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Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual Tape Library 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
231
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
Microsoft Storage Spaces Di...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (9th)
StarWind Virtual Tape Library
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (22nd), HCI (26th)
 

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.
Tomas Basus - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Professional at NIPOS
Optimized storage has supported high availability but performance and node limits still need work
The performance of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is challenging when trying to support both NVMe and SATA SSDs, and there are problems regarding performance that need to be addressed. I have found that performance is not as good as expected with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct. It is risky because of quorum; it is better in three nodes, but my budget only allows for two nodes, so I need to use a witness, which is not an optimal configuration. I am not using the automatic rebalancing feature that much in Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct. I have not utilized nested resiliency in my operations. I am using the most standard features available in Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct.
reviewer1414572 - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Director at University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics
Flexible and reliable with helpful support
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. Who would not like things to be faster? It would be nice if StarWind could come up with a best practice document for configuration. I had to do some playing around in my environment with test runs to get the configuration that really allowed for the maximum amount of throughput that I was going to get with the software. Once I had figured out what worked best, the solution was rather fast for backing up 30+ TB of data

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have integrated the solution with VMware, and the process was seamless."
"This is a very good product at a very good price, with very good support."
"I never have to worry about its performance or if it is the root cause of an issue."
"The performance is great."
"The zero latency and high IOPS utilization we observe with it are significantly better than other storage solutions."
"In comparison to the competitors, Pure is very price-competitive for the future functionality that it provides."
"The cost of Pure FlashArray is a bit high compared to peers, but its sustainability and features justify the price."
"The deduplication and compression meet all of our system requirements."
"The performance is immediately noticeable by end users of all our on-premise applications."
"Its technical support is excellent."
"One of the best things about Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is that it allows for optimized storage solutions and high availability, which is beneficial for managing workloads efficiently."
"The most valuable feature is that there is no single point of failure."
"The flash ability, in terms of tiering and caching, is amazing."
"Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct definitely has its advantages, especially with robustness and scalability."
"We chose Microsoft due to its simplicity, affordability, reliability and performance."
"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."
"The most valuable feature of the StarWind Virtual Tape Library is the archiving to the AWS cloud."
"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."
"We simply replicate our backups from Veeam to the virtual tape library that StarWind implements, while magically transporting those to B2 for our offsite backup requirements."
"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."
"The support that they provide is excellent, with 24 hours a day seven days a week support, and all the engineers and the support staff know the solution very well."
"It is a stable solution."
"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."
 

Cons

"The integration capabilities could be improved."
"Its price could be cheaper. It is not the cheapest one out there, but I'm not directly involved in the figures and negotiations."
"The interface lacks the same level of control as some other arrays I've used."
"We do have an issue with the vCenter integration. Pure Storage says it has a lot of free space, but vCenter says its completely full. This is because their dedupes are saved as space, but Vcenter still detects the disk as completely full. So, we do have an issue with that."
"I would prefer that they lower their pricing."
"I think replication is one area that still needs improvement. Earlier, Pure Storage FlashArray only had IP-based replication. There was no API-based replication, but they have enhanced the feature now. However, they need to work on API replication for C-type of arrays."
"The price of the Pure Storage Flash Array is too high and there needs to be more contract clarity."
"I wish they could collaborate more with the other vendors internally, instead of us opening cases with Cisco, HPE, VMware, etc."
"The main reason that we have not implemented this solution or put it into production is because of the pricing."
"Documentation management could be improved"
"The performance of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is challenging when trying to support both NVMe and SATA SSDs, and there are problems regarding performance that need to be addressed."
"More optimization could be done in terms of mirroring."
"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important 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."
"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."
"There is a lot of room for improvement. I would like to have more tools to monitor the function and problems."
"The initial installation can be complex and should be simplified."
"The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough."
"In practice, it is somewhat technical to deploy and manage, but overall it gets the job done."
"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

"The pricing is an issue. However, being all-flash, it will always be sort of expensive."
"FlashArray is expensive, but the quality justifies the price."
"We have seen a reduction in TCO."
"The solution is expensive."
"Pricing is very competitive, and it's better than other competitors."
"Pure is not a cheap product. It is not something that is inexpensive. But, the total cost of ownership tends to be lower than with other solutions, because you don't need a lot of expertise, you don't need a lot of training or very expensive engineers or very expensive consultants."
"Its price is almost double than any other flash storage solution."
"Pure Storage FlashArray is expensive."
"With the data center licensing and everything that is connected to that, this solution is relatively costly."
"Cost-wise the product is one of the more affordable within the category of products."
"The solution is expensive."
"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."
"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."
"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
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
No data available
 

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?
I find the pricing of Everpure FlashArray to be quite high compared to other storage solutions; however, the reliabil...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I believe we have covered the most important features; the architecture of Pure Storage is essential, and features su...
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?
Overall, I find the cost of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct to be affordable for the on-prem Windows pure solution, b...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?
The performance of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is challenging when trying to support both NVMe and SATA SSDs, and...
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Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
MS Storage Spaces Direct
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt
Volvo, Sony, Samsung, Hitachi
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.