Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN 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 8.9, while StarWind is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.4. Red Hat holds a 19.8% mindshare in SDS, compared to StarWind’s 6.4% mindshare. Additionally, 82% of Red Hat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Red Hat Ceph Storage and StarWind Virtual SAN are strong competitors in the enterprise storage solutions market, with StarWind Virtual SAN gaining an edge for its robust features that justify the investment.

Features: Red Hat Ceph Storage is known for its scalability, flexibility, and seamless cloud provider integration. It supports both block and object storage, aligning well with hybrid and open cloud environments. StarWind Virtual SAN offers streamlined management, advanced configuration options, and impressive virtualization capabilities, providing ease of installation and support.

Room for Improvement: Red Hat Ceph Storage could benefit from simplifying its deployment process, enhancing user interfaces, and improving initial setup costs. Additionally, increasing user-friendliness and broadening support documentation would be advantageous. For StarWind Virtual SAN, areas for improvement include expanding its hardware compatibility, reducing management complexities, and enhancing customization options for advanced users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: StarWind Virtual SAN is praised for its straightforward deployment process that minimizes disruption and its proactive, expert customer service. It is designed for easy integration within existing infrastructures. In contrast, Red Hat Ceph Storage requires a more involved deployment, offering vast resources and support channels, which makes it suitable for meticulously planned environments and those aiming for a robust setup.

Pricing and ROI: Red Hat Ceph Storage generally incurs higher initial setup costs due to its scalability and extensive capabilities, leading to a gradual ROI, appealing to businesses focusing on long-term investments. StarWind Virtual SAN, with cost-effective initial setup and swift ROI due to efficient resource allocation, is attractive for businesses seeking quicker returns and lower entry costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN Report (Updated: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

August 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

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.4%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ceph Storage is 19.8%, down from 21.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 6.4%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Featured Reviews

Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us

The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.

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Rifat Rahman

Infrastructure Architect & CEO at Tirzok Private Limited

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.

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Vladimir Simion

Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer

Achieving seamless cost-saving implementation with exceptional support

The best features that StarWind Virtual SAN offers include the price because comparing to other virtual SAN solutions, this one is the best, and it also has a great support team behind it. My experience with their support has been positive, as their guides regarding the integration are very useful. They have some awesome guides online that show you exactly how to configure the product, how to do the initial setup, and you can speak with them directly. They will be able to connect and verify your setup, run its parameters and see exactly what's working and what is not, and they really help you with that. StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization and my customer through initial cost saving. They use this product in a dark site, so I'm not able to provide any additional details about this, but they were really glad about it, they're still using it, and they asked for extending the capacity for it and the support. They really want to use it and are enjoying using it.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power outages when we need to quickly move data between different data centers. It ensures efficient replication and helps maintain our data centers' uptime."

"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."

"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."

"The snapshots, replication, and the ability to have immutable blades are the most valuable features. You're putting data snapshots out in those blades, and they cannot be touched. Its performance is great."

"It uses the same platform for connectivity so integration is seamless."

"The main feature I have found to be product replication."

"The tool's most valuable features are data warehousing, speedy recovery, and analytics. Its latest release is cost-effective."

"The initial setup is pretty quick."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The community support is very good."

"The setup is very easy, deserving a ten out of ten."

"The most valuable feature is the stability of the product."

"I like the distributed and self-healing nature of the product."

"High reliability with commodity hardware."

"Most of the features are beneficial and one does not stand out above the rest."

"The high availability of the solution is important to us."

"Without any extra costs, I was able to provide a redundant environment."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pros

"Starwind support is excellent. They are very fast and have very good knowledge of Starwind and Hyper-V Cluster software."

"StarWind saved us about 80% of our storage costs over our old solution."

"The most valuable feature for us is having the ability to configure our local storage using a limited number of disks and using the StarWind VSAN software to keep the cluster nodes in perfect sync."

"The management was very easy and I was able to find all that I need in the software dashboard."

"I like StarWind's high availability. The failover is almost immediate, so the end users have no idea the guest VM moved at all. We can failover all guest VMs onto a single hypervisor, place it into maintenance mode, install updates, and reboot a hypervisor all during the daytime and remotely, with confidence the process will be successful."

"StarWind vSAN has a lot of great features and is a perfect solution for mirroring internal disks and flash between servers."

"The top-notch support before, during, and after deployments are better than any other vendor I have come across."

"A great feature is that I basically set it and forget it, as everything is automatic."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

Cons

"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."

"To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."

"There is some room for new features related to authentication and integration with Kubernetes, and other solution using S3 Bucket."

"It would be beneficial if the layer could support the S3 protocol and be container ready in the next release."

"In terms of technical support, the experience has been mixed. The support is done through email and is not that great, making it a very problematic area I've been dealing with for over four years."

"The technical support needs to improve. When we open a case, it is auto assigned to a support tech person. Nine out of ten times, we get an email right back saying that person is off until tomorrow. I cannot handle that. They just did this over the weekend to us, too. I had to call our rep and have them do something about it."

"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 would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"We have encountered slight integration issues."

"It takes some time to re-balance the storage in case of server failure."

"I would like to see better performance and stability when Ceph is in recovery."

"Rebalancing and recovery are a bit slow."

"The product lacks RDMA support for inter-OSD communication."

"I have not identified any drawbacks, however, the response to public platform inquiries could be faster."

"When it comes to the capabilities of Red Hat Ceph Storage such as object, block, and file storage, I am not fully satisfied."

"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."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage cons

"The cluster configuration is time-consuming and tedious."

"I would say that the documentation is mostly great, however, some features could be expanded upon a bit."

"If it's possible to make a driver/solution that does not make use of the iSCSI targets of Windows, that would be great. I don't know if that's possible, however, it could make the configuration a little easier."

"The console is something that I feel could be improved. There is nothing technically wrong with it, but it can be jazzed up and/or made to be a little more intuitive."

"There should be publicly available tutorials on YouTube or other platforms that help the users to integrate this solution with other platforms, for example."

"I did not see any indication that StarWinds vSAN is a usable solution with non-GUI instances of Hyper-V."

"For the StarWind VSA vSphere solution, I would like to see a simpler and automated virtual machine installation process in terms of network settings."

"One point for improvement is to increase the performance capabilities of the Windows-based executable as compared to its Linux Controller Virtual Machine (CVM) equivalent."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is very expensive."

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."

"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."

"The price could be cheaper."

"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"There is no cost for software."

"The price of Red Hat Ceph Storage is reasonable."

"The operational overhead is higher compared to Azure because we own the hardware."

"Most of time, you can get Ceph with the OpenStack solution in a subscription as a bundle."

"We never used the paid support."

"The price of this product isn't high."

"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

"The cost takes into account the number of nodes, so the size of the storage is not important."

"We found that the pricing was perfect; simple and clear."

"This is a good, economical solution compared to data storage systems."

"Licensing is easy and the whole package is cost-effective."

"The licensing is a bit weird. If you license the standard version of StarWind, it allows you four terabytes. Then, they have a pro version, but with the pro version, the only difference is it doubles the terabytes to eight."

"We are happy with the price."

"The pricing is fine for the work that it does."

"The Price/Performance ratio for this solution is outstanding!"

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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 do you like most about StarWind Virtual SAN?

It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combin...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?

I had experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing through using the free version of StarWind Virtual SAN for t...

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

One area for improvement regarding StarWind Virtual SAN is the lack of a full-feature trial. At the time I tested it,...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 19% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

Dell ECS vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 5% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

MinIO vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 39% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 6% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 4% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 3% of the time

More Red Hat Ceph Storage Competitors

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 24% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 16% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 14% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 14% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 5% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

August 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ceph Storage

August 2025

Download Red Hat Ceph Storage product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

July 2025

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Also Known As

No data available

Ceph

StarWind SAN & NAS

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

StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments without the need for dedicated SAN hardware. It allows for real-time replication between servers, shared storage for Hyper-V clusters, and enables vMotion and High Availability features for VMware vSphere. The solution reduces costs and leverages existing hardware while providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure. Valuable features include ease of use, scalability, top-tier support, hardware agnosticism, and the ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space. StarWind VSAN has helped organizations improve performance, data availability, and data security while reducing downtime and providing cost-saving storage options.

StarWind

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

Dell, DreamHost

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

August 2025

Free Report: Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

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