Dell VPLEX vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize comparison

The compared Dell Technologies and IBM solutions aren't in the same category. Dell Technologies is ranked #5 in SM , with an average rating of 7.0, and holds a 6.6% mindshare in the category. IBM is ranked #12 in SDS , with an average rating of 9.0, and holds a 1.6% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Dell VPLEX

Read 18 Dell VPLEX reviews

391 Views
173 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Read 39 IBM Spectrum Virtualize reviews

380 Views
239 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Dell VPLEX

IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell VPLEX and IBM Spectrum Virtualize based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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To learn more, read our detailed Storage Management Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Storage Management

March 2025

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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

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Storage Management (5th)

IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (12th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Management and Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Dell VPLEX is designed for Storage Management and holds a mindshare of 6.6%, down 8.0% compared to last year.
IBM Spectrum Virtualize, on the other hand, focuses on Software Defined Storage (SDS), holds 1.6% mindshare, down 2.0% since last year.

Storage Management

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Featured Reviews

Sayed Zuber

Sr. Storage And Backup Engineer at OMNIdata Trading, Lda.

It's an excellent solution for data mobility and disaster recovery, but the CLI can be difficult for beginners

Dell VPLEX currently requires Flash Player to access the GUI. It would be better to have a web-based HTML management interface. The encryption could also be improved. When the host writes data, it goes from VPLEX back to the physical storage. The physical storage device will do encryption or use an algorithm called Data Address Encryption. If there are vulnerabilities between the host and the storage device, you can lose your data. I suggest encrypting the data before it is sent from the host to the storage. I would also recommend using the NVM protocol in VPLEX. It still has Flash Player and a local SATA disk built into the Flash Player. You need to Flash the disk to SAS and then SATA. The NVM protocol is better.

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EdwinVan Halm

Virtualization Architect at Halm-IT

Enterprise product that delivers high performance features

The primary use case is high availability and disaster recovery. They use it as an active-active cluster located in two physical locations for quick recovery using immutable snapshots The quick restore, the low latency, and the ease of use are some of the most valuable features. The product is…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Dell's technical support is awesome. We received instant support from EMC as long as we had an active contract."

"The most valuable feature is deduplication, as we have no duplication in the snapshots."

"The solution works well. It's very reliable."

"The best feature of VPLEX storage is its ability to consolidate storage. It also provides the highest RPO and RTOs for replication technology. VPLEX enables application mobility."

"Mobility enables us to carry out an internal migration of data."

"The capacity to migrate machines onto VPLEX is great — it's very clean. We can migrate machines and add arrays easily."

"Storage virtualization and geographic resilience for Metro Sans, plus a great performance improvement."

"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."

"Using SBC, a valuable feature is the mirroring, which is the virtualization of the disk between disparate places."

"It lowers cost. It does so by getting more efficient use out of the technology behind it."

"The scalability is very good. It can handle anywhere from very small to large enterprise class."

"IBM provides exceptional technical support, which I rate as the best along with Cisco."

"I like all the features, but the most impressive recently has been the introduction of IBM's Flash Core Modules. They are a form of a flash drive, but they have many more features."

"The ease of management, the simplicity of the CLI, the speed of that interface, and the well-architected design of the product in general are valuable features."

"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."

"I like that it can virtualize more than three hundred storage providers."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pros

Cons

"The price is a problem with EMC due to the fact that it's more expensive than the other vendors."

"With Dell VPLEX, there are some bugs with Broadcom."

"VPLEX hardware migration to spare equipment in case of major disruption."

"There can be delays in getting performance reports."

"VPLEX's engine-based architecture is complex, so the implementation is challenging and takes more time. It's also difficult to fix hardware issues. When an appliance fails, it takes Dell EMC a long time to fix it because spare parts are in short supply."

"Today, it needs a huge effort that is not acceptable during disaster recovery."

"I would like to have site-to-site replication capability for applications."

"The initial setup is complex."

More Dell VPLEX cons

"I hate I/O groups. If you start swapping I/O groups, they can be potentially risky. If they could get rid of the whole I/O group principle, the risk is not there anymore. I understand the fundamental thing about I/O groups, but they are risky."

"In general, the migration is complicated. Though, it is case-by-case."

"The integration would be an option that we would like, but I understand that's not how it's going to be implemented."

"The only errors I find sometimes is the solution tells me I cannot operate it because a service has turned off, you can just go back to the VM, go to services, and turn back the services. However, this should improve."

"There are big arrays now, and if a customer wants add more disks to it, you have to have another array. Adding disks to existing arrays is one of the most demanded things from our customers."

"IBM could improve IBM Spectrum Virtualize by bundling Storage Scale and Storage Virtualize into a single appliance. This would provide a more appealing and cost-effective solution."

"Anything which improves performance and the ability of our systems would be a nice."

"I would like to see more baseline replication and integration with the operating system between Vmware and IBMI."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize cons

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."

"This solution came as an additional cost for the TSM package we chose."

"We would like the CPU cycle to save more on the licensing costs for us."

"The entry point of pricing for this product is the most amazing price ever in the industry."

"It has a lot of advanced functions for a reasonable price."

"I think it is a good value for the price."

"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."

"I am very happy with the pricing. There is no comparison when it comes to pricing. I have looked at all solutions from EMC, Veritas, Hitachi, Dell, etc. None of them compares to IBM when it comes to pricing. I get great pricing from them."

"Do a proof of concept, if you are not comfortable jumping in, but do it."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

13%

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

12%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell VPLEX?

Dell's technical support is awesome. We received instant support from EMC as long as we had an active contract.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell VPLEX?

This is an enterprise solution so licensing costs are generally on the higher side. There will be additional costs if you want to do a network cluster for business servers.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell VPLEX?

Dell VPLEX should improve its integration and user interface and be easier to configure. Any EMX product, be it PowerMax, VMAX, or DMAX, works based on the CLI. A person has to be very good at runn...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Virtualize?

As a customer of IBM, I can often secure discounts of seventy to ninety percent, depending on the purchase volume, while still receiving improved capabilities over other vendors.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Virtualize?

I would like to see them provide a unified platform that offers block, file, and object-based protocol access. Presentations and blogs could be improved.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Virtualize?

I use IBM Spectrum Virtualize as a storage device that provides storage to servers needing storage. I utilize it in my role for the US government.

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM SAN Volume Control vs Dell VPLEX

Compared 40% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Dell VPLEX

Compared 27% of the time

More Dell VPLEX Competitors

VxRail vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 28% of the time

IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 19% of the time

VMware vSAN vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 16% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 15% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell VPLEX

March 2025

Download Dell VPLEX product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize

March 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Virtualize product report

Overview

Wth EMC VPLEX you can deploy next-generation virtualization architecture to enable simultaneous information access within, between, and across data centers, move applications, virtual machines, and data in and between data centers without impacting users and deliver application and data availability within the data center and over distance with full infrastructure utilization and zero downtime.

Dell Technologies

IBM Spectrum Virtualize is a dependable solution that improves data value, security, and simplicity for new and existing storage infrastructure. Proven over 12 years in thousands of deployments, its innovative virtualization capabilities help organizations achieve better data economics by supporting new workloads that are critical to their success. IBM Spectrum Virtualize software helps make new and existing storage more effective and standardizes functions traditionally deployed separately in disk systems for greater flexibility and potentially lower costs.

IBM

Sample Customers

Kindred Healthcare, Regis Aged Care, WeBank SpA, Panduit, Munson Healthcare

Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services

Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp, Broadcom, IBM and others in Storage Management. Updated: March 2025.

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