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Dell VPLEX vs IBM Spectrum Control comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Dell VPLEX
Ranking in Storage Management
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Spectrum Control
Ranking in Storage Management
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Storage Management category, the mindshare of Dell VPLEX is 6.8%, up from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Control is 5.4%, down from 8.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Storage Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell VPLEX6.8%
IBM Spectrum Control5.4%
Other87.8%
Storage Management
 

Featured Reviews

Shailendra Choudhary - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Has supported enterprise projects consistently but pricing remains a challenge for broader adoption
We are system integrators and resell the HCI solution. We have worked with Dell VPLEX for approximately two to three years. We have been in several RFCs, and Dell VPLEX is implemented in the enterprise segment only. The solution is expensive and requires more budget, so people in the SMB segment do not prefer it. We typically recommend Dell VPLEX for customers who already work with other Dell products.
JY
System, Storage And Data Administrator at STET
Centralized capacity planning has improved insight into storage consumption for long term growth
Implementing IBM Spectrum Control is complex; we have had several calls to IBM to solve problems about DVM stack size, max memory size, and other issues such as buffer and cloud buffer size. Currently it is working, though we still have swap issues on our Linux Spectrum Protect server.We experience swap issues when we run a big retention set, and we have noticed that on the server we have memory available, but it seems that IBM Spectrum Control is using swap because the DBM max memory size is two gigabytes. This causes IBM Spectrum Control to use swap size instead of using memory, which is an issue we have opened a call to IBM about.We hope to ask why we have no report on the clone because on our storage we have an internal clone, but it is not reported. We will see with the support why it is not reported.

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 feature is deduplication, as we have no duplication in the snapshots."
"For a new application setup, it worked like a charm."
"The capacity to migrate machines onto VPLEX is great — it's very clean. We can migrate machines and add arrays easily."
"Technical support from Dell is quite good."
"The solution works well. It's very reliable."
"Its mirroring capabilities allow for data to be mirrored across two different data centers, so if one center were to crash or fail, the other center could take over and keep everything running smoothly."
"VPLEX offers a large compatibility matrix and valuable features."
"The support is good, and you don't have to wait long before things get done."
"In my opinion, it's the best monitoring and report creation tool for IBM storage devices. You can do a lot of performance stats and reports with very nice tools for IBM storage devices."
"Spectrum Control is highly secure and competitively priced."
"The product keeps historical data for a very long time."
"The installation was very easy. You just install an agent on a server, and you give that agent access to your storage device, then it just collects the data. It took five minutes to set up."
"It has turned out to be just as good, if not better, than what we were paying thousands of dollars for."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use. The ability to get into a storage device and look at whatever you are trying to look at as far as performance, then obtain the reports that you need to do your analytical work."
"Spectrum Control's scalability is fine - we can extend it for the backup requirement."
"The ease with which you can drill into whatever individual component, or overall system that you want to look at in terms of performance, that's, to me, the most valuable aspect."
 

Cons

"The initial setup is complex."
"The solution is expensive and requires more budget, so people in the SMB segment do not prefer it."
"Dell VPLEX should improve its integration and user interface and be easier to configure."
"The price is a problem with EMC due to the fact that it's more expensive than the other vendors."
"I would like to have site-to-site replication capability for applications."
"We experienced increases in latency in accesses to disks and some bugs on engines."
"There can be delays in getting performance reports."
"Maybe setup a one-to-many cluster, instead of just a 1-to-1."
"I would like to see is more information regarding the copy groups (the replication)."
"The solution must support multi-vendor storage."
"The pain points were, and may still continue to be, the fact that there are multiple components of the product which are installed, you might say, somewhat individually."
"The initial setup is complex."
"The database could be improved so that the complexity of installation could be easier. We would also like to have more granularity in the profiles and products for users. We would like to link the users to the tool to managers or auditors."
"The initial setup for IBM Spectrum Control is a bit complicated. They should also make it easier to integrate and use the Cosmos Analytics tool, which is very complicated."
"Spectrum Control could be more user-friendly. IBM also needs to provide proper training to handle Spectrum Control because it's a complicated solution."
"Implementing IBM Spectrum Control is complex; we have had several calls to IBM to solve problems about DVM stack size, max memory size, and other issues such as buffer and cloud buffer size."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"VPLEX is a little bit expensive in my personal opinion."
"We struck a great deal with Dell EMC, so for us, VPLEX was not very expensive."
"We were already licensing Spectrum Control. This was one reasons why we went to Control rather than using the other product."
"The solution is reasonably priced."
"It is pay for the amount of storage that you are monitoring. The more that we use the tool and like the tool, we may want to extend it to other storage platforms. This is just a matter of cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Healthcare Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Dell VPLEX?
Some of the products are very easy to implement, while others are more difficult, and our team seeks support help when required. Regarding the integration part, the delivery team handles all integr...
What is your primary use case for Dell VPLEX?
We are implementing Cohesity, Hitachi, Dell, and Nutanix, VMware, vSAN; multiple products. We have recently started working with Cohesity because there was not much presence in India for Cohesity, ...
What advice do you have for others considering Dell VPLEX?
Hitachi Systems Microclinic has been renamed to Hitachi Systems India Private Limited. The email address has been changed to shailendra.chaudhry.hd at hitachi-systems.com from shailendra_singh.chau...
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Control?
Implementing IBM Spectrum Control is complex; we have had several calls to IBM to solve problems about DVM stack size, max memory size, and other issues such as buffer and cloud buffer size. Curren...
What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Control?
IBM Spectrum Control has been in use for more than ten years. It was installed for capacity planning because our manager wants to have insight into the capacity planning of the storage area. We ins...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Spectrum Control?
We are working with IBM products. IBM Spectrum Control is also installed now and we are using it.Currently, we are trying to implement a private cloud, specifically an Amazon S3 compatible cloud.We...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Spectrum Control
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Kindred Healthcare, Regis Aged Care, WeBank SpA, Panduit, Munson Healthcare
Nuance
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell VPLEX vs. IBM Spectrum Control and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.