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DataCore SANsymphony vs VMware Software Defined Storage 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
218
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
DataCore SANsymphony
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Storage Software (2nd), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (4th), HCI (9th), Storage Performance (1st)
VMware Software Defined Sto...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (14th)
 

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.
SigfridCecillon - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Mohammad Jundiah - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at QDS
Data security and performance excel but integration and licensing need improvement
I used Nutanix for its hyper-converged infrastructure capabilities and VMware Site Recovery for disaster recovery.  Additionally, I worked with VMware Software Defined Storage both internally and with partners to consolidate servers into one solution The most valuable features of VMware Software…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The stability is perfect, the reliability is 100%, and the latency is always lower than 1 millisecond."
"Now with Pure Storage, our developers work a lot faster and more efficiently which has definitely improved our productivity."
"What I like most about this solution, is the speed, resiliency and scalability."
"We currently have four Pure Storage FlashArray boxes, and all the storage boxes are on an Evergreen subscription model where we receive the latest hardware and features without any cost in a completely non-intrusive task."
"It saved a lot of space, as far as physical space in our data center."
"Running on Pure has given us the ability to scale out our SQL environments."
"This solution has improved my organization because it has good performance."
"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."
"The most valuable feature for us is that we can adjust the size of the storage very easily, without stopping production."
"Excellent performance and reliability, and very low cost using home hardware."
"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."
"It is true storage virtualization at its finest."
"Cluster maintenance is super easy: just add a node to the second site and the software takes care of the data."
"SANsymphony-V offers a comprehensive set of storage virtualization functions to build a very robust storage network that speeds up applications, ensures business continuity and facilitates disaster recovery."
"This flexibility and scalability have helped our organization in practice because it is important for us as it decouples the storage management software from the physical hardware, creating a software layer of intelligence."
"Stability, the price, and ergonomics are the features I find most valuable in DataCore SANsymphony."
"The product is user-friendly from an administrative standpoint and very easy to use."
"The most valuable features of VMware Software Defined Storage are scalability, high availability, and performance."
"This is an easy-to-use product for adding flexibility to your storage solution."
"The technical support is awesome."
"The most valuable features of VMware Software Defined Storage are scalability, high availability, and performance."
"The solution is simple to configure and provides good performance and less footprint."
"VMware Software Defined Storage gives higher availability against data corruption."
"The single management panel is the main feature that is wonderful for the customer."
 

Cons

"We would like to see better troubleshooting aspects. It helps us if we can find out where the problem is."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve in the area of cryptographic information in the consoles. The user-friendliness could improve."
"The solution needs an integrated NAS platform, file platform."
"Its price needs improvement. Its price is almost double than any other flash storage solution."
"I would like some performance analytics which go deeper than today. It should be specific to some hosts and applications."
"The data reduction that we had initially anticipated when we bought Pure and we move over, is way lower than the expected reduction. It depends on the workloads, of course. But that has been a challenge at times."
"We have not seen a reduction in our TCO nor have we seen ROI."
"We do have an issue with the vCenter integration. Pure Storage says it has a lot of free space, but vCenter says it is completely full."
"I would like to see SMPA (Shared Multi-Port Array) technology developed with the aim of allowing a configuration identical to other storage arrays."
"If you're dealing with big databases or transactional databases, it might not be the best-suited solution. The design of DataCore's solution isn't oriented towards this type of data."
"I would like for it to improve into a more ergonomic management console and a translation into the French language. It should have some process for a shutdown of a VM properly in case of a problem."
"I see some good competition to DataCore SANsymphony at the moment. I don't think DataCore SANsymphony is the best option on the market at the moment as they still could learn something from their competitors."
"There is no way of quickly matching the exact size of a vDisk to a disk pool."
"It's a very expensive solution, and the licensing costs should be lower."
"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."
"The alert system could have more features."
"There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages."
"The cost of the product is where an improvement could be made. It's generally very expensive and requires a lot of architecture that needs to be designed according to specific situations."
"VMware Software Defined Storage should include a shared database on a standard version."
"It doesn't have the ability to be deployed on any kind of hardware and network connectors."
"Simplifying the licensing model and making it cheaper would improve the solution."
"The performance is not as good as some competing products and reporting can be improved."
"I'd like to see improved hardware compatibility"
"The solution has some limitations in terms of replication to remote sites or cloud infrastructure, which need improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate it a seven out of ten for pricing. It could be improved."
"We have an Evergreen Storage subscription, which I think is a great feature."
"Price per terabyte is substantially higher than their competition. We would like to see it drop."
"The cost has room for improvement."
"They have a standardized fee; it's been the same price for 10 years straight. I am happy with the price — I think it's good."
"There is always room for negotiation."
"The pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray is reasonable."
"It is not the cheapest one out there. We're paying yearly, but I'm not 100% sure."
"The solution is cost effective."
"In my case, the licensing per terabytes is very high and it must be licensed for each extra functionality."
"This solution allows the use of off-the-shelf hardware and charges by the TB of storage."
"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."
"Make sure you are made aware of the annual subscription cost when purchasing."
"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."
"DataCore SANsymphony's pricing is very high and should be much cheaper."
"VMware Software Defined Storage is a slightly expensive solution."
"The product is quite expensive and is among the most expensive for this type of solution."
"I believe there is a yearly licensing fee of around $2000 - $5000. I don't think there are additional costs above that but it depends on the type of infrastructure you're booting."
"The solution is very expensive."
"A single socket costs you around US $6,000 for three years. At a minimum, you have a three load cluster for a medium or enterprise-scale company. It can get quite expensive because you're likely to need four to six sockets on the other side. It comes to around $30,000."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business66
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise152
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise6
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore SANsymphony SDS?
I am saying that the pricing is reasonable. It's not that expensive, and the product is also pretty stable. It's a go...
What needs improvement with DataCore SANsymphony?
It's difficult to know how DataCore SANsymphony can be improved. I think DataCore SANsymphony could be deployed on Li...
What is your primary use case for DataCore SANsymphony?
I usually recommend DataCore SANsymphony for companies in the domain of research, energy, governmental, and education.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Software Defined Storage?
The price of VMware Software Defined Storage is on the pricey side, rated four out of five in cost. There is room for...
What needs improvement with VMware Software Defined Storage?
There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages. More automation, such as using Playbook on Ansibl...
What is your primary use case for VMware Software Defined Storage?
I used Nutanix for its hyper-converged infrastructure capabilities and VMware Site Recovery for disaster recovery. Ad...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
DataCore Virtual SAN
VMware SDS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
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.
Helse Nord, Sky
Find out what your peers are saying about DataCore SANsymphony vs. VMware Software Defined Storage and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.