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IBM Spectrum Scale vs Zadara comparison

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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
232
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) (11th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (1st)
Zadara
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (18th), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (10th), Compute Service (8th), Public Cloud Storage Services (12th), File and Object Storage (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.
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.
AA
Arquiteto De Cloud at Claro Brasil
Hybrid data migration has reduced costs and now needs stronger security and database integration
I would like to share something that I believe could improve Zadara's process, which is the issue of communication with databases. Today we have MongoDB as a cloud service, so integration with databases in Zadara would bring better performance in connection in SaaS models and in dynamic models that could bring a platform and a solution that could increase Zadara's usage in the market and in its business scope. Zadara can improve in the database integration area as I mentioned. Zadara can have better dynamism such as MongoDB in SaaS and bring this better dynamism by connecting and offering it within the clouds as a possibility of block storage within that partner cloud, such as AWS EBS, Google's cloud storage, or something within Azure. Creating a stronger partnership where this block storage can become an API connectable across various clouds but native to those clouds would be beneficial. I noticed simplicity in the security part during the time I used Zadara, so I believe Zadara's security needs to improve to provide more and deliver more security visibility to the end customer so that they feel more secure with data encryption and attack protection. A WAF on the API connection that goes through greater protection, something along those lines, could help guarantee that the data is protected by Zadara.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The all-flash disc is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"With this program, all of our applications are able to perform faster and this enables us to provide faster platforms and services to our customers and employees."
"Pure Storage technology allowed us to automate tasks, reducing something which started as a 12-hour turnaround down to about 15 minutes."
"Pure Storage has the right business model and will be around for a long time."
"Compared to Unity, these arrays offer significant advantages, such as NVMe technology and higher IOPS."
"Everpure FlashArray has positively impacted my organization by increasing our agility and the ability to run our environment at high speeds due to the flash storage."
"Technical support is very good."
"It has simplified our storage."
"Its great servicing high availability. That is what it is used for."
"I find IBM Spectrum Scale to be an excellent product known for its fast parallel file system."
"We use it for our data over multiple systems, and at the same time it is a shared file system that works pretty well for the most part."
"Over the past five or ten years, IBM has developed this solution and it has improved a lot."
"It makes our file system sharing a lot easier, even across different continents. We have had file systems shared across different continents with no performance degradation."
"It has been pretty reliable throughout the years. As far as capacity is concerned, it can handle most heavy loads."
"The profile share is a valuable feature."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the flexibility in terms of deployment options."
"Zadara saves both time and money."
"One of the most useful features is that they provide iSCSI as a service."
"The processing is much faster with this product."
"Zadara is a fully-fledged platform, and our customers are happy with its use."
"I find Zadara's user-friendliness from both the customer and engineering perspectives highly appreciated."
"The most valuable feature of Zadara is its ease of use and safety, and overall the solution is a complete package with all the features needed."
"Zadara was a key enabler for us to be able to enter the cloud business because if it wasn't for them, it would have taken us a lot longer."
 

Cons

"The capability from Pure as far as sharing out files and things of that nature is a little bit lacking."
"We would like to integrate it more with our backup solutions."
"FlashArray's capacity for forecasting should be improved because it needs to be a bit more current. I think it's bundled with the deduplication and other compression factors. We need more user interfaces for forecasting in this software and more interfaces need to be integrated with this array management tool."
"The system has dual controllers but does not have a high level of resiliency built-in."
"When we were doing some tests, we found that there was an I/O freeze when they were switching the controller."
"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 rate this solution an eight. There's always room for improvement, nobody is perfect to get a ten out of ten. They do what they do well. It's not cheap but we it's for uses that we needed."
"The integration capabilities could be improved."
"I wish there were some graphical user interface to access the GPFS file system creation and monitoring."
"We do not feel as a company that the product can grow with us anymore, so we are not going to use it anymore."
"We do have some issues where Spectrum Scale does not work as expected. We have seen our Spectrum Scale servers go down unexpectedly, but because we have a cluster, it does not take out the entire organization."
"The main issue that we have now is with the encryption. They want to use more metrics in encryption, which is not working very well."
"Making it a little easier to add bad file sets would help. There is a transition to how you add storage and how you add a file set, so making that a little smoother would probably be my recommendation."
"Maybe it needs integration with HA."
"I believe there is no graphic user interface, so they should include it."
"The initial setup is complex, especially if trying to avoid erasure coding, as it requires more discs. Avoiding erasure coding can significantly increase costs."
"I would like to see them be a little bit more proactive in terms of the patches and updates that are available. I would like to see more disclosure and information around what fixes or what enhancements are available within a patch, and help in coordinating and scheduling that. Right now, it's driven more by the customer in reaching out via a support ticket."
"Some of the features are a little bit slow to come to market."
"We had a lot of issues with the Zadara recently regarding performance, reports, and offloads, the customers could not send backups to Zadara."
"Having iSCSI over the internet using a VPN, the IPSec tunnel is really the only thing that I find missing from this product."
"Currently, when we do firmware upgrades, it sometimes causes issues and is not as nondisruptive as desired."
"I would like to see them be a little bit more proactive in terms of the patches and updates that are available."
"One point to improve Zadara is to make the limitations clear."
"The initial setup of the solution is complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While it comes with a higher price tag, this investment often translates to significant improvements in performance."
"The price of the solution can be a bit expensive. There is an additional fee for support."
"The pricing of Pure Storage is all-inclusive. It is very fair, and very easy. In comparison, Dell EMC has licensing that needs to be added if you wan to work in a complex environment or in specific functionalities."
"Pure Storage has not helped us to reduce our licensing costs."
"There is always room for negotiation."
"When I last looked, the prices were reasonable, and we could get an excellent array for about $60,000."
"Pricing is very competitive, and it's better than other competitors."
"We have an Evergreen Storage subscription, which I think is a great feature."
"The solution is costly but reliable."
"The licensing model is complex and depends on factors such as the number of processing cores and the amount of storage."
"The licensing is based on the number of terabytes."
"The pricing and licensing are very simple and the cost is predictable, although, like everything that you pay for as you use, you have to be mindful of what you're using."
"If you just take the street price of Zadara Storage Cloud and look up the price or cost per hour, then you could think that Zadara Storage Cloud is extremely expensive or a solution only for enterprise use. That is not true. You need to compare the entire system. This means that you don't stop looking at just the street price, but you need to consider all the features, requirements, and costs of support as well as the extra cost that other vendors have. Other players just play with hidden, additional costs. Everything is included in Zadara Storage Cloud's licensing cost; what you get is what you pay for."
"The pricing is very competitive and the fact that they have very compelling discounts for multi-year commitments is great."
"It is a nice licensing model and it makes it quite simple because we just pay for what we use, and the bill that comes shows us exactly what customers are using what resources."
"For our use, it's appropriately priced and overall, it's proved to be very cost-effective against other tier-one vendors."
"One of the factors that ruled out several providers was cost. They were way too expensive for the volume of data that we needed and the speed at which we needed to be able to manage it. There aren't a lot of providers that can do that."
"The price of Zadara is very good and it covers everything. There is no subscription needed."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business73
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise160
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Large Enterprise8
 

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?
When comparing cost, I find that the cost is either the same or slightly higher, but that is returned by the ease of ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
The only thing I think could be improved is price. The price is the main concern for our customers.
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 needs improvement with Zadara?
One point to improve Zadara is to make the limitations clear. We encountered many limitations, such as situations whe...
What is your primary use case for Zadara?
Our main use case for Zadara is making machines available for customers to use by provisioning the entire environment...
What advice do you have for others considering Zadara?
My advice to other people who are thinking about using Zadara is that they can use it extensively, but they should pa...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Information Not Available
Time, Inc. A&E Network, The Washington Post, News UK, McGraw Hill, Gilt, Toshiba, Deloitte, VMware
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Scale vs. Zadara and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.