DDN IntelliFlash vs StarWind Storage Appliance comparison

DataDirect Networks and StarWind are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. DataDirect Networks is ranked #29 with an average rating of 9.0, while StarWind is ranked #30 with an average rating of 8.5. DataDirect Networks holds a 0.5% mindshare in AFS, compared to StarWind’s 0.2% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of DataDirect Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

DDN IntelliFlash and StarWind Storage Appliance are two competing storage solutions. StarWind Storage Appliance stands out for its cost-effectiveness and robust features, making users feel it is worth the investment.

Features: Users appreciate the hybrid storage options and high performance of DDN IntelliFlash, highlighting its efficiency in handling mixed workloads. In contrast, StarWind Storage Appliance users value its seamless scalability and software-defined storage capabilities. The main difference lies in DDN IntelliFlash's focus on performance versus StarWind's emphasis on scalability and flexibility.

Room for Improvement: DDN IntelliFlash users note the need for better integration with third-party tools and enhancements in data replication features. StarWind Storage Appliance users suggest improvements in hardware compatibility and a more intuitive management system. The differences show DDN IntelliFlash can enhance its integrations, while StarWind could focus on hardware and management refinements.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: DDN IntelliFlash users report a smooth deployment process with responsive customer service but mention a steep learning curve. StarWind Storage Appliance users find the deployment straightforward with excellent support, highlighting clear documentation and tutorials. While both products offer good customer service, StarWind is noted for being easier to deploy.

Pricing and ROI: DDN IntelliFlash users find the initial setup costs high but justify the investment with strong ROI over time. StarWind Storage Appliance is praised for its competitive pricing and quick ROI, offering significant savings. The key difference is DDN's higher upfront cost versus StarWind's more immediate financial benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed DDN IntelliFlash vs. StarWind Storage Appliance Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. StarWind Storage Appliance

July 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 FlashArray X NVMe

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DDN IntelliFlash is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Storage Appliance is 0.2%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh

Chief Technology Officer at Lambda256

Supports efficient storage management through volume snapshots and offers reliable non-disruptive upgrades

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, but it does not show the performance by 4K byte unit. It displays IOPS and bandwidth, but IOPS is about real use, and I want to know how many IOPS are currently running in 4K byte units. I cannot see that IOPS because most storage systems report their performance by 4K byte unit. I want to see Pure Storage performance by 4K byte unit to compare with other storage or other internal NVMe SSD.

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Anil Rahulwar

Storage Engineer at Movate

Good customer service and support and suitable for large environments

It is very easy to install. Users don't need to remember anything while deploying IntelliFlash because everything will be taken care of by tech support. They can easily modify the installation or change the password with the help of the tech support. It is very easy to integrate IntelliFlash with other solutions. We have plugins that can be integrated with other solutions. It will require maintenance. It is the same as any other storage solution: updates and upgrades, firmware upgrades, and drive upgrades.

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Kishore CA

Senior Engineering Assistant at Bharat Electronics Limited

Offers stable performance even with a single node failure and manages everything with just two nodes.

The only drawback is that it takes a bit of time during initial synchronization, especially after restarting the environment. This is a potential area of improvement. There's a synchronization time, but it takes time. Initially, when we start the first environment deployment, it starts synchronizing between the storage. So, it is taking time. One thing is that even when you restart. Let's assume that the synchronization is completed and the storage is synchronized. Both storages are fully synchronized, and it is in sync mode. Now, if we want to restart both nodes, there is a case for maintenance purposes. You took both nodes for maintenance, and we rebooted it. Then, it should not synchronize again. It should be a checksum. And if there is a checksum match, there should be no synchronization again. So, one thing that should be taken care of. Another thing is that I used freeware- the community version, free license, which we deployed using PowerShare. In that case, it was very difficult to bring back another node when one node was faulty. Let's assume that both the nodes are working fine. And we found one node faulty. And we destroyed all the volumes in that and tried to bring it back. So that was a difficult factor. The final solution is that we were not able to bring back the failed node. So, we reconstructed a new data source for that. That is another drawback. In future releases, I would like to see the integration with VMware or some other things as a plugin model for VMware.

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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 is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."

"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."

"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."

"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."

"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."

"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."

"The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"It provides a combination of all the protocols that you need, without losing deduplication and compression."

"EasyTier/hotcaching: Valuable because it allows greater performance than standard SAS disks"

"Data Compression: Up to 80% space reduction in the database"

"We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways."

"It's very fast. We were seeing read latencies of less than one millisecond. It is robust."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"It performed great originally, and when it performed great, it was awesome."

"It has reduced our electricity usage by reducing the amount of disks needed for the virtual environment."

More DDN IntelliFlash pros

"We saw an ROI. We have saved both time and money by using it."

"The integration is excellent."

"They call us when monitoring shows a possible issue and are very flexible in working with our schedule to troubleshoot when it is convenient for us."

"Another good feature is that you can pause the appliance if you want to move it from one location to another and then once it's moved you can resume it, this way you can physically move the whole cluster or storage without any downtime. Its really easy to use, if you have a good foundation in storage and clustering then you will need less then one hour to figure out how to operate it."

"Its user-friendly interface makes it an attractive option, especially for customers who may not be highly tech-savvy."

"Having instant failover redundancy helps me sleep easier at night."

"StarWind Storage Appliance is simpler and more effective than using Microsoft products. We chose it because it can be easily integrated with Microsoft."

"I would say data protection and easy management are the most valuable features of the product...I rate the technical support a nine out of ten."

More StarWind Storage Appliance pros

Cons

"We need better data deduplication."

"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."

"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."

"I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert."

"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."

"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."

"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"In the proxy section you can’t choose a user account and password, so it is not allowed at the moment to go out, if customer has such constellation."

"They need to offer better integration for a virtual platform to enable you to create hyper-converged solution."

"In future releases, I look forward to more AI features."

"It only keeps one hour of real-time data without the ability to do deep analysis of each element."

"Technical support is bad. It'd grade them at 30% or 40%. The response time is terrible."

"Snapshots are not as easy to access as on a NetApp device."

"It's somewhat scalable, but maybe not so much as some of the competition."

"Performance is horrible now. Our original intent was to buy new storage in about two years. But since it became a critical urgency for us, we decided to purchase a new one in two or three months."

More DDN IntelliFlash cons

"The dashboard features are not in the free version."

"They offered onsite installation, but we chose to do it ourselves. That took longer and was more work for us but saved us a ton of money in the end."

"With StarWind Storage Appliance, it would be better to have an overall easier setup with a little bit of configuration changes since, currently, even a small mistake may cause the setup process to go wrong."

"It needs more integration with backup vendors so there is native integration with it that will allow storage level backup/snapshots. I would love to see integration with Veeam and Commvault so it can be recognized by them directly and added as network storage."

"They could improve by providing integration with HP."

"Other solutions, such as StorMagic, offer more flexibility in terms of handling caching and moving data between additional nodes."

"StarWind no longer sells HDDs for primary storage."

"An improvement would be if they reached out to education customers with other available products."

More StarWind Storage Appliance cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."

"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."

"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"I think we pay around 100 grand per year for three arrays or four arrays."

"I recommend the full bundle software in order to have all the functionality. It is more expensive to purchase it one by one."

"It costs about 50,000 euros."

"StarWind by far provides the best bang for the buck."

"With StarWind Storage Appliance, the payments made towards the licensing part of the product are on a per-node basis, making it cost-effective for us to use the solution in our company."

"We found that the price of StarWind was very good compared to VMware or Nutanix."

"I rate StarWind Storage Appliance's pricing an eight out of ten."

"The cost is determined by various factors, including the amount of terabyte storage you require, the number of nodes you want to purchase, and the duration of your maintenance agreement"

"On the homepage, you can not see the pricing."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Healthcare Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...

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What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could ...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IntelliFlash?

It is a bit cheaper than other products, 10% to 20% cheaper.

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What needs improvement with IntelliFlash?

DDN IntelliFlash should improve in terms of sales. In future releases, I look forward to more features about AI and M...

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What is your primary use case for IntelliFlash?

We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways. They have large scalability and use more th...

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What do you like most about StarWind Storage Appliance?

I would say data protection and easy management are the most valuable features of the product...I rate the technical ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Storage Appliance?

I rate StarWind Storage Appliance's pricing an eight out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind Storage Appliance?

StarWind Storage Appliance's demo version should be similar to the paid one.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 25% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

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VAST Data vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 36% of the time

NetApp AFF vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 18% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 17% of the time

Tintri VMstore T7000 vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 10% of the time

More DDN IntelliFlash Competitors

FreeNAS vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 29% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 20% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 20% of the time

Scality RING vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 18% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 14% of the time

More StarWind Storage Appliance Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

August 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash

August 2025

Download DDN IntelliFlash product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Storage Appliance

July 2025

Download StarWind Storage Appliance product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

Tegile, IntelliFlash N-Series, IntelliFlash T-Series, IntelliFlash HD-Series

No data available

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

Pure Storage

Western Digital through its IntelliFlash arrays delivers high-performance storage with a complete range of features and connectivity options, including inline compression and deduplication, application and VM consistent snapshots, replication, RAID, data encryption, VMware vCenter integration, and multi-protocol support for SAN (FC, iSCSI) and NAS (NFS, SMBv3). IntelliFlash arrays deliver high availability through dualredundant and hot-swappable components, active/active or active/passive controllers, non-disruptive software upgrades, eMLC flash, and proactive cloud-based monitoring, analytics, and intelligence. A RESTful API provides scripted or programmatic control.

DataDirect Networks

For SMB and Enterprises who are looking for high performance primary storage for server virtualization, VDI, database and Big Data scenarios, or inexpensive secondary backup tier, our solution is StarWind Storage Appliance. It unifies commodity servers, disks and flash, and associated software into an easily scalable storage platform.

Additionally, the appliance features an optional gateway to Azure public cloud, which helps to implement an effective Disaster Recovery plan or meet regulatory requirements. StarWind SA scales up by adding individual disks and flash modules, or JBODs, while adding ready controller nodes allows scaling out.

StarWind SA targets those, who need high-performance primary storage or secondary storage for backup. In case there is a whole virtualization infrastructure to build from scratch, StarWind HCA will come in handy. Otherwise, if all the required hardware is present, StarWind Virtual SAN will be enough to build a high-performance virtualization setup.

StarWind

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Bank of Stockton, Barnsley College, Boyes Turner, Brigham Young University

Bosch, EC2 IT, Solid Earth Inc., Canon

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. StarWind Storage Appliance

July 2025

Free Report: DDN IntelliFlash vs. StarWind Storage Appliance

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