Scality RING vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance comparison

Scality RING vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

May 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:

ROI

Sentiment score

8.5

Pure Storage FlashBlade boosts ROI by reducing costs, enhancing efficiencies, increasing VM density, and saving 20%-85% in time.

Sentiment score

7.1

Scality RING offers cost-effective, scalable storage with predictable costs, though enhanced security may increase expenses for added protection.

Sentiment score

6.8

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance reduced costs, improved stability, and streamlined operations, quickly achieving substantial ROI and enhancing management efficiency.

It does not require much management once you set up correctly, so it saves time, allowing an admin to focus on other work.

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure Storage FlashBlade report

System admin at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

I think RING's ability to maintain predictable costs while providing scalable storage solutions impacts our budget by allowing us to pay only for capacity.

For more quotes and insights, download the Scality RING report

Infrastructure architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

For instance, while the cost per gig on a block storage platform may be $2, it's $1.50 for NAS, and only $0.50 for object storage, leading to a remarkable 75% reduction in costs by utilizing the Scality platform.

reviewer2713596

Storage Engineering Manager at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

Scality RING has reduced our operating costs.

Thierry Diot

Engineer at MinArm

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

7.0

Pure Storage FlashBlade support is praised for responsiveness and knowledge but criticized for slower responses and occasional language barriers.

Sentiment score

7.5

Scality RING's customer service is praised for responsiveness, expertise, but could improve in understanding specific setups and simplifying responses.

Sentiment score

8.5

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance's 24/7 customer service is praised for quick responses, proactive monitoring, and expertise despite language barriers.

I would rate them an eight out of ten.

IT Field Support Engineer at Unisys

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.

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure Storage FlashBlade report

System admin at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

I've always received responses within the required timeframe, the answers were technically relevant, and there was follow-up—people called us back to check if everything was okay and if the ticket could be closed.

Infrastructure architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Individuals such as Peter Mikolastik really make a difference by saying, 'Come on, what is the problem? I will help you,' rather than just brushing things off.

reviewer2716008

data center manager at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Technically, when we have major issues in P1, they are very responsive and we can't say that we don't get a response.

For more quotes and insights, download the Scality RING report

Operational Infrastructure Pilot at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

8.8

Pure Storage FlashBlade is praised for scalability, ease of expansion, and support, despite some areas needing improvement.

Sentiment score

7.0

Scality RING's scalability has significantly improved, allowing effortless node addition and flexible capacity expansion for enterprise users.

Sentiment score

7.9

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance offers scalable options for SMBs, supporting expansion through nodes, RAM, or storage to align with cloud strategies.

Pure Storage FlashBlade is scalable.

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure Storage FlashBlade report

System admin at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

Upwards, I think, almost unlimited by what we can imagine.

reviewer2711367

System Engineer - Head of Engineering at a retailer with 11-50 employees

I've never had issues with scalability.

Infrastructure architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

We are relatively well informed about their new features, what will be implemented in future versions, and the scalability of the solution.

For more quotes and insights, download the Scality RING report

Operational Infrastructure Pilot at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.8

Pure Storage FlashBlade is praised for its impressive stability and reliability, with minimal disruptions and consistent uptime even during upgrades.

Sentiment score

7.9

Scality RING ensures continuous operation and data accessibility, offering resilience and stability with minimal service disruptions or data loss.

Sentiment score

8.7

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance offers exceptional stability, zero downtime, excellent support, and ease of use, ensuring reliable performance.

In case there is any issue with any blade, the data is moved to another.

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure Storage FlashBlade report

IT Field Support Engineer at Unisys

It is a platform that is very stable at the customer level and does not generate incidents or blockages that you might encounter with standard storage solutions, where you can lose data.

Operational Infrastructure Pilot at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

I find that Scality RING is very stable because it allows for many maintenance operations without service loss.

For more quotes and insights, download the Scality RING report

Infrastructure architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

There are factors that can cause Scality RING to become occasionally unavailable, but due to the system's resilience, it is capable of recovering or degrading gracefully.

reviewer2707281

Senior ICT Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report

Room For Improvement

Users seek better cloud integration, enhanced deduplication, improved support, protocol enhancements, simpler configuration, and a more intuitive interface.

Scality RING faces challenges in administration complexity, requiring improved interfaces, integration, stability, and comprehensive feature enhancements.

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance needs hardware, software, and management improvements, with focus on Linux support and streamlined scalability.

Technical support definitely needs significant improvement.

System admin at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

Its configuration should be easier.

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure Storage FlashBlade report

IT Field Support Engineer at Unisys

Encryption and data security need improvement. We don't have a solution for customers who need confidentiality.

For more quotes and insights, download the Scality RING report

Operational Infrastructure Pilot at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

They should prioritize quality over timeliness to minimize customer disruptions and not force customers into a cycle of fixes that interfere with daily work.

reviewer2713596

Storage Engineering Manager at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

What we are currently missing and will be demanding in the new tender is an additional external backup of all data, ideally on a simple system, to safeguard against any severe local incidents so that we still have the data protected elsewhere.

reviewer2716008

data center manager at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report

Setup Cost

Pure Storage FlashBlade offers high performance and features, justifying its cost with no extra software fees and fixed support costs.

Scality RING's setup and specialized hardware costs are high, but scalable, licensing helps manage expenses for large-scale users.

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance offers competitive, cost-effective pricing, significantly cheaper than competitors like Nutanix, with transparent, all-inclusive fees.

The pricing of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the past, but one benefit is that they have built-in ransomware protection.

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure Storage FlashBlade report

System admin at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

Fortunately, in terms of the license, we are able to expand the disks without having to adjust the license.

reviewer2711367

System Engineer - Head of Engineering at a retailer with 11-50 employees

In the end, it always depends on how much you pay for it.

reviewer2707281

Senior ICT Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Regarding setup costs and licensing, our initial experience is somewhat dated now as we made a comprehensive purchase, including hardware, software, and system setup, which Scality handled at the time.

reviewer2716008

data center manager at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Scality RING report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report

Valuable Features

Pure Storage FlashBlade offers fast, scalable, and user-friendly storage with efficient integration, analytics, and versatility for diverse needs.

Scality RING offers scalable, robust storage with S3 compatibility, strong security, and efficient management for diverse environments.

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance provides ease of use, high availability, flexible deployment, and cost-effective, reliable performance with excellent support.

We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte.

IT Field Support Engineer at Unisys

The best features of Pure Storage FlashBlade include better throughput and better performance.

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure Storage FlashBlade report

System admin at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

When a server is lost, the data is still accessible.

For more quotes and insights, download the Scality RING report

Operational Infrastructure Pilot at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

It is even better stored when there is only one copy on a system and there is a second copy on an immutability system, which is almost equivalent to backing it up on tape and taking it offline, making it completely inaccessible.

reviewer2711367

System Engineer - Head of Engineering at a retailer with 11-50 employees

Scality RING has influenced our approach to scaling in different dimensions by providing a cost-effective solution for the tremendous amount of data we generate every day for each customer.

reviewer2713596

Storage Engineering Manager at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report

Categories and Ranking

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.2%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Scality RING is 4.1%, up from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is 2.2%, up from 1.7% 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.

Read full review

Leverages seamless data access with efficient storage management

Infrastructure architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

I would improve Scality RING by bundling the Operating System with RING and modernizing the graphical interfaces. As for areas for improvement—if I had to summarize—a technical aspect would be the Operating System part, which today isn't really covered by Scality RING, whereas it is with Artesca. It would be a real advantage for customers to have a bundle that includes both the Operating System and Scality RING, with an install and maintenance model handled by Scality. Secondly, perhaps a more cosmetic point—the graphical interfaces could be modernized a bit. There's been work done on Artesca; maybe it should be extended more to RING. I believe that should come with version 10, so I'm not too concerned. I find RING's cyber resilience against ransomware threats somewhat complicated to assess. The product itself offers sufficient protection, and the features provided via S3 allow you to protect against this kind of attack—provided you implement these features, such as object lock with retention and everything that goes with it. If I had to identify an area for improvement, it would be the OS part—but that doesn't necessarily concern RING, unlike Artesca, which comes bundled with an OS. There's been real work done by the Scality teams to secure the system layer in Artesca. It didn't influence us. We know the product and what needs to be implemented to protect data, and it's part of the best practices we also pass on to our clients.

Read full review

Russ Le Puill

IT Manager at St Peter's Church of England Aided School

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

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions are best for your needs.

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860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Educational Organization

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Educational Organization

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

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...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.

What do you like most about Scality RING8?

Another feature I like is the life cycle management that helps me with data storage efficiency.

What needs improvement with Scality RING8?

There are too many changes because it's software-defined storage and host-based. They should reduce the number of pat...

What is your primary use case for Scality RING8?

Our use cases for Scality RING include data analytics and AI. Our business is in the insurance industry, and we're us...

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.

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...

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...

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Product Reports

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Pure Storage FlashBlade

June 2025

Download Scality RING product report

Scality RING

June 2025

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

June 2025

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report

Download StarWind HyperConverged Appliance product report

Also Known As

No data available

Scality RING, RING8

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

Scality RING is the scalable and resilient object storage solution designed for modern workloads, providing seamless data protection against evolving cyber threats.

Scality RING leverages S3 object storage to meet unpredictable demands with a patented MultiScale Architecture that offers limitless scalability across capacity, performance, and more. It delivers end-to-end cyber resilience with CORE5 for ransomware protection, while its cloud-style economics and intuitive management empower enterprises to accelerate AI initiatives and optimize cloud deployments. Its flexibility is ideal for service providers managing extensive data needs.

What are the key features of Scality RING?

S3 and CDMI Support: Ensures compatibility for application needs.
Erasure Coding: Provides cost-efficient, durable storage.
Unified Tiered Infrastructure: Aids billing per IOPS.
Lifecycle Management: Optimizes storage utilization.
Unlimited Scalability: Ideal for large enterprise demands.
Data/Metadata Ring Deployment: Ensures robust performance and tailored SLAs.

What benefits or ROI should users expect?

Economic Value: Offers cost-effective storage solutions.
Effective Support: Enhances collaboration through responsive assistance.
Improved Flexibility: Adaptable deployment models for complex needs.

Scality RING is extensively implemented in backup solutions across industries, supporting platforms like Veeam and CommVault. It aids in storage expansion and management of large data volumes alongside multi-site architectures. While not leading in AI spaces due to performance constraints, there's potential with faster disk support. It's also used in archives, binary lakes, multimedia services, and AI data lakes.

Scality

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

Comcast, TimeWarner Cable, EuroSport, Orange, Deluxe, DailtMotion, SFR, RTL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Telstra

Sears Home and Franchise Business