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DataCore SANsymphony vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct 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

Pure Storage FlashBlade
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Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (16th), File and Object Storage (6th)
DataCore SANsymphony
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
5th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Storage Software (2nd), HCI (7th), Storage Performance (2nd)
Microsoft Storage Spaces Di...
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
9th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.2%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DataCore SANsymphony is 6.8%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is 7.8%, up from 7.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

Dale Sides - PeerSpot reviewer
A high-performing and scalable solution that improves data performance for S3 workloads
If you are looking for a high-performance, scalable solution, you should choose FlashBlade for your object workload. It is not a cheap solution. Where a lot of people look at object workloads as cheap, thinking of cloud or Glacier, FlashBlade is built for high-performance object workloads to make things like Kafka and different Kubernetes workloads using object storage fast. I rate FlashBlade a ten out of ten.
TempreviewerD - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust with good replication and access protection
The solution is constantly evolving. Recently, deduplication and compression have been further improved to meet customer needs, and updates are easily implemented without stopping production. The update assistant checks the state of health before using good practices, during checks that the data is still presented for service continuity, and afterward, if the actions carried out are indeed active. Technical support is truly available even without a production incident. This is really essential right now.
Lawrence Tse - PeerSpot reviewer
A great solution for fostering the natural expansion of the traditional hybrid culture
Most of the VMware customers I have been engaging with say they have experienced engagement problems. VMware is trying to sell off the VMware enterprise cost and the whole solution is being sold down to a customer, whereas, usually they would try to intentionally avoid talking about the related Windows license. It's not very eye-catching but it's still sizable and we have implemented several Storage Spaces Direct projects for our customers. Currently, we're working hard to replace some of the special storage and hopefully even replace the harder converged storage, etc. Documentation management could be improved. The reason why this product is not being widely accepted by the public is that it doesn't include intuitive streamline, which makes it far from complete. Storage Spaces Direct is powerful and the performance is amazing, but if you need to deliver a high price-performance ratio and visible performance, you need to have expertise in tuning. Many people will not be able to enjoy this opportunity because it's not included in the training. In this case, you need to have a system integrator. A Complete management UI using a web-based interface would be a beneficial feature. They should also use a direct API — currently, they are only using partial API. Often, our customers need to work with other web-based solutions, so they require full API. I am writing my own API for this reason, and our customers are ok with that, but full API would be a very helpful feature that would lead to much more customer satisfaction. Microsoft should provide support for other channels. Microsoft OS supports other channels, but when they become the S2D storage solution, it's very easy to customize the quality. Technically, you can switch channels and replace your storage, but you will need to store away all of the fiber channel equipment, the hardware, and the cables, which can be very expensive.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I like best about Pure Storage FlashBlade is its object storage functionality, plus it has fast underlying hardware. Pure Storage FlashBlade is also very stable. I find its stability one of its valuable features."
"It is very easy to use, and it is very fast."
"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."
"It has absolutely simplified our storage because the dashboards on the consoles show a clear understanding of where you are, and it is also very easy to provision. This been a big help for our teams."
"Among its most appealing features are its ease of handling and minimal maintenance requirements."
"Speed and ease of use are the two most valuable features."
"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."
"It's very easy-to-use."
"Mirroring is the most valuable feature because I can provide a high-level of service and optimize the use of obsolete storage."
"DataCore's ability to seamlessly move virtual volume data between storage pools as well as their synchronous mirroring has made maintenance and disaster recovery planning achievable."
"For us, fault tolerance is the most important feature of DataCore."
"DataCore has helped provide flexible, highly available, high-performance storage that otherwise would have been outside our price range."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its versatility, with there being support for all new hardware technologies and platforms, disc mirroring and very effective auto tiering."
"Our central storage has very high availability. DataCore SANsymphony ensures high business continuity."
"I'd have to say that the biggest improvement gained by using SANsymphony has to be the performance of the product."
"I found the solution to be very stable."
"It's mainly about the storage expansion, like in hyper-converged solutions."
"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."
"The performance, reliability, and affordability has been most valuable."
"The most valuable feature are the caching capabilities using the storage class memory."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Its technical support is excellent."
"The most valuable feature is that there is no single point of failure."
"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."
 

Cons

"I have not seen ROI."
"I would like to see better integration."
"Compared to, for example, Hitachi NAS, the solution is not mature at all. It's just in its infancy as far as technology goes."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"File storage needs a lot of improvement. Mainframe connectivity also needs improvement because it requires additional components to be integrated with Pure Storage FlashBlade. If you want to keep your backup data, then this becomes an even more expensive solution because Pure Storage FlashBlade will not be able to meet your backup needs."
"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."
"DataCore needs a more efficient and better way to keep track of metrics and counters so that we can do baseline analysis to measure performance."
"The cloud reporting interface is quite poor compared to other vendors."
"DataCore SANsymphony should integrate file servers at a good price into the solution."
"We are waiting for container support (on the roadmap), as well as a user-friendly full web-administration capability, and an improved API."
"Management could be improved. The management console sometimes reacts very slowly."
"Its interface could be better."
"Right now, the version used is run on Microsoft Windows Server. Having a Linux version or even an appliance would be better as it would eliminate the use of additional licensing for another piece of hardware."
"There is no way of quickly matching the exact size of a vDisk to a disk pool."
"The integration is not difficult because there is no GUI, but we need to use a PowerShell command. This makes it difficult to monitor and to see the components' statuses."
"It is scalable, but only beyond two nodes. If I go for two nodes it's not scalable. I need to build a complete cluster from the beginning if I'm going for two nodes."
"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."
"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."
"More optimization could be done in terms of mirroring."
"I think the online documentation needs a lot of work and so do the sizing tools."
"Documentation management could be improved"
"It is difficult to get a hardware compatibility certification for the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Licensing fees are paid yearly."
"I feel that the price could always be lowered."
"We used a reseller for the purchase."
"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."
"Our licensing is renewed annually."
"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."
"The solution is cost effective."
"It is relatively expensive, and the additional costs for hardware and storage can make it a significant investment for customers."
"The cost is at the same level as other storage solutions and it is easy to understand the licensing."
"The pricing and licensing are better with DataCore."
"Pricing has improved but it is still expensive."
"This product has a good ratio between quality and price. In many cases, it's less expensive to work with DataCore than other storage systems."
"DataCore SANsymphony's pricing is very high and should be much cheaper."
"This solution allows the use of off-the-shelf hardware and charges by the TB of storage."
"The solution is expensive."
"Cost-wise the product is one of the more affordable within the category of products."
"With the data center licensing and everything that is connected to that, this solution is relatively costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?
The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore SANsymphony SDS?
The cost changed from a perpetual license to a subscription model, and it seems reasonable. I am technical personnel ...
What do you like most about DataCore SANsymphony?
The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are a lot of counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like...
What needs improvement with DataCore SANsymphony?
In my opinion, there should be improvements in how to get and filter logs. However, this is not a frequent need becau...
How does VMware vSAN compare with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?
We found VMware’s vSAN was easy to set up, configure, and manage compared to other solutions we considered. It is bes...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?
Pricing is an advantage of Storage Spaces Direct. Licenses can be on a monthly or yearly basis, depending on the addi...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?
Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution. At the moment, the new version does...
 

Also Known As

No data available
DataCore Virtual SAN
MS Storage Spaces Direct
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Volkswagen , Maimonides Medical Center, NASA, Thorntons, Inc., TUI, ISCO Industries, Pee Dee Electric Cooperative, United Financial Credit Union, Derby Supply Chain Solutions, Mission Community Hospital, Bellarmine College Preparatory, Colby-Sawyer College, Mount Sinai Health System, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Quorn Foods, Bitburger, University of Birmingham, Stadtverwaltung Heidelberg, NetEnt to name a few.
Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt
Find out what your peers are saying about DataCore SANsymphony vs. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.