No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

CA Allocate DASD Space and Placement vs IBM Storage Protect 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

CA Allocate DASD Space and ...
Average Rating
6.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Storage Management (10th)
IBM Storage Protect
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

CA Allocate DASD Space and Placement and IBM Storage Protect aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. CA Allocate DASD Space and Placement is designed for Storage Management and holds a mindshare of 3.3%, down 3.5% compared to last year.
IBM Storage Protect, on the other hand, focuses on Backup and Recovery, holds 1.6% mindshare, down 2.4% since last year.
Storage Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CA Allocate DASD Space and Placement3.3%
NetApp OnCommand Insight7.9%
SolarWinds Storage Resource Monitor6.9%
Other81.9%
Storage Management
Backup and Recovery Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Storage Protect1.6%
Veeam Data Platform5.8%
Commvault Cloud3.4%
Other89.2%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

it_user354057 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mainframe Storage Manager at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It's a space recovery product that helps us fix problems before they happen so we work on them after running a job, but I don't want to have to touch a file to make changes or updates.
One of the biggest benefits of CA Allocate is in the cost. We initially went with BMC MainView, which is a great product and a little more user friendly than CA Allocate. But because of our good relationship with CA, we were able to mimic everything we had with BMC. Any issues we had doing that, CA collected them right away to help us. As a space recovery product, CA Allocate helps us fix problems before they happen and then we work on them after we run a job. If somebody does not put the right space parameter, we let the job run and then we fix it after. If somebody does not optimize a data set, we run our reports after talking to these people without ever having an event waste CPU cycles.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"As a space recovery product, CA Allocate helps us fix problems before they happen and then we work on them after we run a job."
"It is extremely scalable, which is why we like it, because a lot of other products require a more complicated deployment as the environments get bigger, whereas Spectrum Protect keeps things rather simple since, as long as we build the core system, it can scale with the hardware and massively with our Power Systems servers, helping us keep our costs low while still meeting our customers' growth requirements."
"Scalability, it lets your company grow without losing confidence."
"In general, the solution is quite user-friendly. The GUI is very nice."
"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."
"I believe the user interface is a good feature, and the personnel who work with the product on a daily basis seem to be satisfied with what's possible."
"It has a lot more capabilities and functions than a lot of other products. Even though it is more complex, the reason is because it gives you a lot more features. This is what I prefer, especially for a long retention."
"Once setup, you do not need to touch it again. You just need to do a formal check on possibly batch updates."
"Setup has always been straightforward."
 

Cons

"Allocate is a good product, but it's not there yet in terms of that."
"The solution's ability to integrate with a cloud solution is one area that needs improvement."
"It has a lot of areas for improvement. Its reporting for job completion or incompletion can be improved. It should also provide a granular recovery, ease of operation, data life cycle management, and media management. It should support a backup in such a format that in case of a disaster, one can start the virtual machine out of the backup itself. Its reliability can also be better. It is also expensive, and their support is also poor."
"Needs more support for non-mainstream databases, in particular PostgreSQL, SQL, and MySQL."
"High availability (HA) is a challenge, but we do deploy it in certain situations."
"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."
"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."
"The software is complex; setup is complex."
"I would like to see a way to have "always on" implemented."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"At scale, the consumption license (per TB) is very expensive."
"We worked our licensing into a capacity model, which is nice. Now, everything is much simpler to manage from a licensing perspective."
"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."
"License-wise regarding IBM, it's licensed per terabyte. And that is after compression and deduplication."
"One can go with either a PVU licensing model or a capacity based licensing model. Either solution does not block the usage, if over used."
"Spectrum Protect is not expensive, and it is simple to use."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Storage Management solutions are best for your needs.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
19%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise95
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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...
 

Also Known As

BrightStor DASD Space and Placement
IBM Spectrum Discover
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tieto
CEMEX
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp, Dell Technologies, IBM and others in Storage Management. Updated: May 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.