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Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Veritas Access 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:
 

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)
Veritas Access
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (23rd)
 

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.
Jayson Martin - PeerSpot reviewer
Head IT Data Storage at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Provides seamless integration within the existing infrastructure and has an easy deployment process
We leverage Veritas Access for efficient management of our extensive unstructured data. Its cost-effectiveness, notably providing the lowest cost per terabyte, has influenced our decision to use it for extended data retention periods. We aim to minimize yearly expenditure on capacity while ensuring high-performance levels. Despite focusing on long-term retention, it enables direct and efficient data recovery from the client, ensuring that accessibility is maintained. The most essential feature of Veritas Access for our storage needs is its support for both block and object storage. The data tiering capability of Veritas Access has had a positive impact on our storage efficiency by preventing unnecessary expenditures on capacity, especially in terms of backup operations. It provides seamless integration within the existing infrastructure. It helps us meet compliance and data retention requirements, particularly from an insurer's perspective. I rate the product a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Reliability and performance are its most valuable feature."
"Pure gives us better compression, it's easier to manage, a lot less hands-on, and the biggest selling point for me was the replacement of the hardware, the controllers, without any major expense to the clinic."
"Its ease of use is a very big thing for our customers; it's easy to set up and easy to maintain, and the support is automated, which is very good."
"It worked flawlessly."
"We consume less physical storage because of the solution’s deduplication and compression."
"Compared to Unity, these arrays offer significant advantages, such as NVMe technology and higher IOPS."
"Pure support is very proactive, they monitor our infrastructure in real-time, so they respond before we even open a ticket."
"One feature that's particularly valuable for our finance customers is Pure Storage's safe mode. It protects against ransomware attacks by taking snapshots. Our customers were very impressed with this capability. The data reduction is also impressive compared to other providers."
"For an on-prem campus, it has been fine."
"The most valuable feature is that there is no single point of failure."
"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."
"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 flash ability, in terms of tiering and caching, is amazing."
"In terms of reliability, scalability, performance, security and so forth, it is definitely very good."
"We chose Microsoft due to its simplicity, affordability, reliability and performance."
"It's mainly about the storage expansion, like in hyper-converged solutions."
"The product deployment is easy."
"This solution is stable and has good performance."
"Veritas Access is user-friendly and the NAS and SAN volumes are valuable."
"It has a huge deduplication ratio for backups of long-term archives."
 

Cons

"The main disadvantage of Pure Storage FlashArray is the price."
"The only thing is that we've had to upgrade controllers a few times because we ended up wanting to use more stuff on here."
"Some of the issues are that it's probably not on a par with other large storage enterprise type products."
"A three wave application or multi wave application synchronization would be an improvement."
"I wish they could add more of a monitor on the machine itself so you don't have to rely on a KVM or something to look at the display, such as an onboard diagnostic display."
"We haven't seen ROI yet."
"I would like to see support for NVMe, end-to-end."
"The connectivity needs improvement. You do not have the possibility to have a file and block connectivity at the same time on the same machine. It has limited ability to do so."
"The management tool within this solution could be improved. We would also like to be able to access services like Azure when using this solution."
"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."
"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."
"It is difficult to get a hardware compatibility certification for the solution."
"Microsoft's frontline support is not adequate if you rely on this for your business."
"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."
"There is a lot of room for improvement. I would like to have more tools to monitor the function and problems."
"Documentation management could be improved"
"I would like to see Veritas Access included as an S3 target."
"They could improve additional fees for the platform's data capacity. It could be more cost-effective."
"The downtime of Veritas Access could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is very attractive and it delivers performance for the money."
"Dell and Pure Storage offer competitive pricing, but Pure Storage might have a slight advantage."
"I have had a couple of customers who have complained about the cost. It can be a little more expensive than some of the other platforms. After it has been installed, I have never had a customer say, "I wish we wouldn't have spent all that extra money." They have always been happy with the product after it has been installed. They might be on the fence about it because of the price, but everybody who I have ever seen install it, they are always happy with it."
"Cost-wise, it's been very effective."
"I think that the pricing is less expensive compared to other standard products in the market today. Even the support contract and maintenance services cost less when compared to market-leading products like EMC."
"Pricing is moderate. It is neither cheap nor expensive."
"You can pay extra for Evergreen support, which gives you free upgrades when new features are introduced."
"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."
"With the data center licensing and everything that is connected to that, this solution is relatively costly."
"The solution is expensive."
"Cost-wise the product is one of the more affordable within the category of products."
"This product is not cheap. The only extra cost is the licensing."
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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%
No data available
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Veritas Access and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.