DataCore SANsymphony vs Nexenta comparison

DataCore and Nexenta by DDN are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. DataCore is ranked #4 with an average rating of 9.4, while Nexenta by DDN is ranked #15 with an average rating of 9.0. DataCore holds a 7.2% mindshare in SDS, compared to Nexenta by DDN’s 1.4% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of DataCore users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 66% of Nexenta by DDN users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

DataCore SANsymphony and Nexenta compete in storage virtualization. SANsymphony generally has stronger pricing and support, while Nexenta offers superior features.

Features: DataCore SANsymphony provides exceptional storage virtualization with auto-tiering, synchronous mirroring, and high performance. Nexenta offers unified file and block storage, integrated data management tools, and a diverse feature set.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SANsymphony has straightforward deployment and responsive customer service, facilitating easier implementation. Nexenta allows scalable deployment but often involves more setup complexity and expertise, with customer service less responsive than DataCore.

Pricing and ROI: DataCore SANsymphony has competitive pricing with substantial ROI, benefiting from low entry costs. Nexenta has higher initial setup costs justified by its extensive data management features, potentially leading to higher ROI in feature-rich environments.

To learn more, read our detailed DataCore SANsymphony vs. Nexenta Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony vs. Nexenta

September 2025

Download the complete report

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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 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 DataCore SANsymphony is 7.2%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nexenta is 1.4%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
DataCore SANsymphony	7.2%
Pure Storage FlashBlade	4.1%
Nexenta	1.4%
Other	87.3%

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Featured Reviews

Parul-Patel

Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

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.

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SigfridCecillon

Owner at Arsium

High availability and user-friendliness enhance infrastructure health and redundancy

I would rate technical support from DataCore SANsymphony a 10. Each time I contact the technical support, it's when I don't have a choice because it's very difficult for me on site, and each time, I have good people online who are able to help me solve the problem. Usually, the problems are not very technically difficult, but sometimes they are, and the support team is still there to help us resolve them. The majority of the problems are linked to licensing, so when the license has expired or the number is not correct, they are proactive and change things live, which is very good.

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Anil Rahulwar

Storage Engineer at Movate

Offers good features like Fusion and stable product with better customer service

Fusion is the only best feature, but it's a very good feature. Nexenta is a very old product. Nexenta is a well-established product used in the UK, US, India, Dubai, Qatar, and other countries. It is very good. The interface is up to date. Everything is up to date. The OS version was recently upgraded to 5.5 FP3. AI features: DataDirect Networks owns Nexenta and has won awards for AI. They continuously work on AI features. DDN also has a product called Tintri Infinia with AI features. And NVIDIA product also has AI features. I look forward to working on those products.

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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

"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."

"Among its most appealing features are its ease of handling and minimal maintenance requirements."

"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."

"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 features include the ease of implementation, ease of use and the speed that you can do backup and recovery on."

"The most valuable features of this solution are the rewrite speed and the nonstop services."

"It performs well and it is also very fast."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The features I have found most valuable are the active-active, or so-called grid technology, and the integration into our VMware-vCenter."

"During the maintenance periods, on any part of the storage or VMware migration, we have had no downtime."

"Mirroring is the most valuable feature because I can provide a high-level of service and optimize the use of obsolete storage."

"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."

"DataCore has helped provide flexible, highly available, high-performance storage that otherwise would have been outside our price range."

"Active-active is the most valuable aspect for us."

"Continuous data protection (CDP), can be used to "protect" again ransomware by recording all write on disk in a log. You can recover your data with incredible time granularity."

"The support is excellent."

More DataCore SANsymphony pros

"It has a feature called Fusion that makes it more secure and productive."

Cons

"It would be nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."

"The Pure Storage Orchestrator is our biggest pain point at the moment. If we can have more say in future developments of feature sets that we will need to support for our use case, that would be pretty beneficial to us."

"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."

"I would also like to see better support for CIFS workloads."

"I would like to see better integration."

"In the realm of micro-services, I think that Pure Storage can do well if they start getting in there and making their arrays more micro-services ready."

"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."

"Compared to, for example, Hitachi NAS, the solution is not mature at all. It's just in its infancy as far as technology goes."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"DataCore should integrate its own file server into SANsymphony."

"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."

"It would be ideal if they were providing archive licensing with the ability to create a second pool on existing storage nodes."

"The cloud reporting interface is quite poor compared to other vendors."

"The alert system could have more features."

"One area where the solution could improve is its software platform. Many customers have expressed dissatisfaction with the software running on Microsoft Windows."

"The area of DataCore SANsymphony that has room for improvement is the support."

"The graphical interface is not always very stable."

More DataCore SANsymphony cons

"There were some SMB issues, but they were resolved."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Support is a separate line item. Support is a different cost, but whatever your support is now, that's what you're going to pay forever. If your support's $100 today, six years from now it's $100. It doesn't fluctuate unless you upgrade it, or change it, etc."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."

"The product is very expensive."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"DataCore SANsymphony's pricing is very high and should be much cheaper."

"The solution is cost effective."

"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."

"It is relatively expensive, and the additional costs for hardware and storage can make it a significant investment for customers."

"Pricing has improved but it is still expensive."

"This solution allows the use of off-the-shelf hardware and charges by the TB of storage."

"The pricing and licensing are better with DataCore."

"The cost is at the same level as other storage solutions and it is easy to understand the licensing."

More DataCore SANsymphony pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Government

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	20

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	36
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	21

No data available

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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore SANsymphony SDS?

Before choosing DataCore SANsymphony, I did not evaluate other options.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with DataCore SANsymphony?

DataCore SANsymphony can be improved with high availability as it offers synchronous mirroring between physical and s...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Nexenta?

There were some SMB issues, but they were resolved in the latest version. Four to five customers faced intermittent i...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Nexenta?

It's for file systems. It's a NAS solution, and it has flexibility. There shouldn't be any outages because if one nod...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Nexenta?

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten. I would recommend using it.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 19% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 7% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

StarWind Virtual SAN vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 13% of the time

VMware vSAN vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 7% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 7% of the time

More DataCore SANsymphony Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Nexenta

Compared 60% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Nexenta

Compared 40% of the time

More Nexenta Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

September 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony

October 2025

Download DataCore SANsymphony product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

September 2025

Download Nexenta product report

Also Known As

No data available

DataCore Virtual SAN

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

Experience peace of mind with DataCore SANsymphony, the ultimate software-defined storage solution alleviating storage management challenges. Say goodbye to the complexities of managing different storage tiers and disruptions with SANsymphony's block-level storage virtualization technology, empowering you to automate capacity provisioning and data placement across diverse storage environments including SAN, DAS, HCI, and JBOD. Break down silos, control data placement, meet business continuity objectives, boost performance, and seamlessly expand or refresh hardware with SANsymphony. Benefit from features like asynchronous replication for disaster recovery, minimizing data loss, accelerating application responsiveness, and integrating new technology non-disruptively. Trusted by industry leaders like NASA, Thorntons, Inc., and TUI Cruises, DataCore SANsymphony guarantees unparalleled flexibility, scalability, and reliability, ensuring uninterrupted data access and application availability while reducing storage costs and inefficiencies.

DataCore

Nexenta is the global leader in Open Source-driven Software-Defined Storage - what we call Open Software-Defined Storage (OpenSDS).We uniquely integrate software-only "Open Source" collaboration with commodity hardware-centric "Software-Defined Storage" (SDS) innovation.

Nexenta by DDN

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.

GMO, Northern Backup, Cox Communications, University of Toronto, ScaleMatrix, Wipro, Ruhr University, Drillinginfo, George Washington University, Walton Electric, Faculty of Physics, NAU, ServerCentral

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony vs. Nexenta

September 2025

Free Report: DataCore SANsymphony vs. Nexenta

Find out what your peers are saying about DataCore SANsymphony vs. Nexenta and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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