Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

Microsoft and StarWind are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Microsoft is ranked #9 with an average rating of 7.8, while StarWind is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.4. Microsoft holds a 7.4% mindshare in SDS, compared to StarWind’s 6.4% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

StarWind Virtual SAN and Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct are two leading solutions in the hyper-converged infrastructure space, both competing to provide efficient storage virtualization. StarWind seems to have the upper hand in terms of user satisfaction with a simpler setup, while Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct offers strong integration with Hyper-V but may be more complex to configure.

Features: StarWind Virtual SAN is praised for its active-active high availability, interoperability across various platforms, and ease of use. Users appreciate its performance, reliability, and support. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is known for its robust integration with Hyper-V environments, providing a seamless experience for Windows Server users.

Room for Improvement: Users of StarWind Virtual SAN suggest improvements in documentation, the addition of more intuitive monitoring tools, and automation simplifications for tasks like iSCSI management. The need for a web-based management interface is also mentioned. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct could benefit from better integration transparency, improved hardware compatibility verification, and a more intuitive graphical user interface, as reflected in user feedback.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: StarWind Virtual SAN is valued for its straightforward deployment in both on-premises and private cloud environments, complemented by proactive technical support and comprehensive setup guidance. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, although offering strong performance post-deployment, tends to require more advanced technical expertise during the installation and configuration processes, particularly in hybrid setups.

Pricing and ROI: StarWind Virtual SAN is recognized for its cost-effectiveness, competitive pricing, and favorable licensing model, providing ROI through efficient use of existing hardware and minimal setup costs. In contrast, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, despite being integrated into Windows Server licensing, often incurs higher operational costs due to hardware requirements and the potential need for advanced technical support.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. StarWind Virtual SAN Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

July 2025

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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 August 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.4%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is 7.4%, up from 7.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 6.4%, down from 8.8% 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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Stanislaw Mielicki

Solution architect at Netland

Achieve cost-effectiveness with superior performance while needing to address cluster support

I am working with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct for applications, SQL, and VRS. I am an integrator for this solution The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct. They introduced the All-Flash array using SSD or NVMe drives without cache drives. It is…

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Vladimir Simion

Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer

Achieving seamless cost-saving implementation with exceptional support

The best features that StarWind Virtual SAN offers include the price because comparing to other virtual SAN solutions, this one is the best, and it also has a great support team behind it. My experience with their support has been positive, as their guides regarding the integration are very useful. They have some awesome guides online that show you exactly how to configure the product, how to do the initial setup, and you can speak with them directly. They will be able to connect and verify your setup, run its parameters and see exactly what's working and what is not, and they really help you with that. StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization and my customer through initial cost saving. They use this product in a dark site, so I'm not able to provide any additional details about this, but they were really glad about it, they're still using it, and they asked for extending the capacity for it and the support. They really want to use it and are enjoying using it.

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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

"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."

"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."

"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."

"The most valuable features are the Metro clustering, and disaster recovery."

"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."

"It performs well and it is also very fast."

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

"It has also helped to simplify storage for us in the way that it's easy to manage. Their automatic monitoring really helps when things break or are about to break. They see a problem coming and alert us even before our own system does."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The performance, reliability, and affordability has been most valuable."

"The most valuable feature are the caching capabilities using the storage class memory."

"It's mainly about the storage expansion, like in hyper-converged solutions."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"The most valuable feature is that there is no single point of failure."

"Its technical support is excellent."

"The flash ability, in terms of tiering and caching, is amazing"

"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct pros

"StarWind allowed us to deploy highly available shared storage within our budget."

"The ability to choose our own hardware and our own vendors for this was hugely beneficial, as we had pre-existing relationships with vendors we wanted to maintain."

"Their support staff is comprised of true experts who can also communicate clearly."

"Integration with virtualization platforms helped us to resolve many issues we were facing while using the physical storage."

"The best feature is its ease of installation and integration within a current infrastructure."

"The management interface on the software is very simple. It is insanely simple compared to most SANs. The interface is also powerful when used to complete tasks that an IT administrator needs to complete."

"Starwind support is excellent. They are very fast and have very good knowledge of Starwind and Hyper-V Cluster software."

"We have experienced multiple hardware failures at one site and the fault-tolerant volume worked exactly as expected with zero downtime."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

Cons

"In terms of scalability, it doesn't expand out quite as robustly as some of the others, but it covers 90% of the market in what it does."

"Its configuration should be easier."

"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."

"I would like to see more deduplication."

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

"Recently, while upgrading the version code, one of the controllers failed. Replacing the controller took between 14 to 20 days."

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

"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"I think the online documentation needs a lot of work and so do the sizing tools."

"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."

"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."

"More optimization could be done in terms of mirroring."

"Documentation management could be improved"

"It is difficult to get a hardware compatibility certification for the solution."

"On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the customer service and technical support of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct a three, as there were issues that the Microsoft team could not pinpoint, leading to delays in finding solutions."

"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct cons

"It would be nice to add the ability to use raw partitions instead of file containers."

"The main thing I would like to see improved is the level of documentation."

"I'm sure it needs bug fixes..."

"We would like to see the documentation more fully developed."

"StarWind really needs to market its product more."

"Some of the documentation seems to be a bit older and refers to deprecated items."

"In the next release, Starwind should include enhanced integration with cloud services for more seamless hybrid cloud operations. Advanced analytics and reporting tools would improve monitoring and decision-making."

"You have to do a "full" sync on write-back cache disks instead of a quick sync if there is an issue."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."

"The price is a little high."

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

"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."

"The product is very expensive."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"Cost-wise the product is one of the more affordable within the category of products."

"The solution is expensive."

"With the data center licensing and everything that is connected to that, this solution is relatively costly."

"The cost, including OPEX, is lower compared to other solutions."

"I think the cost of this solution is quite fair."

"If you are looking at a traditional SAN for a small cluster, give StarWind vSAN because you will save thousands without any compromise."

"We evaluated other options and this one was the most cost-effective."

"Cost is affordable and licensing is smooth."

"Licensing is easy and the whole package is cost-effective."

"This is the best priced solution for an SMB."

"I think the bang for the buck is much better with StarWind Virtual SAN."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...

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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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

Overall, I find the cost of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct to be affordable for the on-prem Windows pure solution, b...

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What needs improvement with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

Microsoft should improve the management aspect of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, as we have raised multiple recomme...

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What do you like most about StarWind Virtual SAN?

It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combin...

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

I had experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing through using the free version of StarWind Virtual SAN for t...

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What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

One area for improvement regarding StarWind Virtual SAN is the lack of a full-feature trial. At the time I tested it,...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 19% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

VMware vSAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 59% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 16% of the time

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 7% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 4% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct Competitors

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 24% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 16% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 14% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 10% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 5% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

August 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

August 2025

Download Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

July 2025

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Also Known As

No data available

MS Storage Spaces Direct

StarWind SAN & NAS

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

Storage Spaces Direct uses industry-standard servers with local-attached drives to create highly available, highly scalable software-defined storage at a fraction of the cost of traditional SAN or NAS arrays. Its converged or hyper-converged architecture radically simplifies procurement and deployment, while features like caching, storage tiers, and erasure coding, together with the latest hardware innovation like RDMA networking and NVMe drives, deliver unrivaled efficiency and performance.

Microsoft

StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments without the need for dedicated SAN hardware. It allows for real-time replication between servers, shared storage for Hyper-V clusters, and enables vMotion and High Availability features for VMware vSphere. The solution reduces costs and leverages existing hardware while providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure. Valuable features include ease of use, scalability, top-tier support, hardware agnosticism, and the ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space. StarWind VSAN has helped organizations improve performance, data availability, and data security while reducing downtime and providing cost-saving storage options.

StarWind

Sample Customers

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

Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

July 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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