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IBM Spectrum Scale vs VMware Software Defined Storage comparison

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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
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
IBM Spectrum Scale
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (10th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (1st)
VMware Software Defined Sto...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (15th)
 

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.
Sachin Prakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Has optimized performance using cluster deployment and distributed file access but needs better visibility into network dependencies
IBM Spectrum Scale being software-based storage allows users to utilize any hardware supported or defined by IBM without dependency on physical hardware provided by IBM. This is one of the features I appreciate most because if you have existing infrastructure at your site but don't want to reinvest in hardware, you can purchase IBM Spectrum Scale software and deploy it as software-defined storage. Users can comfortably access data from their host to the storage host without relying on new network setup when deploying GPFS as it uses the existing corporate network. However, high-speed ethernet network is required. By adding switches to the same network where client hosts reside and deploying GPFS storage array, any file system created on the storage cluster can grant export permissions determining which hosts can access specific file systems. These hosts can directly mount them as remote file systems. The process is simpler compared to defining IQN for providing access to client hosts. Creating a cluster for clients with virtual machines or physical Linux/Windows machines requires installing GPFS services on client nodes, which creates a client cluster. Access is defined on the storage cluster for the particular client cluster, allowing all hosts in that client cluster to mount file systems with granted permissions.
Mohammad Jundiah - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at Qatar Datamation Systems
Data security and performance excel but integration and licensing need improvement
I used Nutanix for its hyper-converged infrastructure capabilities and VMware Site Recovery for disaster recovery.  Additionally, I worked with VMware Software Defined Storage both internally and with partners to consolidate servers into one solution The most valuable features of VMware Software…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The amount of data that I have moved to it from legacy storage has enabled us to retire units that are three or four times the physical size."
"This is the best all-flash storage array on the market."
"The most valuable features would be its performance, retrieval, recovery, and backup, and it meets the customer's expectations."
"The initial setup was really straight forward."
"I am very satisfied with this solution and I would recommend it to others."
"It helps to simplify storage. For most of our customers, when they move to Pure Storage, storage becomes an afterthought."
"This storage has to be the most well thought out and effective storage that I have had the privilege to work with."
"The intuitive way of managing storage is what I appreciate about Pure Storage FlashArray, along with the clever use of flash modules, and absolutely the data reduction, because they are using that in a very clever way to do compression and deduplication."
"Over the past five or ten years, IBM has developed this solution and it has improved a lot."
"Its great servicing high availability. That is what it is used for."
"There is nothing else that even compares to Spectrum Scale."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to share files across different platforms."
"It has been pretty reliable throughout the years. As far as capacity is concerned, it can handle most heavy loads."
"We are using it for monitoring all of our storage."
"I would rate my overall experience with IBM Spectrum Scale as nine out of ten."
"It is incredibly scalable and stable."
"The single management panel is the main feature that is wonderful for the customer."
"The product is user-friendly from an administrative standpoint and very easy to use."
"This is an easy-to-use product for adding flexibility to your storage solution."
"The solution is simple to configure and provides good performance and less footprint."
"The best part of the solution is that you can actually scale up to a large number of operating systems without the requirement of additional hardware, which is the biggest advantage."
"VMware Software Defined Storage gives higher availability against data corruption."
"The most valuable features of the solution are that it is easy to deploy and the support is really good."
"The most valuable features of VMware Software Defined Storage are scalability, high availability, and performance."
 

Cons

"This product has only two active controllers, whereas other solutions can have more. This is something that needs to improve."
"The solution is expensive."
"I would like to see more detailed reporting on the data. However, it would be nice to know what are the exact VMs usage after deduplication and/or what that VMs actual latency and bandwidth is, outside of VMware."
"I would like to migrate to the cloud in the future and know how that would actually work with this product."
"I would like some performance analytics which go deeper than today. It should be specific to some hosts and applications. This would be good."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve in the area of cryptographic information in the consoles. The user-friendliness could improve. The Pure Storage FlashArray team should come and log into the system with their maintenance credentials and then pull out the information as evidence of cryptography."
"I would like some form of QoS implemented. As a service provider, it would be beneficial to have it."
"Many high-end platforms from other vendors like Dell EMC or Hitachi, their backend has Active/Active architecture, unlike Pure Storage FlashArray which doesn't utilize an Active/Active architecture on the backend."
"There is room for improvement in the web interface. There could be more information available, such as charts and graphs to monitor performance."
"We do have some issues where Spectrum Scale does not work as expected."
"We do not feel as a company that the product can grow with us anymore, so we are not going to use it anymore."
"Maybe it needs integration with HA."
"I believe there is no graphic user interface, so they should include it."
"They should probably simply the Red Hat implementation portion. This portion was not as straightforward as I would like it to be."
"Integration with other vendors is not available. This feature would be very helpful."
"There can be improvements in fault tolerance and making erasure coding faster."
"Simplifying the licensing model and making it cheaper would improve the solution."
"The license model of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"I'd like to see improved hardware compatibility"
"There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages."
"It doesn't have the ability to be deployed on any kind of hardware and network connectors."
"It's easy to scale and expand but the main catch is the cost. It's expensive."
"The cost of the product is where an improvement could be made. It's generally very expensive and requires a lot of architecture that needs to be designed according to specific situations."
"VMware Software Defined Storage should include a shared database on a standard version."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license for Pure Storage FlashArray includes the support and there are no additional payments that are needed. This is not an inexpensive solution, you need to understand the value of your data before you use a backup solution."
"Pure is typically more expensive than everyone else. You get what you pay for, but I have lost deals to similar solutions because of pricing. They include everything, and that's another positive about Pure Storage. They aren't trying to nickel and dime their customers for different features. It is all included in one price. The license is by capacity, and the price depends on the capacity and the discount we're getting from the vendor. You get the SKU of the physical appliance, support, and maintenance, and that's it. You're licensed for whatever feature they offer. It is all rolled up into the price of the appliance."
"We do not incur additional costs beyond the licensing fee."
"I think that the pricing is less expensive compared to other standard products in the market today. Even the support contract and maintenance services cost less when compared to market-leading products like EMC."
"You can pay extra for Evergreen support, which gives you free upgrades when new features are introduced."
"The price of Pure Storage FlashArray could always improve. They are still more expensive than some alternative offerings. Cost is always a concern and when there is a battle they tend to be more expensive."
"Pure Storage FlashArray's pricing is very competitive."
"All storage is expensive so any price improvement would help."
"The solution is costly but reliable."
"The licensing is based on the number of terabytes."
"The licensing model is complex and depends on factors such as the number of processing cores and the amount of storage."
"I believe there is a yearly licensing fee of around $2000 - $5000. I don't think there are additional costs above that but it depends on the type of infrastructure you're booting."
"VMware Software Defined Storage is a slightly expensive solution."
"The product is quite expensive and is among the most expensive for this type of solution."
"A single socket costs you around US $6,000 for three years. At a minimum, you have a three load cluster for a medium or enterprise-scale company. It can get quite expensive because you're likely to need four to six sockets on the other side. It comes to around $30,000."
"The solution is very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise6
 

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 find the pricing of Everpure FlashArray to be quite high compared to other storage solutions; however, the reliabil...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I believe we have covered the most important features; the architecture of Pure Storage is essential, and features su...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Scale?
IBM Spectrum Scale functions as software-based storage, allowing users to utilize any hardware supported or defined b...
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Scale?
The system relies heavily on ethernet networking, and when issues occur, we must consult with the network team to inv...
What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Scale?
My personal use of this product is for parallel writing or reading files.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Software Defined Storage?
The price of VMware Software Defined Storage is on the pricey side, rated four out of five in cost. There is room for...
What needs improvement with VMware Software Defined Storage?
There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages. More automation, such as using Playbook on Ansibl...
What is your primary use case for VMware Software Defined Storage?
I used Nutanix for its hyper-converged infrastructure capabilities and VMware Site Recovery for disaster recovery. Ad...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
No data available
VMware SDS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Information Not Available
Helse Nord, Sky
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Scale vs. VMware Software Defined Storage and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.