HPE StoreVirtual vs VMware Software Defined Storage comparison

HPE StoreVirtual vs. VMware Software Defined Storage

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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 May 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.2%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE StoreVirtual is 1.3%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Software Defined Storage is 0.9%, down from 1.1% 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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Vebjorn Nergaard

Senior IT Engineer at Guard Automation AS

Reliable with helpful support and good replication

The setup is okay, however, it comes with a moderate amount of difficulty. If you are new to the product, it is difficult. You do get used to the process over time and it gets easier. A company just needs one person to maintain the solution as it just runs. You don't need any support staff. It's very, very hands-off except when you do updates. The product is living its own life.

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RashidAnwar

Senior Project Lead at Tetra Pak

A stable solution that can be used for database applications and virtualization for multiple locations

VMware Software Defined Storage is used for database applications and virtualization for multiple locations VMware Software Defined Storage gives higher availability against data corruption. Redundancy and scalability are the other valuable features of the solution. You can scale it on the go,…

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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's very easy-to-use."

"The most valuable features of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."

"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."

"The performance of FlashBlade is excellent. It does not necessarily leverage the SOS API that some of the newer products leverage, but I found its speed pretty much on par and comparable. It is fast, and it does what it is supposed to do."

"The product is scalable and easy to expand."

"It uses the same platform for connectivity so integration is seamless."

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

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The initial setup is straightforward, not a complex procedure."

"All of the administrative tasks are easy and everything is centralized."

"I guess on the top of the list is certainly ease of use."

"Simplicity of not having to buy FC or FCoE SAN. Instead, we buy servers with their own storage."

"StoreVirtual is that it is our software-defined solution and it's everywhere."

"The solution's most valuable aspect is that it is hardware independent."

"A company can scale it easily."

"The seamlessness behind the scenes of block management."

More HPE StoreVirtual pros

"This is an easy-to-use product for adding flexibility to your storage solution."

"The most valuable features of VMware Software Defined Storage are scalability, high availability, and performance."

"The single management panel is the main feature that is wonderful for the customer."

"The best part of the solution is that you can actually scale up to a large number of operating systems without additional hardware."

"VMware Software Defined Storage gives higher availability against data corruption."

"The solution is simple to configure and provides good performance and less footprint."

"The most valuable features of the solution are that it is easy to deploy and the support is really good."

Cons

"We initially encountered challenges with the assembly process due to issues with the documentation required during setup, an area where Pure Storage needs improvement."

"The feature that we're waiting on is better integration with the cell services."

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

"I want efficiency. FlashBlade doesn't have efficiency now."

"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."

"I would like to see more VM-Aware features in the next release of this solution."

"The solution is expensive."

"In terms of scalability, it doesn't expand out quite as robustly as some of the others, but it covers 90% of the market in what it does."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"One of the areas that need improvement is the consolidated management platform, to manage all of the nodes from one place and the licensing around that."

"The solution needs to ensure it is on par with the industry in terms of availability of features and various other options."

"It is a costly solution."

"User interface could be improved."

"Product looks like it is in the end of development."

"The GUI is a bit old-fashioned. It should be updated."

"The penalty for the availability is performance. So, you have to balance or choose between the availability and the performance."

"it would nice to have deduplication or compression, things that you have in some of the higher end products."

More HPE StoreVirtual cons

"It doesn't have the ability to be deployed on any kind of hardware and network connectors."

"I'd like to see improved hardware compatibility"

"Simplifying the licensing model and making it cheaper would improve the solution."

"VMware Software Defined Storage should include a shared database on a standard version."

"The solution has some limitations in terms of replication to remote sites or cloud infrastructure, which need improvement."

"The license model of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"The performance is not as good as some competing products and reporting can be improved."

"There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."

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

"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."

"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 is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

"The price could be cheaper."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"For our organization, I believe the cost is 16,000 Euros for a three-year license. It costs a bit more to do the maintenance on our servers as well. It's also on an HP ProLiant server and an organization will need to do the maintenance there also. I believe the price for that is around 2000 Euros a year."

"One of the key features about it is that when you buy either a VSA license or a StoreVirtual appliance, all your software's included."

"It costs less than $10,000 for one machine. If it costs more than 15% higher than this, then the customer may change to another solution."

"The prices are OK, so we don't have much difficulty selling HPE in Brazil."

"Licensing is not exactly straightforward, but not the worst I have ever seen."

"If you buy a five-year license, not only does the technical support expire after five years, but you also lose the ability to change and expand the VSA, and the systems won't go down."

"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."

"The solution is very expensive."

"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."

"VMware Software Defined Storage is a slightly expensive solution."

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850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

29%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

23%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

10%

No data available

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 for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

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

What do you like most about VMware Software Defined Storage?

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Earn 20 points

VMware Software Defined Storage gives higher availability against data corruption.

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...

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Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

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MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

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Red Hat Ceph Storage vs HPE StoreVirtual

Compared 53% of the time

VMware vSAN vs HPE StoreVirtual

Compared 47% of the time

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DataCore SANsymphony vs VMware Software Defined Storage

Compared 100% of the time

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Product Reports

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

HPE StoreVirtual

Download HPE StoreVirtual product report

VMware Software Defined Storage

Download VMware Software Defined Storage product report

Also Known As

No data available

HPE StoreVirtual, HPE VSA

VMware SDS

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

HPE StoreVirtual storage ensures that organisations can optimise the benefits of server virtualisation with cost-effective high availability and disaster recovery. The iSCSI-based, scale-out storage platform is easy to manage and change – meeting ongoing business demands without creating IT bottlenecks or application downtime. Overcoming the cost and management limitations of traditional storage area networks (SANs), HPE StoreVirtual nodes use storage clustering to form a single pool of resources that enable organisations to buy only what they need today, scaling non-disruptively to meet requirements in the future.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

VMware software-defined storage is a simple, yet intelligent, storage data center architecture that aligns with business and application demands—eliminating static, purpose-built and inefficient hardware with dynamic, agile and automated solutions.

VMware

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

NBrIX, WIND Telecom, Netrics

Helse Nord, Sky

HPE StoreVirtual vs. VMware Software Defined Storage