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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 (13th)
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 3.4%, up 3.1% compared to last year.
IBM Storage Protect, on the other hand, focuses on Backup and Recovery, holds 1.6% mindshare, down 2.3% since last year.
Storage Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CA Allocate DASD Space and Placement3.4%
NetApp OnCommand Insight8.4%
SolarWinds Storage Resource Monitor7.2%
Other81.0%
Storage Management
Backup and Recovery Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Storage Protect1.6%
Veeam Data Platform5.6%
Commvault Cloud3.3%
Other89.5%
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's a good product, simple to use, simple to configure, and we get very good technical support."
"It is very stable after deployment and will perform in a steady state."
"It is a very good and mature enterprise product."
"Data archiving is easier and less time-consuming."
"The solution is robust and problem-free."
"IBM Spectrum Protect is the best of them."
"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."
"It is also a product that has been maturing for a long time. This is good because customers need reliability in their enterprise initiatives."
 

Cons

"Allocate is a good product, but it's not there yet in terms of that."
"Getting technical support all the necessary diagnostic information is still very painful."
"They should have a proper technical support team serving the customers and get issues resolved earlier."
"We need better protection from ransomware or the ability to identify ways we can protect ourselves from ransomware. Having backups is one thing, but specifically, we need methods to recover if we have a ransomware attack."
"I want to see better compression than what it currently does."
"We have had some problems about using storage agents on the X6 environment. It is not quite stable, but it is also not supported in a virtualized environment."
"It is also expensive, and their support is also poor."
"IBM Spectrum Protect is expensive."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The price of IBM Spectrum Protect is expensive and there is only a standard licensing fee."
"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."
"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."
"We worked our licensing into a capacity model, which is nice. Now, everything is much simpler to manage from a licensing perspective.​"
"The solution has a capacity based licensing, front and back-end license."
"IBM provides an open license policy, which is more like a gentlemen's agreement."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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

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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, SolarWinds and others in Storage Management. Updated: August 2026.
909,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.