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

DataCore SANsymphony vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
211
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
DataCore SANsymphony
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Storage Software (2nd), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (5th), HCI (8th), Storage Performance (1st)
IBM Spectrum Virtualize
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (13th)
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
SigfridCecillon - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at Arsium
High availability and user-friendliness enhance infrastructure health and redundancy
I would rate technical support from DataCore SANsymphony a 10. Each time I contact the technical support, it's when I don't have a choice because it's very difficult for me on site, and each time, I have good people online who are able to help me solve the problem. Usually, the problems are not very technically difficult, but sometimes they are, and the support team is still there to help us resolve them. The majority of the problems are linked to licensing, so when the license has expired or the number is not correct, they are proactive and change things live, which is very good.
AS
IT Specialist at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
Unified storage solution supports cross-vendor replication and diverse industries
One of the most valuable features of IBM Spectrum Virtualize is its virtualization capability. It allows for the creation of stretched clusters, which are crucial for running Linux-based workloads that need mirroring for boot disks. The solution also provides asynchronous and synchronous replication, supporting operations across different data centers. Its deployment options across public, private, and hybrid clouds add to its versatility.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool has reduced our power consumption."
"Data reduction and compression. Sub millisecond latency."
"The most valuable feature is how it simplifies the management of the SAN."
"Technical support is excellent. I've had very good responses from technical support. We had a couple of cases where we needed support. Some of the communications were purely over email and some has been an actual call to the service desk."
"Having an intuitive user interface to get things running is great."
"The solution helps to simplify storage."
"Pure Storage technology allowed us to automate tasks, reducing something which started as a 12-hour turnaround down to about 15 minutes."
"It upgrades in place which means we'll be using it well into the future."
"Inexpensive for the amount of storage."
"The most useful feature of SANsymphony is that it's able to manage any brand of block storage."
"I found the solution to be very stable."
"DataCore SANsymphony brings stability to the infrastructures, and the infrastructures are healthy after, along with the redundancy."
"The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are many counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like when a backup is in progress)."
"The synchronous mirror allows us to operate a fully redundant storage solution that is distributed across two sites."
"Oracle OLTP benchmark to test how it improves the performance while using flash drive NVMe."
"The platform's most valuable feature is its synchronous mirroring capability, which ensures bit-identical copies of data and offers excellent failover capacity."
"The scalability is very good. It can handle anywhere from very small to large enterprise class."
"The most valuable feature for me is its ease of use."
"Using SBC, a valuable feature is the mirroring, which is the virtualization of the disk between disparate places."
"I think Spectrum Visualize is a very good product to address a lot of problems."
"We have all the tools in one place."
"It makes data migration straightforward, and on the customer side, there is downtime, but it is very minimal."
"We have reduced a lot of power and cooling requirements in the data center."
"Migration from configurations where servers have storage provisioned from older SAN disk systems to newer storage systems is almost seamless using image mode migration techniques, with only a short outage of the servers."
 

Cons

"We would like to see better troubleshooting aspects. It helps us if we can find out where the problem is. Right now, it's difficult. Sometimes it's difficult to pinpoint the issue. If they had more visibility and more troubleshooting feature built into the tool that would really help."
"Organizations with security concerns that prevent cloud utilization would benefit from a wider range of instruments available for offline operation."
"The interface lacks the same level of control as some other arrays I've used."
"The solution could improve by having a multi-tenant feature."
"In the next version of this program, I would like to see increased security, higher encryption, and faster throughput."
"The initial setup was a little complex. We had some initial issues with the design and had to help correct some of the white papers for it, but it wasn't your standard use case."
"I would rate this solution an eight because we have had outages. The commit times went very high in the database. The whole array went down so our customers were down for around eight hours. This was a very big outage which could have been our fault because we didn't do the upgrade in time."
"A year ago they promised that they would be able to read through the database encryption with more metric and they have not delivered on that patch, which is significant because it gives us back so much more storage room. We want to be able to read through the encryption."
"The main problem is there is no DataCore OS."
"I see some good competition to DataCore SANsymphony at the moment. I don't think DataCore SANsymphony is the best option on the market at the moment as they still could learn something from their competitors."
"DataCore should integrate its own file server into SANsymphony."
"Problem detection could be easier. It should help customers identify problems very quickly because it's not easy to analyze on the platform today."
"My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that in many cases it is expensive, but we can find a solution every time to have a discount for selling it."
"I think the performance reporting can be improved by adding historical statistics into a database for the purpose of comparing."
"Pricing can be confounding with many options"
"There is no way of quickly matching the exact size of a vDisk to a disk pool."
"I already discussed possible improvements with some of the guys from Hearnsley. One of our frustrations is when you go to expand volumes in a global mirror environment, you have to stop everything in order to expand. So that's one of the things."
"One very important feature is the analysis of the logs which should be there in the system."
"Tighter integration with cloud storage might be useful as a target for a variety of use cases."
"Anything which improves performance and the ability of our systems would be a nice."
"I have encountered stability issues in situations when the customer-provided AC power has defects."
"I had a couple isolated problems with reliability, mostly related to replication, but I have been able to work through them."
"Adding features for data deduplication is one area of improvement."
"There are things that occur when you get to this size and capacity. We're very large, i.e., petabytes. When you get to that sheer volume of the numbers of things, it is too big for people to keep track of."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of Pure Storage is subjective and determined by your environment. Pure Storage tends to be more expensive than NetApp, but it is cheaper than EMC. Performance varies with data workload, making cost considerations complex."
"The price was slightly higher than others, but competitive, if you consider all the other features that you get from it."
"There are no licensing fees or other costs."
"We implemented Pure Storage FlashArray nine years ago when it was new to the market and obtained it at a preferential price."
"We have an Evergreen Storage subscription, which I think is a great feature."
"When I last looked, the prices were reasonable, and we could get an excellent array for about $60,000."
"The price is reasonable."
"There is an annual or perpetual license required for this solution."
"Pricing has improved but it is still expensive."
"It is relatively expensive, and the additional costs for hardware and storage can make it a significant investment for customers."
"The solution is cost effective."
"The pricing and licensing are better with DataCore."
"Make sure you are made aware of the annual subscription cost when purchasing."
"In my case, the licensing per terabytes is very high and it must be licensed for each extra functionality."
"This solution allows the use of off-the-shelf hardware and charges by the TB of storage."
"DataCore SANsymphony's pricing is very high and should be much cheaper."
"I think it is a good value for the price."
"The entry point of pricing for this product is the most amazing price ever in the industry."
"We have struggled with Pure Storage, but people are understanding that much of Pure has been consumer grade SSDs. Therefore, when the customer is really understands what they are getting, they realize that IBM presents the same sort of value as existing vendors."
"We would like the CPU cycle to save more on the licensing costs for us."
"Generally the bundled licensing is more cost effective and gives flexibility to the solution. Linking into the Spectrum Suite can also be advantageous, but depends on the scale of the enterprise."
"It has a lot of advanced functions for a reasonable price."
"This solution came as an additional cost for the TSM package we chose."
"Do a proof of concept, if you are not comfortable jumping in, but do it."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions are best for your needs.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Government
5%
Performing Arts
15%
Marketing Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business63
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise143
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise31
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I don't really know much about the pricing for Pure Storage FlashArray in terms of the absolute cost. Regarding Everg...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Despite liking Pure Storage FlashArray, there is room for improvement in automation. Pure Storage FlashArray needs to...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore SANsymphony SDS?
I am saying that the pricing is reasonable. It's not that expensive, and the product is also pretty stable. It's a go...
What do you like most about DataCore SANsymphony?
The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are a lot of counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like...
What needs improvement with DataCore SANsymphony?
It's difficult to know how DataCore SANsymphony can be improved. I think DataCore SANsymphony could be deployed on Li...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Virtualize?
IBM Spectrum Virtualize is not an expensive product. It offers flexibility with different flavors, whether appliance-...
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Virtualize?
IBM could improve IBM Spectrum Virtualize by bundling Storage Scale and Storage Virtualize into a single appliance. T...
What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Virtualize?
I primarily use IBM Spectrum Virtualize ( /products/ibm-spectrum-virtualize-reviews ) when I have different hardware ...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
DataCore Virtual SAN
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Volkswagen , Maimonides Medical Center, NASA, Thorntons, Inc., TUI, ISCO Industries, Pee Dee Electric Cooperative, United Financial Credit Union, Derby Supply Chain Solutions, Mission Community Hospital, Bellarmine College Preparatory, Colby-Sawyer College, Mount Sinai Health System, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Quorn Foods, Bitburger, University of Birmingham, Stadtverwaltung Heidelberg, NetEnt to name a few.
Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services
Find out what your peers are saying about DataCore SANsymphony vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.