could work on their marketing approach. I don't see many people leveraging it."
"It takes much time to verify and consolidate images for backups."
"We cannot restore each user's mailbox. Each user's mailbox should be independently restorable. Also, this solution is very slow. If you select all of the servers, it runs for a long time... It needs to be faster. Finally, If anything happens to one server we should be able to switch to another server."
"We have to use a Microsoft hypervisor for installation which is expensive."
"One area for improvement in Arcserve UDP is its capability to interact with other cloud servers."
"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."
"In the next version of the solution, I would like to see cloud support."
"Ease of use. That has got to be the one thing that I routinely hear from clients and customers, that it's a little bit more difficult than it should be. What I'm finding is that IBM has heard that and they're responding with updated interfaces and things like that."
"It needs some software upgrades to fix some of its current bugs."
"IBM Spectrum Protect is not a very user-friendly tool."
"The administration interface should implement more functionalities that exist only in the command line and needs improvement in how some reports are created."
"They can include more cloud-enriching features. I would like IBM Spectrum Protect to have the functionality for backing up a VM directly in Azure. I would like to be able to back up a VM directly in Azure without spinning up a Hyper-V cluster and backing up the virtual server."
"Scalability is poor. As you get to bigger environments, this is where our gaps have been introduced. As we have grown over the past couple of years, the gaps have become more apparent."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I feel that the product is fairly priced."
"The solution is not very expensive, but it is not cheap."
"There are annual subscription fees and there are licensing costs for three computers. It is an expensive solution."
"The price of StorageCraft ShadowProtect is competitive in the market."
"It is approximately $400 to purchase a virtual service outright."
"As an MSP partner, I believe that the prices are fair."
"Its price seems reasonable. Its price is average as compared to the other products I've looked at. We have a three-year license right now. There are no other costs beyond the standard licensing fee."
"There is an annual license required for this solution and it is priced well."
"That's a hard estimate. It depends on the licensing, the hardware, and other stuff, but it is fairly expensive. It is generally more expensive than other solutions."
"We pay for a terabyte license to support our backend usage."
"IBM provides an open license policy, which is more like a gentlemen's agreement."
"The pricing is a little expensive for our current employer, so they want to move to a cheaper solution."
"We have spec'd out our build, and the cost of it can work quite easily today for our future needs."
"Licensing can be either complicated or simple depending on what type of licensing you wish to use and what works best for your environment."
"We chose IBM Spectrum Protect, because they actually have something called MSP pricing, which means managed services provider pricing. The pricing was attractive, and it seems to be a platform that IBM is totally investing on in terms of new functions and new capabilities."
"Use capacity licensing. It's easier and cheaper."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Non Profit
10%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Major Differences Between These 4 Backup and Disaster Recovery Solutions?
Comparing the features of the four is not the right approach. You need to develop a list of requirements for backup and DR that are specific to your organization and then compare each of the four ...
What do you like most about StorageCraft ShadowProtect?
The interface is very refined, works fine, and is very intuitive most of the time. Scalability is nice. The multi-tenancy feature is very welcome. The integration with Linux works fine too.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StorageCraft ShadowProtect?
Pricing for SPX MRP/MSP is under $400 per server (Single VM) with a 1-year subscription. After discounts, it could decrease by 20%-30%, and opting for a 3/5/10 server pack may offer even better (lo...
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect?
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 dash...
 

Also Known As

StorageCraft ShadowProtect, StorageCraft Backup Analyzer
IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ITPS, North Hertfordshire Homes, SEMIKRON, Kajaani University of Applied Sciences, Test Valley Borough Council, EK Services
CERN, Einstein Healthcare, Nyherji, Allianz Australia, TZM, ABT Online, NCT, Kindred Healthcare Inc., Cobalt Iron, TransGrid, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Cash America, Piedmont Healthcare, RWGV, Arkansas Tech University, British Columbia Institute of Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about Arcserve UDP vs. IBM Spectrum Protect and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,989 professionals have used our research since 2012.