IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize comparison

IBM Spectrum Accelerate and IBM Spectrum Virtualize are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. IBM Spectrum Accelerate is ranked #24, while IBM Spectrum Virtualize is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.7. IBM Spectrum Accelerate holds a 2.0% mindshare in SDS, compared to IBM Spectrum Virtualize’s 1.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM Spectrum Accelerate users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of IBM Spectrum Virtualize users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

IBM Spectrum Accelerate and IBM Spectrum Virtualize compete in the enterprise storage solutions category. IBM Spectrum Virtualize has the upper hand in advanced storage virtualization and comprehensive data mobility, making it suitable for complex environments.

Features: IBM Spectrum Accelerate offers flexibility and storage scalability with robust data protection, automated management, and cloud integration. IBM Spectrum Virtualize provides advanced virtualization with streamlined management, improved storage utilization, and superior data mobility features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Accelerate allows for straightforward deployment and efficient scalability, ideal for rapid implementation. Its customer service is agile but less involved post-deployment. IBM Spectrum Virtualize's deployment is more complex due to integration requirements, but it offers comprehensive customer support for optimal long-term management.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Spectrum Accelerate is cost-effective for rapid scaling, offering good ROI for cost-conscious expansion. IBM Spectrum Virtualize involves higher initial costs but provides better long-term ROI with enhanced management and resource utilization, suitable for larger-scale operations.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize

September 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

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.1%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Accelerate is 2.0%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Virtualize is 1.6%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Pure Storage FlashBlade	4.1%
IBM Spectrum Virtualize	1.6%
IBM Spectrum Accelerate	2.0%
Other	92.3%

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Featured Reviews

Parul-Patel

Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

High performance and throughput enhance IT backup management

The multi-dimensional scale-out design feature of Pure Storage FlashBlade is not in use in our environment. Regarding data reduction technologies, we don't get much deduplication because the data is already deduplicated from our FlashArray before we get to backup, so there is no benefit of deduplication. Regarding the integration with cloud-native ecosystem tools, we are not on cloud; we are strictly an on-premises solution. Pure Storage FlashBlade is not used by any end-user; it's used only for IT backup, with only about four people in our group managing it. I cannot recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade to other users depending upon their financial situation because it's an expensive solution, and the cost is very high, including licensing and renewal every year. I rate Pure Storage FlashBlade an eight out of ten.

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reviewer1154616

IS Auditor at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

A robust solution with good performance and support

This is a solution that scales well, although I think that we have stabilized in terms of use. With respect to scalability, we have an open question as to whether we will be able to grow into a cloud-based deployment. We don't know in what ways this solution will assist us with the migration, or whether we can still use it for DR. We don't know about the type of backup, be it full, incremental, or otherwise. We are also looking for a cost-savings if we migrate. These are things that we will find out over time. We have about two petabytes of data.

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MD.Faisal Alam

Manager, Technical Services, IBM Storage & Backup Solutions. at Thakral

Built-in compression enhances data management efficiency

I have noticed that the technical support for software issues, such as with Spectrum Protect, needs improvement. The case logging process is efficient, but resolving software problems takes too much time. This delay can hinder customers and strain vendor relationships. For hardware issues, IBM handles them efficiently, but software-related support requires enhancement. Overall improvement in support for software cases is necessary.

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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

"Using this solution has made our backups more reliable."

"The main feature I have found to be product replication."

"The snapshots, replication, and the ability to have immutable blades are the most valuable features. You're putting data snapshots out in those blades, and they cannot be touched. Its performance is great."

"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."

"The product is scalable and easy to expand."

"It has also helped to simplify storage for us in the way that it's easy to manage. Their automatic monitoring really helps when things break or are about to break. They see a problem coming and alert us even before our own system does."

"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is performance."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The most valuable feature is the robustness, which is typical of IBM because their software generally just works."

"The ease of use is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's very user-friendly."

"One of the main features of Spectrum Virtualize is it virtualizes the servers from the storage. We have a very large infrastructure. A major advantage is when you get the aged storage arrays and you have to replace all of those."

"We acquire companies (and things), so we end up with odd hardware. We bring it behind the SVC and it allows us to migrate stuff off of it seamlessly. SVC can also cover up a host of defects of the underlying storage."

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

"The most valuable features are the simplicity of use, the flexibility, and the options included. I mean, it's just a big time saver."

"Although the GUI from the XIV was used (in my view), IBM has polished and refined the GUI providing a pleasant and easy to navigate GUI experience."

"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."

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

"The ability to add the virtual machine on the Spectrum environment to sort out the data movers(DMs) and their schedules is a valuable feature. You are able to have, for example, four data movers to balance them so you do not have too much work on one data mover."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pros

Cons

"The solution is expensive."

"The Pure Storage Orchestrator is our biggest pain point at the moment. If we can have more say in future developments of feature sets that we will need to support for our use case, that would be pretty beneficial to us."

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

"The technical support needs to improve. When we open a case, it is auto assigned to a support tech person. Nine out of ten times, we get an email right back saying that person is off until tomorrow. I cannot handle that. They just did this over the weekend to us, too. I had to call our rep and have them do something about it."

"An area for improvement in Pure Storage FlashBlade is its price. It could be reduced. The technical support for Pure Storage FlashBlade also needs improvement. It used to be good, with more experienced engineers. Nowadays, it isn't, and it takes longer for support to solve problems."

"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."

"The speed could be improved."

"I would like to see better integration."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"The reporting mechanisms need improvement."

"he interface is not user-friendly so the ease of use could be improved."

"Adding features for data deduplication is one area of improvement."

"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."

"The disk reliability is not that good."

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

"The case logging process is efficient, but resolving software problems takes too much time."

"The Storwize port is not so stable."

"GUI should be developed in HTML5 as opposed to Java."

"They are actually working on one bug we found, which was with flash restore. This was the user interface design for virtual environments."

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."

"Support is a separate line item. Support is a different cost, but whatever your support is now, that's what you're going to pay forever. If your support's $100 today, six years from now it's $100. It doesn't fluctuate unless you upgrade it, or change it, etc."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."

"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."

"The price could be cheaper."

"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"For a database, on a yearly basis, we pay approximately $3,500 for licensing fees. The solution is sold as a subscription on a yearly basis so there are no other ancillary costs."

"If you are cost-sensitive then this solution is not for you."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

No data available

Computer Software Company

14%

Performing Arts

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	20

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	31

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...

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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-...

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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...

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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 ...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 20% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

StorMagic SvSAN vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Compared 42% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Compared 34% of the time

IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Compared 25% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Accelerate Competitors

IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 25% of the time

Dell VPLEX vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 21% of the time

VxRail vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 19% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 17% of the time

Atlantis USX vs IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Compared 17% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Virtualize Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

September 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

September 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Accelerate product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Virtualize

September 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Virtualize product report

Also Known As

No data available

IBM XIV

No data available

Overview

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

IBM Spectrum Accelerate is a software-defined block storage solution designed for rapid deployment across heterogeneous infrastructure for hybrid cloud and delivering consistent service levels to a dynamic workload mix. It is based on proven grid-architecture, enterprise-scale IBM XIV technology. IBM Spectrum Accelerate can be deployed, including as hyper-converged infrastructure, on any x86 server, on pre-installed third-party appliances or on public cloud infrastructure, and is available as a service on IBM Cloud infrastructure.

IBM

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

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

Silverpop

Pelephone, Sprint IT Enterprise Services

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize

September 2025

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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