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IBM Cloud Object Storage vs VMware vSAN comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.3
Number of Reviews
217
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
IBM Cloud Object Storage
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (12th)
VMware vSAN
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
234
Ranking in other categories
HCI (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

File and Object Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Cloud Object Storage1.4%
MinIO12.9%
Red Hat Ceph Storage12.7%
Other73.0%
File and Object Storage
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware vSAN8.9%
VxRail10.6%
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.2%
Other71.3%
HCI
 

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.
reviewer2384904 - PeerSpot reviewer
Account Technology Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Enables seamless data replication and supports comprehensive data analytics workflows
The capability to replicate data in different locations is valuable since it enables customers to have a cluster over various sites. Also, important is the capability to provide RESTful APIs for custom connectors. In terms of security, I advise customers to rotate access keys to enhance protection. Additionally, scalability is effortless as you can add nodes or expand the license.
ShyamikaThamel - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Tech Specialists at Seatrium
Managing mixed RAID workloads has improved data protection and delivers strong performance
VMware vSAN can be improved in certain areas. In cases involving our large data stores with large VMs, we experience some latency, not during normal operation, but during database backup operations. We observed latency due to buffer issues from the top-of-the-rack switches. These issues are mostly network-related because all storage data traffic travels through the network. I have recently used Nutanix, and I observed that Nutanix provides better performance than VMware vSAN due to its data locality features. VMware vSAN is now providing data locality, but we did not use that option. If VMware vSAN provides additional features in the next release, such as the VM balancing feature called DRS on the cluster that VMware previously had, it would be beneficial. With DRS, VMs can move easily from one node to another within the same cluster. Nutanix does not provide that flexibility. When placing a VM on a cluster in Nutanix, the placement uses a balancing component. After that, the VM remains on the same host. If any contention occurs on the CPU or memory side, the VM stays in place until contention happens. If issues occur, the VM migrates to another host while transferring all objects to the same host. This is how their data locality is maintained. When a VM moves to any host, it moves with all VM objects. VMware vSAN does not currently offer this option. If a VM moves to another host, it accesses the disk object through the network, which increases latency. VMware vSAN now offers an option to select data locality, but it does not function like Nutanix. This is why some latency remains. If VMware vSAN can improve this feature, it would be very helpful and VMware would regain its top position.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The job of support for the storage engineers dramatically changed. We know more quickly the automation of the provisioning. We can now focus on things that bring more value to the company than just managing storage."
"The pricing of the product is very competitive to others in the market for Flash and NVMe storage, and from an ROI standpoint, if you consider compression and de-duplication and all that, you get a pretty good ratio."
"The support team is available all the time and they seem to know what they are doing."
"Provides fast access and is user-friendly."
"Pure Storage FlashArray offers numerous valuable features, such as low latency and high throughput."
"It helps us maintain uptime much better than other solutions we've used in the past, and the support is extremely quick and responsive."
"Very efficient storage"
"It makes things ten times easier."
"IBM has the most number of additional services, this is the main advantage."
"The most valuable feature I like is when you connect it via CLI plug-in...It is a stable solution."
"Overall, I rate IBM Cloud Object Storage a ten out of ten."
"The standout feature of IBM Cloud Object Storage is its top-notch security, making it ideal for sensitive applications like mobile financial transactions."
"IBM has the most number of additional services, this is the main advantage."
"IBM Cloud Object Storage integrates well."
"IBM Cloud Object Storage integrates well."
"The integration itself is pretty easy. The access appliances create the connection between both environments."
"Any seasoned VMware engineer can easily manage the whole vSAN without any issues."
"It is more stable now than it was before. It's not like it was in the first year. Now it is stable, and we trust it more."
"Using vSAN, you can use the same servers as the hypervisor uses for the vSAN storage, so no SAN or NAS is needed and much less hardware is needed to provide the same HA solution."
"Some of the valuable features of this product are: Software-defined class which is one of the building blocks for SDDC, flexible as it scales as and when needed, simple as it is easy to manage, and high performance as the local server can access data at full speed with low latency in SSD, while the absence of network-attached storage appliances lowers infrastructure cost."
"The solution makes management very easy."
"The mobility, flexibility, and scalability are really amazing and astonishing features."
"It has a single pane of glass for management and operational control, which is the most valuable feature."
"The main advantage is that it's all in the box, with VMware vCenter Server product."
 

Cons

"The solution could improve by having a multi-tenant feature."
"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."
"Just some nit picky stuff, like allowing servers and volumes to be grouped. Therefore, it would easier to work with them in the GUI."
"We would like more extended historical data to help with some of the capacity planning. This is something that we are asking for all the time. E.g., what was the historical performance of this particular volume? So, we would like more historicals."
"Based on my experience with various technologies like EMC, NetApp, and Pure Storage, one area for improvement is compliance certifications. NetApp excels in this area, particularly in the American Army or defense sector, where NetApp has approval, whereas others are striving to achieve the same. NetApp also delivers security, ransomware protection, and scale-up capabilities more effectively."
"We did have one hiccup with the integration of vCenter. When we were installing Pure Storage, we were using vCenter 6.7, which defaults to the HTML5 Web Client."
"One thing I'd like to see in a future release is integration between their main storage array and what they call their FlashBlade product; to be able to snapshot directly from the primary array into multiple different backup copies on FlashBlade."
"I can't see where they can make anything better, unless, of course, they lower their prices even more."
"IBM Cloud storage is not cheap, but it could be."
"Sometimes technical support lacks a comprehensive understanding of the entire solution, only focusing on the product they support."
"One area where IBM Cloud Object Storage could potentially improve is in modernizing its underlying codebase."
"If I had to choose one area, it would be making the consoles more intuitive would be helpful. Sometimes, they can be a little complicated if you're not familiar with them."
"The performance could be better. You can never achieve the same performance as hardware, and cloud performance is one of the main issues clients have."
"The performance could improve in IBM Cloud Object Storage. The throughput or objects per second can have degradation."
"The performance could be better. It isn't bad, but everything is network-based, so you have a performance penalty on the network. You can never achieve the same performance as hardware. That's the disadvantage of cloud storage solutions in general. Cloud performance is one of the main issues clients have."
"Room for improvement depends on customer needs. Some customers prefer pure Object Storage using the S3 protocol, while others use a gateway in front of the storage grid to enable CIFS or NFS."
"Hardware compatibility needs to be increased to be able to use more RAID controllers available on the market."
"There are certain shortcomings in the stability of the product where improvements are required."
"While I like the replication and compression features, there is a problem with them running too slowly."
"I lose a node in a cluster vSAN, which is also used as a cluster HA. I lose not only the storage part, which is not necessarily serious (depending on the configuration of the vSAN cluster), but on the other hand, I lose also a node of Compute, which can make things complicated quickly."
"Dedupe in non flash drives can be improved."
"I would like to see improvement in monitoring and performance statistics."
"Troubleshooting tools could be improved."
"Based on my testing, I would like to expand deduplication to include hybrid deployments and not just for all-flash deployments."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"The price-to-performance is good. I looked at Pure about three to four years back, but the price-to-performance wasn't right for us. Now, it's right."
"Pure has been flexible with us on the pricing models."
"We are finding the TCO of flash to be lower than SSD implementations."
"It is not the cheapest one out there. We're paying yearly, but I'm not 100% sure."
"We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO)."
"The cost was initially high, but once more people were using it, the costs came down. This was because the University was reselling it to other departments."
"The pricing is an issue. However, being all-flash, it will always be sort of expensive."
"You have the option of a monthly or yearly license. Most customers choose the monthly option. I understand what you would like to say. IBM also lets you choose among four types of Cloud Object Storage. The difference is usage, performance, etc. Of course, high-performance storage is more expensive, while low-performance storage is for cold data, and it's really cheap."
"Like most cloud providers, IBM likely charges based on storage capacity, typically per gigabyte or terabyte. Their pricing is competitive when compared to AWS or Microsoft."
"IBM Cloud is cheaper than AWS. If you want to scale your cloud infrastructure, it can be bought at almost the same price."
"Pricing is not cheap."
"We have increased our user productivity."
"ROI from an administrative perspective is clearly much better because I only have to deal with one user interface."
"If they could reduce the cost, it would be better. Licensing costs are something that they could take care of. If you are a smaller and strong IT team, then VMware vSAN is a very good product. If you want to expand in the service provider space, then you will have to go for an open-source solution like OpenStack. We are now looking at OpenStack because we sell licensing costs. We are a service provider, so the IT component data is a substantial component in our overall costing. We feel that OpenStack might help us to cut down the licensing cost. Therefore, we are looking at SAS storage instead of vSAN. SAS is open source, but it is not wise to have open source without having the backend support. We are using RedHat SAS, and it is an open-source solution. You can also have a free version, but we are using it with support from RedHat so that we have somebody to back us up in case we have a problem. If you do normal business, then IT expense is 1% or 2% of the total turnover. The higher licensing costs sometimes don't make difference to the big companies who are not service providers and are using it only for their internal use. For them, the IT cost is 1% or 2%, but for an IT service provider, the IT costs will go up to 15% to 16% of the total cost of the operations. This is where the licensing costs become irrelevant. For example, the licensing cost of using VMware, VC, and vSAN is 8% of my monthly revenue. Every month, I pay about $35,000, and, with the revised plan, it will be something like $50,000 or revenue of 600k per month, which means almost 8% of the revenue is going into VMware licensing. In a very competitive world, 8% as a cost element is huge. So, if I can bring it down to 2%, I save 6% in revenue expenditure. In terms of profit, 6% of 30% is something like another 25% increase in my profit. My profit can be almost 25%. It would be 20% to 25% in case I am able to handle the licensing costs and bring them to a very low level. Because these IT costs are substantial for us, that is why we are going with OpenStack. OpenStack has a limitation that it requires more hardware. There will be some increase in the hardware cost, but overall we will save 5% to 6% of our licensing cost by using OpenStack."
"This solution requires the purchase of a license."
"We did consider other hyperconverged solutions. It usually came down to price. vSan was the most cost effective thing."
"vSAN has many versions with standard and advanced including Enterprise and Enterprise Plus. Regarding the Enterprise and the Advanced, it could be lower."
"If you compare the price of VMware vSAN with other players like Nutanix and Cisco, its price is good, but could still have some improvement."
"The solution requires a license. The payment is on a yearly basis and It is not overly expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
8%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business65
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise151
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business100
Midsize Enterprise58
Large Enterprise129
 

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?
The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...
What needs improvement with IBM Cloud Object Storage?
The interface can feel clunky and outdated compared to AWS S3 or Azure Blob Storage. While scalable, latency can be...
What is your primary use case for IBM Cloud Object Storage?
I do not use IBM Cloud Object Storage directly, but I was part of a consultancy company that managed it. During my pr...
What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?
While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an e...
How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?
HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We resea...
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...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
Cleversafe
vSAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Bitly, Dreamstime, Prime Research
Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cloud Object Storage vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.