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Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance comparison

Red Hat and StarWind are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Red Hat is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.8, while StarWind is ranked #11 with an average rating of 10.0. Red Hat holds a 18.4% mindshare in SDS, compared to StarWind’s 2.2% mindshare. Additionally, 82% of Red Hat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of StarWind users who would recommend it.
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Pure Storage FlashBlade
Read 38 Pure Storage FlashBlade reviews
  • 4,959 Views
  • 744 Comparison Views
94% willing to recommend
Red Hat Ceph Storage
Read 27 Red Hat Ceph Storage reviews
  • 14,192 Views
  • 2,980 Comparison Views
82% willing to recommend
StarWind HyperConverged App...
Read 66 StarWind HyperConverged Appliance reviews
  • 1,501 Views
  • 796 Comparison Views
98% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Red Hat Ceph Storage and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance are competing in the data storage and management category. StarWind seems to have the upper hand with its efficient storage management, ease of operation, and superior deployment model.

Features: Red Hat Ceph Storage provides integration with OpenStack services, high availability, and a single solution for managing the entire infrastructure. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance offers high availability in a small setup, ease of management through a single console, and flexibility to deploy without specific hardware requirements.

Room for Improvement: Red Hat Ceph Storage could enhance its deployment ease, reduce initial setup complexity, and streamline customer support responsiveness. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance might benefit from improving its integration capabilities with diverse platforms, expanding its feature flexibility beyond existing hardware, and refining its support documentation for broader audiences.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Red Hat Ceph Storage provides comprehensive documentation and training resources for deployment but may be seen as requiring more effort in initial setup. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance focuses on a streamlined process, offering personalized customer support which enhances the user experience throughout deployment.

Pricing and ROI: Red Hat Ceph Storage, while having a higher initial cost, offers substantial ROI through long-term scalability. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is noted for its cost-effectiveness, providing a fast ROI due to relatively lower setup costs and immediate operational efficiency.

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To learn more, read our detailed Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Report (Updated: September 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance
September 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
Sponsored
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (15th), File and Object Storage (8th)
Red Hat Ceph Storage
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (1st)
StarWind HyperConverged App...
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
11th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
HCI (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.1%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ceph Storage is 18.4%, down from 20.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is 2.2%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Red Hat Ceph Storage18.4%
Pure Storage FlashBlade4.1%
StarWind HyperConverged Appliance2.2%
Other75.3%
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

Parul-Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
High performance and throughput enhance IT backup management
The multi-dimensional scale-out design feature of Pure Storage FlashBlade is not in use in our environment. Regarding data reduction technologies, we don't get much deduplication because the data is already deduplicated from our FlashArray before we get to backup, so there is no benefit of deduplication. Regarding the integration with cloud-native ecosystem tools, we are not on cloud; we are strictly an on-premises solution. Pure Storage FlashBlade is not used by any end-user; it's used only for IT backup, with only about four people in our group managing it. I cannot recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade to other users depending upon their financial situation because it's an expensive solution, and the cost is very high, including licensing and renewal every year. I rate Pure Storage FlashBlade an eight out of ten.
Read full review
Rifat Rahman - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers reliable performance and availability for large deployments
I would like to see improvements in Red Hat Ceph Storage not because I necessarily think it needs improvement, but because I generally prefer to do things manually rather than following the containerization part. Current deployments are based on containers, but I deploy manually with my scripts and controls. If there are no Kubernetes-like requirements, I often prefer to deploy a whole manual process. I don't ask for improvements in the deployment model because Red Hat has its own philosophy about making things, but it's my personal choice that I prefer things manually. Some features are available only in the containerization part, so if those are also available in manual deployment, that will help.
Read full review
Russ Le Puill - PeerSpot reviewer
Proactive support with improved speed and resilience
There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made clear to us that we needed to provide our own SFP modules to connect to our infrastructure, so that could have been a bit clearer. It would be amazing if there was, perhaps, a more automated process for updating the hosts themselves, although the maintenance mode works well. Our StarWind command center doesn't seem to have all the options available currently, which support is investigating for us.
Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features are the Metro clustering, and disaster recovery."
"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the rewrite speed and the nonstop services."
"What I like best about Pure Storage FlashBlade is its object storage functionality, plus it has fast underlying hardware. Pure Storage FlashBlade is also very stable. I find its stability one of its valuable features."
"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."
"The ease of deployment and management has helped us simplify our storage. We also do not have to worry about capacity management as much. A lot of these things are native to Pure Storage."
"I like its size. It is smaller than the other competitors. We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte."
"It has absolutely simplified our storage because the dashboards on the consoles show a clear understanding of where you are, and it is also very easy to provision. This been a big help for our teams."
More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros
"The solution is pretty stable."
"High reliability with commodity hardware."
"I can compare Red Hat Ceph Storage with products from other vendors; I explored quite a few, but I still find that Red Hat Ceph Storage is making the most disruption."
"The most valuable feature is the stability of the product."
"Ceph has simplified my storage integration. I no longer need two or three storage systems, as Ceph can support all my storage needs. I no longer need OpenStack Swift for REST object storage access, I no longer need NFS or GlusterFS for filesystem sharing, and most importantly, I no longer need LVM or DRBD for my virtual machines in OpenStack."
"radosgw and librados provide a simple integration with clone, snapshots, and other functions that aid in data integrity."
"We have not encountered any stability issues for the product."
"The configuration of the solution and the user interface are both quite good."
More Red Hat Ceph Storage pros
"We were able to set it up via the documentation and only needed their support a handful of times."
"In our experience with StarWind, the support has been by far the most valuable feature."
"The pricing and discounts given by Starwind on the hardware were unmatched."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the redundancy and its cost. I used to have a SAN, a Dell EMC EqualLogic. Unfortunately, it was they call an "inverted pyramid of doom." It was two or three hosts, two switches, and one storage array at the very bottom. But the SAN, the storage array at the very bottom, is a single point of failure..."
"We no longer need multiple staff members performing small, mundane tasks."
"Product functionality and performance are wonderful."
"Repair efforts have been reduced to nearly nothing."
"We also opted for 24-hour support monitoring for any issues. They are extremely quick to respond on issues we even cause ourselves such as bumping a network cable."
More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pros
 

Cons

"We haven't been able to use much of the cloud area of Pure Storage. We have a storage server and it would be better if it could integrate with other cloud features of this solution."
"Compared to, for example, Hitachi NAS, the solution is not mature at all. It's just in its infancy as far as technology goes."
"The feature that we're waiting on is better integration with the cell services."
"An area for improvement in Pure Storage FlashBlade is its price. It could be reduced. The technical support for Pure Storage FlashBlade also needs improvement. It used to be good, with more experienced engineers. Nowadays, it isn't, and it takes longer for support to solve problems."
"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."
"The solution is expensive."
"On our dedupe during our initial buy, we were expecting a number a little higher like 4x. However, we are getting about 3.6. While it is close enough, it doesn't quite hit the numbers. So, this has been a challenge."
"I have not seen ROI."
More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons
"If troubleshooting is needed, the response should be faster."
"The licensing cost is excessively high. This is a significant issue from my perspective."
"I have encountered issues with stability when replication factor was not 3, which is the default and recommended value. Go below 3 and problems will arise."
"The storage capacity of the solution can be improved."
"Areas of Red Hat Ceph Storage that have room for improvement include more promotion. Many people do not know about the Stratus case, which is one of the most reliable systems available in the world, but they are not aware that a system can keep working even if there is a hardware failure."
"The management features are pretty good, but they still have room for improvement."
"While the documentation for Ceph Storage is helpful, it could be improved."
"In the deployment step, we need to create some config files to add Ceph functions in OpenStack modules (Nova, Cinder, Glance). It would be useful to have a tool that validates the format of the data in those files, before generating a deploy with failures."
More Red Hat Ceph Storage cons
"The only issues are when Hyper V itself has limitations and I'd love to see support or enhancement in the area of direct-attached GPU cards."
"Maybe they could have a support portal that you can have direct access to a current support representative."
"I wish I understood what goes into the StarWind software a little bit better. To me, it's kind of magic the way some of it works. As an IT professional, you don't really want things to be magic. I do wish there was a little more "Here's how it works." There could be more documentation given to administrators..."
"I had some initial difficulties understanding the solution which could have been solved via additional documentation aimed at newcomers."
"It would be nice if it were possible to do the ISCSI setup that you do on Windows directly in the management GUI of StarWind."
"CSVs require the storage to be configured through iSCSI, even though the storage is local."
"Possible new features could be CSV-level snapshot capability, Veeam integration, and maybe a more straightforward setup. Granted, you don't have to worry about setups with the HCA, but if you want to implement StarWind vSAN in a lab to test it is a tedious setup process."
"I would request that the terms and conditions be reviewed and made more acceptable to corporate security so that we could finally turn on the proactive support feature, as it is included with our support agreement."
More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is a little high."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."
"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."
"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."
"We used a reseller for the purchase."
"I feel that the price could always be lowered."
"Our licensing is renewed annually."
"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."
More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice
"The price of Red Hat Ceph Storage is reasonable."
"Most of time, you can get Ceph with the OpenStack solution in a subscription​​ as a bundle.​"
"The price of this product isn't high."
"We never used the paid support."
"The operational overhead is higher compared to Azure because we own the hardware."
"There is no cost for software."
"The other big advantage is that Ceph is free software. Compared to traditional SAN based storage, it is very economical."
"I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten."
More Red Hat Ceph Storage pricing and cost advice
"A desired feature or service would be the ability to have a hardware subscription plan that ensures routine hardware updates in conjunction with hyper-converged software."
"It's an all in one package, making it very easy."
"We looked at Nutanix and found it did almost the same thing but for more money. In fact, StarWind was nearly one-third of the price; it cost us £36,000. That includes five years of monitoring... The Nutanix was near enough £110,000 for relatively the same amount of performance and storage."
"When I researched they came the most cost-effective."
"The Nutanix piece was about $45,000, getting close to $50,000 with all the licensing involved, whereas the StarWind was less than half of that, after Microsoft licensing and such."
"Its cost was reasonable."
"The HCA price is all-inclusive (setup, hardware, support, warranty), except for your standard Microsoft Server licensing."
"Our entire package was around $35,000 for everything, including three years of support."
More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Hospitality Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise8
 

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...
See all answers
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...
See all answers
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...
See all answers
How does Red Hat Ceph Storage compare with MiniO?
Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This ...
See all answers
What do you like most about Red Hat Ceph Storage?
The high availability of the solution is important to us.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Red Hat Ceph Storage?
Areas of Red Hat Ceph Storage that have room for improvement include more promotion. Many people do not know about th...
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?
It's not the cheapest, however, the solution works incredibly well and is so simple to licence and maintain.
See all answers
What needs improvement with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?
There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made...
See all answers
What is your primary use case for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?
We desperately needed to update yet downsize our data centre. We had six hosts for only approximately 14 or so Virtua...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade Logo
Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade
Compared 19% of the time
Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade Logo
Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade
Compared 11% of the time
MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade Logo
MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade
Compared 10% of the time
VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade Logo
VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade
Compared 7% of the time
Dell ObjectScale vs Pure Storage FlashBlade Logo
Dell ObjectScale vs Pure Storage FlashBlade
Compared 5% of the time
More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors
MinIO vs Red Hat Ceph Storage Logo
MinIO vs Red Hat Ceph Storage
Compared 41% of the time
NetApp StorageGRID vs Red Hat Ceph Storage Logo
NetApp StorageGRID vs Red Hat Ceph Storage
Compared 5% of the time
VMware vSAN vs Red Hat Ceph Storage Logo
VMware vSAN vs Red Hat Ceph Storage
Compared 5% of the time
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Red Hat Ceph Storage Logo
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Red Hat Ceph Storage
Compared 4% of the time
Dell PowerFlex vs Red Hat Ceph Storage Logo
Dell PowerFlex vs Red Hat Ceph Storage
Compared 3% of the time
More Red Hat Ceph Storage Competitors
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Logo
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance
Compared 18% of the time
DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Logo
DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance
Compared 15% of the time
StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Logo
StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance
Compared 15% of the time
Azure Stack HCI vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Logo
Azure Stack HCI vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance
Compared 15% of the time
VxRail vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Logo
VxRail vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance
Compared 13% of the time
More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Pure Storage FlashBlade
September 2025
Pure Storage FlashBlade reportDownload Pure Storage FlashBlade product report
Buyer's Guide
Red Hat Ceph Storage
September 2025
Red Hat Ceph Storage reportDownload Red Hat Ceph Storage product report
Buyer's Guide
StarWind HyperConverged Appliance
September 2025
StarWind HyperConverged Appliance reportDownload StarWind HyperConverged Appliance product report
 

Also Known As

No data available
Ceph
No data available
 

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
Red Hat Ceph Storage is an enterprise open source platform that provides unified software-defined storage on standard, economical servers and disks. With block, object, and file storage combined into one platform, Red Hat Ceph Storage efficiently and automatically manages all your data.
Red Hat

For SMB, ROBO and Enterprises, who look to bring in quick deployment and operation simplicity to virtualization workloads and reduce related expenses, our solution is StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA). It unifies commodity servers, disks and flash, hypervisor of choice, StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN and associated software into a single manageable layer. The HCA supports scale-up by adding disks and flash, and scale-out by adding extra nodes.

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance consists of StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN “Ready Nodes”, targeting those, who are building their virtualization infrastructure from scratch. In case there is an existing set of servers, we offer a “software only version”, which is essentially our years proven StarWind Virtual SAN. Basically, it’s the fuel powering StarWind HCA. 

StarWind
 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Dell, DreamHost
Sears Home and Franchise Business
Buyer's Guide
Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance
September 2025
Free Report: Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance
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