DataCore SANsymphony vs Red Hat Ceph Storage comparison

DataCore and Red Hat are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. DataCore is ranked #4 with an average rating of 9.4, while Red Hat is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.9. DataCore holds a 6.9% mindshare in SDS, compared to Red Hat’s 20.0% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of DataCore users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 82% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Red Hat Ceph Storage and DataCore SANsymphony compete in the storage solutions market. Red Hat Ceph has the upper hand in cloud integration and open-source flexibility, while DataCore SANsymphony offers superior performance and efficiency.

Features: Red Hat Ceph Storage's open-source and highly scalable architecture suits cloud-native applications, integrating well with OpenStack and Kubernetes. It supports block, object, and file storage from a single platform. Ceph's adaptability to various hardware adds to its flexibility. DataCore SANsymphony provides high data throughput with parallel I/O technology, enhancing performance. Its flexibility supports diverse storage devices, and it offers built-in continuous data protection, mirroring, and synchronous replication.

Room for Improvement: Red Hat Ceph Storage could streamline its deployment process to be more user-friendly. Improved support for hybrid environments can enhance its offerings. Enhanced user interfaces for configuration and management would be beneficial. DataCore SANsymphony could improve cost-effectiveness to attract a broader range of users. Enhanced integration with other platforms could expand its usability. Simplifying the licensing model may make it more attractive for varied businesses.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Red Hat Ceph Storage has a complex deployment model that requires expertise but benefits from community support. DataCore SANsymphony offers straightforward deployment with intuitive management tools and professional support, easing implementation for IT teams.

Pricing and ROI: Red Hat Ceph Storage is initially cost-effective due to its open-source nature but may incur additional operational costs requiring skilled personnel. DataCore SANsymphony involves higher initial costs but provides a better long-term ROI through efficient resource use and reduced latency, justifying a premium price for organizations valuing performance.

To learn more, read our detailed DataCore SANsymphony vs. Red Hat Ceph Storage Report (Updated: May 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony vs. Red Hat Ceph Storage

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:

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 DataCore SANsymphony is 6.9%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ceph Storage is 20.0%, down from 22.0% 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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OliverPalz

Senior Consultant at SJT SOLUTIONS GMBH

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.

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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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."

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

"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."

"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."

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

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is user-friendly. It's replication feature is great because it has active replication and active DR. That's the beauty of the product. It's a perfect solution for block storage."

"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"It is a very stable solution."

"The most useful feature of SANsymphony is that it's able to manage any brand of block storage."

"The DataCore system has been rock solid since we have been using it - from 2007 on."

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

"It is a well-proven, automated management tool in all dynamic provisioning, auto-tiering, great performance, parallel I/O, cache speed mechanism, etc."

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

"An advantage of SANsymphony is its ease of use, especially when installing or upgrading the system."

"It is a stable solution."

More DataCore SANsymphony pros

"Ceph’s ability to adapt to varying types of commodity hardware affords us substantial flexibility and future-proofing."

"It's a very performance-intensive, brilliant storage system, and I always recommend it to customers based on its benefits, performance, and scalability."

"I can compare Red Hat Ceph Storage with products from other vendors; I explored quite a few, but I still find that Red Hat Ceph Storage is making the most disruption."

"Data redundancy is a key feature, since it can survive failures (disks/servers). We didn’t lose our data or have a service interruption during server/disk failures."

"The configuration of the solution and the user interface are both quite good."

"We have some legacy servers that can be associated with this structure. With Ceph, we can rearrange these machines and reuse our investment."

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

"The community support is very good."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pros

Cons

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

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

"We haven't been able to use much of the cloud area of Pure Storage. We have a storage server and it would be better if it could integrate with other cloud features of this solution."

"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade should improve on more cloud integration."

"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."

"Commvault has mainly driven the Analytics, providing data and reports. However, the product has room for improvement, especially regarding storage analytics. Upgrading firmware has caused issues, requiring feature disabling to revert to traditional backups. The firmware upgrades sometimes affect Commvault backups."

"I would like to see more deduplication."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"I still see room for improvement with DataCore SANsymphony in the area of alarm and task management."

"The cost is becoming prohibitive since they moved to a subscription model."

"DataCore needs a more efficient and better way to keep track of metrics and counters so that we can do baseline analysis to measure performance."

"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."

"I think an easier way to open a service call, right through the DataCore GUI, would be an improvement, especially when there is an urgent issue."

"The graphical interface is not always very stable."

"One limitation of this solution is that it's Windows-based, e.g. one requirement to install DataCore SANsymphony SDS is putting it on a Windows server machine. It relies on Windows and that is a limitation because there are some customers who are looking for non Windows systems."

"SANsymphony is missing some features that vSAN has. For example, vSAN has a special feature called continuous data protection. It provides the ability to go back in time to a given moment. You can see what was on your disk in the past up to two weeks. That's a great feature because ransomware attacks are increasingly common, and that provides you some kind of protection."

More DataCore SANsymphony cons

"Some documentation is very hard to find."

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

"Ceph is not a mature product at this time. Guides are misleading and incomplete. You will meet all kind of bugs and errors trying to install the system for the first time. It requires very experienced personnel to support and keep the system in working condition, and install all necessary packets."

"I have encountered issues with stability when replication factor was not 3, which is the default and recommended value. Go below 3 and problems will arise."

"While the documentation for Ceph Storage is helpful, it could be improved."

"If you use for any other solution like other Kubernetes solutions, it's not very suitable."

"It took me a long time to get the storage drivers for the communication with Kubernetes up and running. The documentation could improve it is lacking information. I'm not sure if this is a Ceph problem or if Ceph should address this, but it was something I ran into. Additionally, there is a performance issue I am having that I am looking into, but overall I am satisfied with the performance."

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

More Red Hat Ceph Storage cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"The price could be cheaper."

"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."

"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"Make sure you are made aware of the annual subscription cost when purchasing."

"In my case, the licensing per terabytes is very high and it must be licensed for each extra functionality."

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

"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."

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

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

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

"The pricing and licensing are better with DataCore."

More DataCore SANsymphony pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"We never used the paid support."

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

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

"There is no cost for software."

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

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Educational Organization

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

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...

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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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

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

See all answers

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 ...

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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...

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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...

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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 ...

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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

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 20% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

Dell ECS vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 5% of the time

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StarWind Virtual SAN vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 12% of the time

VMware vSAN vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 11% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 9% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 8% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 7% of the time

More DataCore SANsymphony Competitors

MinIO vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 37% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 6% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 6% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 4% of the time

More Red Hat Ceph Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

June 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony

June 2025

Download DataCore SANsymphony product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ceph Storage

June 2025

Download Red Hat Ceph Storage product report

Also Known As

No data available

DataCore Virtual SAN

Ceph

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

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

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.

Dell, DreamHost

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony vs. Red Hat Ceph Storage

May 2025

Free Report: DataCore SANsymphony vs. Red Hat Ceph Storage

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