HPE StoreVirtual vs StarWind Virtual Tape Library comparison

HPE StoreVirtual vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library

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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 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 HPE StoreVirtual is 1.3%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual Tape Library is 1.3%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Featured Reviews

Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us

The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.

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Vebjorn Nergaard

Senior IT Engineer at Guard Automation AS

Reliable with helpful support and good replication

The setup is okay, however, it comes with a moderate amount of difficulty. If you are new to the product, it is difficult. You do get used to the process over time and it gets easier. A company just needs one person to maintain the solution as it just runs. You don't need any support staff. It's very, very hands-off except when you do updates. The product is living its own life.

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KellyVon Der Heyden

Sales Director at CLOUD READY SOLUTIONS

Scalable solution with a good technical support team

We use the solution for data backups and ransomware protection The solution is compatible with cloud storage platforms, such as Amazon S3. Also, it efficiently reduces the storage cost for archiving. The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough. We have been…

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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

"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 uses the same platform for connectivity so integration is seamless."

"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."

"The most valuable features of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."

"The performance of FlashBlade is excellent. It does not necessarily leverage the SOS API that some of the newer products leverage, but I found its speed pretty much on par and comparable. It is fast, and it does what it is supposed to do."

"The initial setup was straightforward. If you know how to plug in power and network you're pretty much qualified. They were on site to configure the network, the box to fit into our network architecture. Other than that, we self-managed from there."

"The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power outages when we need to quickly move data between different data centers. It ensures efficient replication and helps maintain our data centers' uptime."

"It is very easy to use, and it is very fast."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"Simplicity of not having to buy FC or FCoE SAN. Instead, we buy servers with their own storage."

"HPE StoreVirtual is very easy to use from the management console."

"he interface and the installation makes it easy as it's all in one piece of hardware and it doesn't need to be connected to anything else."

"The network RAID feature gives us maximum availability, since we cannot afford any downtime, even for a second."

"Data is stored in two different places, leveraging more security and availability. Therefore, network problems are having less affect on iSCSI."

"A company can scale it easily."

"The seamlessness behind the scenes of block management."

"It allows compute and storage to operate separately, and has the ability to take SAN nodes out of production for maintenance with little effort and zero downtime."

More HPE StoreVirtual pros

"I like the fact that we can simultaneously upload the virtual tapes to different cloud providers, and the settings can be adjusted to speed up the upload times even further."

"The most valuable feature of the StarWind Virtual Tape Library is the archiving to the AWS cloud."

"StarWind VTL allowed us to back up to virtual tape that was created within Veeam and upload the tape to the cloud."

"The solution made our backups way more reliable."

"It is a stable solution."

Cons

"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."

"I have not seen ROI."

"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."

"Its configuration should be easier."

"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."

"The solution is expensive."

"Compared to, for example, Hitachi NAS, the solution is not mature at all. It's just in its infancy as far as technology goes."

"We initially encountered challenges with the assembly process due to issues with the documentation required during setup, an area where Pure Storage needs improvement."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"The GUI is a bit old-fashioned. It should be updated."

"The initial setup could be simplified to make it easier for new users."

"User interface could be improved."

"Hardware and disk failures are happening frequently."

"It is a costly solution."

"The product is coming to end-of-life in the next three years."

"it would nice to have deduplication or compression, things that you have in some of the higher end products."

"The penalty for the availability is performance. So, you have to balance or choose between the availability and the performance."

More HPE StoreVirtual cons

"The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough."

"The initial installation can be complex and should be simplified."

"The main thing that I felt could be improved was having an estimated time of completion for the virtual tape uploads to the cloud."

"I am not sure if this is a limitation of my physical hardware or if it is the software itself. However, I would like the throughput to be faster."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"The price could be cheaper."

"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."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"The product is very expensive."

"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."

"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"For our organization, I believe the cost is 16,000 Euros for a three-year license. It costs a bit more to do the maintenance on our servers as well. It's also on an HP ProLiant server and an organization will need to do the maintenance there also. I believe the price for that is around 2000 Euros a year."

"If you buy a five-year license, not only does the technical support expire after five years, but you also lose the ability to change and expand the VSA, and the systems won't go down."

"One of the key features about it is that when you buy either a VSA license or a StoreVirtual appliance, all your software's included."

"Licensing is not exactly straightforward, but not the worst I have ever seen."

"The prices are OK, so we don't have much difficulty selling HPE in Brazil."

"It costs less than $10,000 for one machine. If it costs more than 15% higher than this, then the customer may change to another solution."

"The solution is cost-effective."

"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible to meet the needs of smaller to mid-market size companies."

"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."

"The initial setup and deployment are also covered in the purchase at no additional cost."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

25%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

21%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

11%

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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 do you like most about StarWind Virtual Tape Library?

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The solution made our backups way more reliable.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual Tape Library?

The pricing is surprisingly reasonable, and that includes the help to get it set up and running. They really want you...

What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual Tape Library?

I am not sure if this is a limitation of my physical hardware or if it is the software itself. However, I would like ...

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Product Reports

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

HPE StoreVirtual

Download HPE StoreVirtual product report

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

April 2025

Download StarWind Virtual Tape Library product report

Also Known As

No data available

HPE StoreVirtual, HPE VSA

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

HPE StoreVirtual storage ensures that organisations can optimise the benefits of server virtualisation with cost-effective high availability and disaster recovery. The iSCSI-based, scale-out storage platform is easy to manage and change – meeting ongoing business demands without creating IT bottlenecks or application downtime. Overcoming the cost and management limitations of traditional storage area networks (SANs), HPE StoreVirtual nodes use storage clustering to form a single pool of resources that enable organisations to buy only what they need today, scaling non-disruptively to meet requirements in the future.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

For SMB and Enterprises, who either look to get rid of backup tapes completely, or are willing to accelerate backup process and add an extra level of protection, our solution is StarWind Virtual Tape Library (VTL). It is an appliance that eliminates the need in physical tape and “pretends” to be a supported tape drive or autoloader, keeping all data on inexpensive, fast and high-capacity spinning disks.

Even with explosive data growth, StarWind VTL fits the backup into backup window by accelerating it, so the process does not overlap with production time. Optionally, it creates additional copy of backup data for better safety. It is also available in a software-only form, as part of StarWind VSAN functionality.

StarWind VTL targets those, who need to replace existing tape backup infrastructure or accelerate it if regulatory requirements prohibit replacement. In case the goal is just virtualizing tape backup or creating a stretched backup infrastructure, StarWind Tape Redirector will come in handy.

StarWind

Sample Customers

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

NBrIX, WIND Telecom, Netrics

Volvo, Sony, Samsung, Hitachi

HPE StoreVirtual vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library