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Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN 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
7.3
Number of Reviews
217
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
Red Hat Ceph Storage
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (3rd), File and Object Storage (1st)
StarWind Virtual SAN
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
206
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st), HCI (4th)
 

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.
Rifat Rahman - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Jccerong Heron - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Support team has guided us through deploying virtual storage on legacy hardware and reducing operational costs
The reason I chose StarWind Virtual SAN for this particular scenario is really the features, the ease of use, and most importantly, the price. In my opinion, the best features StarWind Virtual SAN offers are easy integration with the system installed in the data center. The integration with my existing systems in the data center works well, especially with VMware, as we already have a big cluster in VMware, and the easy integration with that is helpful to solve some problems with the platform. StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization by reducing OPEX costs. My OPEX costs have gone down as we reutilize some old servers, and this reduces the CAPEX of hardware in the data center.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"What I like most about this solution, is the speed, resiliency and scalability."
"It's just very easy for general block storage."
"Data deduplication features make it easier to manage storage and forecast growth."
"It does everything they say it will do: It's very cost-effective compared to other big players, integrates very well with VMware, is tiny so we're saving power and space in the data center, and it's really easy for us to manage."
"It is an easy to use product for all of my team members."
"The console is simple to use. It has good performance. It is easy to install, understand, and manage, with a good ratio of deduplication and compression. It is doing its job."
"I am satisfied with this solution, and we plan to keep using this solution."
"The ability to provide block storage and object storage from the same storage cluster is very valuable for us."
"It opens doors for completely open-source cloud."
"Red Hat Ceph Storage is a reliable solution, it works well."
"It has helped to save money and scale the storage without limits."
"Ceph’s ability to adapt to varying types of commodity hardware affords us substantial flexibility and future-proofing."
"We are using Ceph internal inexpensive disk and data redundancy without spending extra money on external storage."
"Ceph has simplified my storage integration, as I no longer need two or three storage systems since Ceph can support all my storage needs, replacing OpenStack Swift for REST object storage access, NFS or GlusterFS for filesystem sharing, and LVM or DRBD for virtual machines in OpenStack."
"We have some legacy servers that can be associated with this structure. With Ceph, we can rearrange these machines and reuse our investment."
"Starwind support is excellent. They are very fast and have very good knowledge of Starwind and Hyper-V Cluster software."
"The license price is one of the cheapest in the market."
"StarWind SANs provide fast and reliable storage, and migration from the old system has meant the storage is much faster now, which has improved our virtual infrastructure's reliability and access times, and they come with outstanding support, including understanding what we were trying to achieve, offering the best help and guides, and providing remote assistance where necessary."
"The feature I have found most valuable in VSAN is its high availability capability."
"StarWind vSAN has a lot of great features and is a perfect solution for mirroring internal disks and flash between servers."
"StarWind vSAN is easy to deploy and administer."
"The most valuable features are high availability and real-time replication between two servers."
"It is extremely stable."
 

Cons

"I would like to see box-to-box encryption on replication included in the next release."
"The setup needs to be improved the most. They can do a little more with the user interface, but the setup is what I would like to see made a bit easier."
"Pure Storage will have issues with positioning in the near future since it's a relatively new company."
"One requested enhancement yet to manifest is the scheduling of snapshot replications."
"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."
"I would like to see support for NVMe, end-to-end."
"There are many features which need to be added, particularly on the replication side."
"During heavy load situations with 100K IOPS on one specific port, it requires more granularity level for distribution."
"We have encountered slight integration issues."
"When it comes to the capabilities of Red Hat Ceph Storage such as object, block, and file storage, I am not fully satisfied."
"The management features are pretty good, but they still have room for improvement."
"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."
"Ceph Storage lacks RDMA support for inter-OSD communication. That is a huge loss in terms of performance."
"Geo-replication needs improvement. It is a new feature, and not well supported yet."
"The licensing cost is excessively high. This is a significant issue from my perspective."
"An area for improvement would be that it's pretty difficult to manage synchronous replication over multiple regions."
"It took a bit of knowledge and support to put in place but once installed it works fine. Migration (HyperV) from one server to another sometimes takes longer than expected but there is no data loss even if the host crashes."
"Android app for monitoring and receiving push notifications as alarms or monitoring I/O from any mobile device could be a good feature and nice to have as we are not always on our desk."
"When StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere nodes go offline unexpectedly, the nodes have to re-sync disks fully which takes a long time."
"Proper training sessions should be included with the licensing."
"There is no Italian-language version of the software available."
"A big improvement would be to make it compatible with NFS protocol, not only iSCSI (for internal communication)."
"It is difficult to control all of the hardware components."
"I would like to see options for automated notifications of any changes, including, for example, synchronization issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pure came in at a better price point than EMC and performed better than Compellent."
"We feel that the pricing is fair and the licensing process was easy for both."
"Cost-wise, it's been very effective."
"We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership."
"I would rate the pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray a five out of ten. It is expensive but not too much."
"Pricing is very competitive, and it's better than other competitors."
"The cost was initially high, but once more people were using it, the costs came down. This was because the University was reselling it to other departments."
"While it comes with a higher price tag, this investment often translates to significant improvements in performance."
"If you can afford a product like Red Hat Ceph Storage then go for it. If you cannot, then you need to test Ceph and get your hands dirty."
"Most of time, you can get Ceph with the OpenStack solution in a subscription​​ as a bundle.​"
"The price of Red Hat Ceph Storage is reasonable."
"I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten."
"The other big advantage is that Ceph is free software. Compared to traditional SAN based storage, it is very economical."
"The operational overhead is higher compared to Azure because we own the hardware."
"There is no cost for software."
"We never used the paid support."
"The setup cost, pricing, and licensing are very straightforward. They are exactly what you expect."
"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."
"We evaluated other options and this one was the most cost-effective."
"The cost, including OPEX, is lower compared to other solutions."
"The pricing is more than reasonable."
"This is a good, economical solution compared to data storage systems."
"For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business65
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise151
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business166
Midsize Enterprise54
Large Enterprise34
 

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?
The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...
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 ...
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...
What advice do you have for others considering Red Hat Ceph Storage?
I do not have experience working with solutions such as Red Hat Ceph Storage and StorPool. I have plenty of experienc...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that we are using the free version, so we did not incur any ...
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
The better features are in the paid version, and I would like to see something from the graphical user interface in t...
What is your primary use case for StarWind Virtual SAN?
In production, I wanted to use StarWind Virtual SAN for shared storage. My main use case for StarWind Virtual SAN is ...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
Ceph
StarWind SAN & NAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Dell, DreamHost
Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.