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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

"If you need a high-performance storage appliance that is easy to install and maintain, you pretty much can't go wrong."
"The performance of the storage is just unbelievable."
"Technical support is very good."
"Pure Storage has been the go-to storage array for me; it's a lot smaller, easier to set up, faster to upgrade, more reliable, and the performance is very stable."
"Technical support is good."
"Pure is simple to set up and manage on a day-to-day basis."
"After moving to Pure Storage, I have noticed that our databases are considerably faster and our performance has improved by at least four times."
"It has improved the way our organization functions by improving the resilience of our infrastructure by quite a bit."
"We chose Microsoft due to its simplicity, affordability, reliability and performance."
"It's mainly about the storage expansion, like in hyper-converged solutions."
"The most valuable feature are the caching capabilities using the storage class memory."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The performance is immediately noticeable by end users of all our on-premise applications."
"The main positive impact that Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct has had on my company over the years is increasing performance; our checks show it is three times faster than VMware, making us extremely happy and motivated to keep using it."
"Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct definitely has its advantages, especially with robustness and scalability."
"The main advantages are price and performance, and I am happy with the combination."
"This solution is stable and has good performance."
"It has a huge deduplication ratio for backups of long-term archives."
"Veritas Access is user-friendly and the NAS and SAN volumes are valuable."
"The product deployment is easy."
 

Cons

"There was some complexity in the initial setup."
"I would like to see them lower the costs."
"The credentials on the iSCSI interface are only available to type in with the Chrome browser, and not with the Firefox browser."
"Some services could be inserted directly into the SAN, so Pure Storage could complete with the HyperFlex."
"We have not seen a reduction in our TCO nor have we seen ROI."
"In Pure Storage FlashArray, the area with room for improvement is local MFA login."
"A year ago they promised that they would be able to read through the database encryption with more metric and they have not delivered on that patch, which is significant because it gives us back so much more storage room. We want to be able to read through the encryption."
"If we suddenly dump large amounts of data onto the storage system, it takes a while to process it."
"The reason why this product is not being widely accepted by the public is that it doesn't include intuitive streamline, which makes it far from complete."
"Microsoft's frontline support is not adequate if you rely on this for your business."
"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."
"I think the online documentation needs a lot of work and so do the sizing tools."
"The main reason that we have not implemented this solution or put it into production is because of the pricing."
"There is a lot of room for improvement. I would like to have more tools to monitor the function and problems."
"It is scalable, but only beyond two nodes. If I go for two nodes it's not scalable. I need to build a complete cluster from the beginning if I'm going for two nodes."
"More optimization could be done in terms of mirroring."
"The downtime of Veritas Access 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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership."
"My organization has a yearly license, but I believe that Pure Storage FlashArray has capacity-based licenses as well. I'm definitely happy with the pricing."
"We consume it as a service, and that's actually something we really like, or at least I really like from the technical perspective. That's because it means there is no hassle when we need to upgrade arrays to add capacity. We just interact directly with technical counterparts, and we say, "Hey, we're filling up," and they say, "All right, here's another data pack." They ship it in, and we install it. So, the as-a-service model has worked very well. Given the outstanding data reduction rates, it has improved our profitability because we're selling allocated volumes as part of the cloud service or recovering those costs from our tenants. It is very efficient, but that has offset the premium price. It started out that way, but over time, as we've added capacity, the price per gig has gone down a lot because we have a lot of it."
"The guaranty that Pure Storage provides when you purchase it doesn't meet the overall capacity needs to provide extra storage, if needed. Thus, it is not meeting our expectations."
"We are finding the TCO of flash to be lower than SSD implementations."
"I don't know the exact cost but it's around $1,000."
"No storage device is cheap, but Pure Storage is fairly priced and offers what you pay for. You get all the licenses in the future when you purchase a license."
"Dell and Pure Storage offer competitive pricing, but Pure Storage might have a slight advantage."
"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."
"This product is not cheap. The only extra cost is the licensing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
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: June 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.