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DataCore SANsymphony vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct 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

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 (16th), File and Object Storage (8th)
DataCore SANsymphony
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
4th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Storage Software (2nd), HCI (7th), Storage Performance (1st)
Microsoft Storage Spaces Di...
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
9th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 DataCore SANsymphony is 6.9%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is 7.6%, up from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

Eric Black - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
OliverPalz - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides efficient synchronous mirroring capability and dynamic data management functionality
The initial setup is relatively easy but requires a certified DataCore implementation engineer to deploy the solution in a production environment. The deployment following the qualified procedure, typically takes about a week, depending on the amount of storage and the specific environment. With my experience, I can set up the system within two to four hours; however, the qualification process, which includes detailed planning and testing, adds additional time. It involves gathering the customer's requirements, preparing comprehensive documentation for validation, and conducting tests in collaboration with the customer. This documentation includes a site planning checklist, a pre-installation checklist, and a functional test plan to ensure everything is in order before deployment. Overall, I rate the process an eight.
Stanislaw Mielicki - PeerSpot reviewer
Achieve cost-effectiveness with superior performance while needing to address cluster support
I am working with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct for applications, SQL, and VRS. I am an integrator for this solution The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct. They introduced the All-Flash array using SSD or NVMe drives without cache drives. It is…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."
"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."
"It performs well and it is also very fast."
"Using this solution has made our backups more reliable."
"The most valuable features include the ease of implementation, ease of use and the speed that you can do backup and recovery on."
"The main feature I have found to be product replication."
"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."
"The solution provides many controllers."
"SANsymphony is flexible, with many potential options for implementation. SANsymphony's can be used with VMware, Hyper-V, or even with a hypervisor agnostic approach. It can also be used for strictly physical non-virtualized solutions."
"The most valuable feature of DataCore SANsymphony SDS is its high availability. This solution also exhibits good performance and has high stability."
"It is a stable solution."
"The use of the RAM cache allows you to speed up the writing and reading of data while also allowing for a possible increase in performance by increasing the RAM on the servers."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its versatility, with there being support for all new hardware technologies and platforms, disc mirroring and very effective auto tiering."
"Good security with this solution."
"The most valuable feature for us is that we can adjust the size of the storage very easily, without stopping production."
"I found the solution to be very stable."
"It's mainly about the storage expansion, like in hyper-converged solutions."
"The flash ability, in terms of tiering and caching, is amazing"
"The most valuable feature are the caching capabilities using the storage class memory."
"The performance, reliability, and affordability has been most valuable."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."
"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."
"Its technical support is excellent."
 

Cons

"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."
"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."
"I would like to see more deduplication."
"It would be nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."
"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 also like to see better support for CIFS workloads."
"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."
"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."
"Datacore is developing a new WebUI with new dashboards. It is a good idea as the classic GUI is lacking dashboards."
"I would like to see reporting added, such as a monthly connectivity report."
"If it could integrate to a cloud gateway, then we could carry it directly to storage, instead of having middleware in between the storage and the cloud."
"When I sometimes reboot for maintenance, the connectivity from the iSCSI initiator host could be improved."
"There is room for improvement in the graphical interface."
"For customers or technicians who don't speak and understand English, it would be great to have other language support, all the more so given the number of countries in which SanSymphony is used."
"DataCore should integrate its own file server into SANsymphony."
"I'd like to see the company make the renewal of the software cheaper."
"Documentation management could be improved"
"More optimization could be done in terms of mirroring."
"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."
"On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the customer service and technical support of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct a three, as there were issues that the Microsoft team could not pinpoint, leading to delays in finding solutions."
"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."
"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."
"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."
"The management tool within this solution could be improved. We would also like to be able to access services like Azure when using this solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."
"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."
"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."
"The product is very expensive."
"I feel that the price could always be lowered."
"The price could be cheaper."
"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 is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."
"In my case, the licensing per terabytes is very high and it must be licensed for each extra functionality."
"Pricing has improved but it is still expensive."
"We have licensing costs on a yearly basis. They charge per terabyte, so in terms of cost, it can be very costly. They have three different features, and you have to pay extra for those."
"DataCore SANsymphony's pricing is very high and should be much cheaper."
"The pricing and licensing are better with DataCore."
"This product has a good ratio between quality and price. In many cases, it's less expensive to work with DataCore than other storage systems."
"This solution allows the use of off-the-shelf hardware and charges by the TB of storage."
"The solution is cost effective."
"With the data center licensing and everything that is connected to that, this solution is relatively costly."
"Cost-wise the product is one of the more affordable within the category of products."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

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 of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore SANsymphony SDS?
The cost changed from a perpetual license to a subscription model, and it seems reasonable. I am technical personnel ...
What do you like most about DataCore SANsymphony?
The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are a lot of counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like...
What needs improvement with DataCore SANsymphony?
In my opinion, there should be improvements in how to get and filter logs. However, this is not a frequent need becau...
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?
Pricing is an advantage of Storage Spaces Direct. Licenses can be on a monthly or yearly basis, depending on the addi...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?
Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution. At the moment, the new version does...
 

Also Known As

No data available
DataCore Virtual SAN
MS Storage Spaces Direct
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Volkswagen , Maimonides Medical Center, NASA, Thorntons, Inc., TUI, ISCO Industries, Pee Dee Electric Cooperative, United Financial Credit Union, Derby Supply Chain Solutions, Mission Community Hospital, Bellarmine College Preparatory, Colby-Sawyer College, Mount Sinai Health System, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Quorn Foods, Bitburger, University of Birmingham, Stadtverwaltung Heidelberg, NetEnt to name a few.
Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt
Find out what your peers are saying about DataCore SANsymphony vs. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.