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Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StorMagic SvSAN 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
4.6
Everpure Storage FlashArray enhances efficiency, reduces costs, and simplifies management, offering better performance, space utilization, and long-term savings.
Sentiment score
5.3
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct offers cost savings by enabling self-management, reducing fees, and providing long-term financial benefits.
Sentiment score
7.6
StorMagic SvSAN reduces costs by 60%, offering ROI of 40% over five years, saving $20-$30,000 annually.
In the long term, spanning three to five years, the total cost of ownership becomes cheaper, considering power consumption, data center footprint, and NVMe technology usage.
Works at a consultancy with self employed
Our current workload, particularly the SQL use case, would not be possible on mechanical storage, and the ease of use for the small team for the array is important for supporting that workload.
Consultant at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Pure Storage FlashArray integrates with APIs and other systems.
Senior Storage Engineer at Ensono
While our systems will be out of life in a few years, I believe that in that time, the payback from Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct will save us money on virtualization and storage costs, making it extremely beneficial after six years of use.
Senior Technical Support Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
I see some ROI in Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, such as saving time and money, and I estimate these savings to be about 30%.
IT Professional at NIPOS
StorMagic SvSAN helped us save around sixty percent on previous costs.
Global Data Center & Disaster Recovery Manager at Curium Pharma
With StorMagic, we calculate the return on investment to be about two years, compared to other solutions we could have adopted.
Information Technology Infrastructure Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
StorMagic SvSAN has delivered great benefits in overall cost-efficiency since it is an integral part of our complete solutions for clients.
Consultant at a transportation company with 1-10 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.2
Everpure Storage FlashArray's support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, despite occasional time zone and off-hours challenges.
Sentiment score
4.4
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct support varies; many prefer hardware brands' support over Microsoft's, finding frontline support sometimes inadequate.
Sentiment score
8.6
StorMagic SvSAN provides excellent 24/7 customer support with swift, knowledgeable assistance, ensuring high user satisfaction and smooth resolutions.
Pure's support organization is responsive with minimal bureaucracy, making support a key factor in customer retention.
Director of Engineering at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would rate the technical support an 11 out of 10.
Cyber Security Consultant at Jonkoping Energi AB
The support from Pure Storage is excellent.
Presales Engineer at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
There were issues that the Microsoft team could not pinpoint, leading to delays in finding solutions.
Senior Technical Support Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Microsoft focuses on Azure as a cloud service.
Solution architect at Netland
I rate them at a nine out of ten due to their prompt responses and effective solutions to our issues.
Global Data Center & Disaster Recovery Manager at Curium Pharma
They respond rapidly to support requests and provide assistance beyond their scope.
Consultant at a transportation company with 1-10 employees
StorMagic offers exemplary customer and technical support, ensuring excellent service and timely assistance that enhances my clients' experience.
Senior Solution Consultant at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Everpure Storage FlashArray offers scalable upgrades, seamless integration, and efficient performance, ideal for large-scale environments despite low-end model limitations.
Sentiment score
6.1
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct offers scalability and flexibility, though users report challenges with minimal node setups affecting stability.
Sentiment score
7.5
StorMagic SvSAN provides moderate scalability for edge environments, suitable for SMBs, with limitations in complex or large enterprises.
A big banking client had around 300 petabytes of data on Pure Storage.
Works at a consultancy with self employed
The solution is highly scalable, particularly when there is a need to expand capacity.
Lead Technical Architect at ePlus Technology, inc.
Theoretically, we can do controller upgrades and get into a larger chassis, but there was a limit to how far we could go without needing to do a full migration.
Consultant at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
The scalability of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct has been extremely good, allowing for both vertical and horizontal expansion.
Senior Technical Support Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
It has limitations; it's configured for eight servers per site but can be scaled to 16 servers.
Solution architect at Netland
The scalability of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is limited.
IT Professional at NIPOS
We can simply add more ESX hosts to a cluster and deploy additional controllers without any issues.
Global Data Center & Disaster Recovery Manager at Curium Pharma
StorMagic SvSAN is easy to scale.
Consultant at a transportation company with 1-10 employees
Scaling CPU and servers can be costly due to increased licensing fees beyond two nodes.
Senior Solution Consultant at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Everpure Storage FlashArray boasts high stability and consistent performance, with quick support for minor issues and seamless redundancy.
Sentiment score
6.0
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is stable with skilled management, but initial setup challenges require proper configuration and familiarity.
Sentiment score
8.8
StorMagic SvSAN offers excellent stability and efficiency, ensuring seamless performance with minimal maintenance and no downtime or data loss.
For stability, I rate it a ten out of ten.
Senior Storage Administrator at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
We have continuous 99.9% uptime and do not experience any users reporting performance issues due to latency.
Senior Storage Engineer at Ensono
The vision Pure Storage FlashArray offers through the GUI is clearer; we can discern the status, what is cabled, and how direct flash is enabled.
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct has been incredibly stable as long as it is configured correctly; incorrect configurations lead to surprises, which is common with any product.
Senior Technical Support Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Storage Spaces Direct is stable enough, however, there can be some glitches.
Solution architect at Netland
StorMagic SvSAN has demonstrated flawless stability over the past six years, with no reported downtime, bugs, or glitches.
Senior Solution Consultant at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
Its ability to seamlessly migrate running machines to another host during maintenance ensures uninterrupted operations and a transparent user experience.
Information Technology Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
The stability of StorMagic SvSAN is excellent.
Global Data Center & Disaster Recovery Manager at Curium Pharma
 

Room For Improvement

Pure Storage FlashArray requires improvements in offline tools, integrations, scalability, performance, analytics, cost, user control, and support.
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct requires improved management, integration, performance clarity, and better tools for monitoring and issue resolution.
StorMagic SvSAN's base version is limited in features, scalability, and usability, needing enhancements in security, management, and training.
Integrating object storage into the FlashArray would benefit entry-level and SMB customers by offering a more unified solution.
Lead Technical Architect at ePlus Technology, inc.
Storing cold data on expensive arrays doesn't make financial sense, and tiering to any of the big three cloud providers would be advantageous.
Director of Engineering at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
As a technical professional, I lack visibility into the system logs.
Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.
The licensing for Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct could be improved to be clearer, as calculating license requirements requires significant expertise; even Microsoft resources do not provide the full picture needed for licensing, leaving gaps that become evident once we move to deploy solutions.
Senior Technical Support Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
One year ago, I had a problem, and it was difficult to identify and solve due to a lack of tools.
Owner at Micronet Systems
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.
IT Professional at NIPOS
It would be beneficial to have a central place for configurations, similar to VMware vCenter.
Global Data Center & Disaster Recovery Manager at Curium Pharma
Ideally, the console should provide plugins or similar configuration options for seamless integration with these tools.
Consultant at a transportation company with 1-10 employees
Unauthorized access to the SvSAN server could cause significant damage.
Network Engineer at a legal firm with 201-500 employees
 

Setup Cost

Everpure Storage FlashArray offers high upfront costs justified by performance, ease of use, and inclusive licensing for enterprises.
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is cost-effective with Hyper-V integration, despite potential unexpected costs with Azure monitoring tools.
StorMagic SvSAN offers cost-efficient, flexible pricing, 20-30% lower than competitors, simplifying licensing by usable storage capacity, without SAN hardware costs.
They're expensive.
Director of Engineering at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
While they say it's free, we actually pay for support upfront.
Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.
Some smaller organizations may find it slightly expensive, but for enterprises, when considering performance, future hardware investments, and overall benefits, it is a very cost-effective solution for mid and enterprise organizations.
Senior Storage Engineer at Ensono
I find the Azure Local to be a bit expensive, especially due to hidden costs associated with additional tools needed for monitoring and alerting.
Senior Technical Support Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Pricing is an advantage of Storage Spaces Direct.
Solution architect at Netland
The pricing model, based on the usable storage capacity, is simple and predictable.
Global Data Center & Disaster Recovery Manager at Curium Pharma
I would rate the cost a one out of ten with ten being the most costly.
Consultant at a transportation company with 1-10 employees
Choosing the maximum capacity proved cost-effective, especially compared to alternatives like VMware vSAN, which would have been significantly more expensive based on VCP cores.
Network Engineer at a legal firm with 201-500 employees
 

Valuable Features

Everpure Storage FlashArray offers ease of use, speed, reliability, seamless upgrades, data reduction, and integration, enhancing performance and efficiency.
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct offers high performance, redundancy, and reliability with seamless integration into Windows Data Center and cost-effectiveness.
StorMagic SvSAN offers high availability, easy integration, quick setup, and cost-effectiveness with only two servers required.
FlashArray's integration with the Pure One instrument provides a centralized platform for efficient management of all arrays.
Presales Engineer at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Another noteworthy aspect is their platform, Pure One, a cloud-based analytics platform that automatically creates a case and sends out a part if a disk or controller fails.
Lead Technical Architect at ePlus Technology, inc.
It handles internal data migration seamlessly in the background without going offline, achieving a hundred percent uptime.
Director of Engineering at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The redundancy and fault tolerance features of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct have helped maintain data integrity and availability in my company by providing multiple copies through three-way mirroring, delivering hardware performance needed for our applications, which is crucial.
Senior Technical Support Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
For caching, I use disks with more total bits written, which protects the main storage because writes are combined.
Owner at Micronet Systems
The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct.
Solution architect at Netland
I am able to bring fully functional virtual infrastructure in a matter of two hours with StorMagic SvSAN, compared to other technologies that are very complex.
Global Data Center & Disaster Recovery Manager at Curium Pharma
For our solution in production plants, stability is crucial.
Information Technology Infrastructure Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
StorMagic engineers were very helpful in setting up the system, remoting into our system to assist, which was very beneficial.
IT Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
211
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
Microsoft Storage Spaces Di...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (8th)
StorMagic SvSAN
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (4th), HCI (7th)
 

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.
reviewer2588997 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Support Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Solution delivers impressive speed and performance with room for better management tool integration
Microsoft should improve the management aspect of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, as we have raised multiple recommendations but they often refer us to use Microsoft Arc instead of Windows Admin Center. The licensing for Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct could be improved to be clearer, as calculating license requirements requires significant expertise; even Microsoft resources do not provide the full picture needed for licensing, leaving gaps that become evident once we move to deploy solutions. Improving the Windows Admin Center to be more stable with alert notifications and management capabilities for Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct would greatly benefit users, as we have not seen any recent product updates since the announcements last November.
reviewer2619357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Provides immediate benefits after deployment
StorMagic SvSAN is flexible and easy to use. It is compatible with various hardware, including Cisco, HP, Lenovo, and Supermicro. The company is also flexible with its recommended specifications, allowing users to exceed them without issue. I have not encountered any problems with StorMagic SvSAN on any hardware vendor I have tried. The cost of hardware required for StorMagic SvSAN is significantly lower than that of competitive solutions. Their licensing model, based on storage usage, offers flexibility and affordability. For instance, we utilize a two-terabyte license. Overall, StorMagic SvSAN's pricing is comparable to, if not more affordable than other options. StorMagic SvSAN supports various storage types and brands within a cluster, accommodating past and current technologies. Over the years, we've transitioned from traditional spinning disks to SSDs and now utilize NVMe SSDs, with StorMagic seamlessly supporting each upgrade. While faster drives inherently deliver better performance, StorMagic has consistently functioned without issue across a range of drive types and brands. Hardware flexibility is as crucial as cost, especially for a smaller company like ours that needs to adapt quickly. With hardware frequently changing, upgrading, and involving different vendors, maintaining flexibility and consistency is essential. Having a solution that works the same way across all vendors, whether it's Cisco or HP, significantly benefits our small support team. Witness effortlessly manages up to 1,000 SvSAN clusters. While we haven't personally utilized that many, it has effectively handled our multiple clusters without issue. The software's hardware requirements are very flexible. It reportedly runs on platforms as small as a Raspberry Pi. We currently operate it on a small HP desktop computer with excellent results, and it scales seamlessly with the rest of our system. The primary advantage is its two-host architecture, requiring only two hosts plus a Witness for full functionality. This contrasts with competitors who necessitate three hosts, significantly increasing costs. Avoiding the need for a third host translates to substantial savings, estimated at $20,000. Although StoreMagic's costs remain high, the ability to eliminate a host and its associated expenses results in considerable cost savings. This Edge Control provides a simple, visually appealing dashboard for easy administration of all clusters. The well-designed interface ensures clear and understandable cluster management. It provides immediate benefits after deployment. StorMagic SvSAN significantly reduces downtime in our environment by allowing us to perform maintenance or system updates without disrupting user access. With SvSAN, we can seamlessly switch all running machines to a secondary machine, ensuring continuous operation and eliminating noticeable downtime for end-users. This has resulted in substantial savings on maintenance costs and provided peace of mind regarding system reliability. StorMagic SvSAN helped us save costs by eliminating needing a third witness host. Their pricing has remained relatively consistent over the past ten years, with only a modest increase of about 10 to 15 percent. Despite this, their pricing is still very competitive, and they have been proactive in helping us find ways to save money. While I would always like to see even more cost savings, I understand that they need to make a profit as well. We've likely saved 30 to 40 percent annually by using StoreMagic, simply due to the cost reductions in hosting and maintenance time across multiple sites. StorMagic SvSAN provides a hyperconverged high-availability solution with enterprise functionality, and that is all we use it for.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Healthcare Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business63
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise143
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise8
 

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 don't really know much about the pricing for Pure Storage FlashArray in terms of the absolute cost. Regarding Everg...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Despite liking Pure Storage FlashArray, there is room for improvement in automation. Pure Storage FlashArray needs to...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StorMagic SvSAN?
I find the pricing moderate. However, since some features should be given in the default price, I find it a little bi...
What needs improvement with StorMagic SvSAN?
Some advanced features feel like they should be included by default, which are paid. The scalability is a bit limited...
What is your primary use case for StorMagic SvSAN?
I use StorMagic SvSAN for the virtualization of my storage. I mainly use it for the high availability at the small an...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
MS Storage Spaces Direct
StorMagic
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt
Sheetz Inc., Giant Eagle, RWE Renewables, Keiser Corp., TDK, Oxford University, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Rommelsbacher, Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Resort, Eugen Forschner GmbH
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. StorMagic SvSAN and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.