HPE StoreVirtual vs VMware Software Defined Storage comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and VMware are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #21, while VMware is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.5. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 1.3% mindshare in SDS, compared to VMware’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

HPE StoreVirtual and VMware Software Defined Storage compete in the storage technology space. Based on user feedback, HPE StoreVirtual has the upper hand in hardware stability and support, while VMware excels in availability and scalability.

Features: HPE StoreVirtual offers robust platform integration, simplifying management with a single control point and broad support across hardware and hypervisors. It provides users the ability to repurpose existing hardware, enhancing cost-effectiveness. On the other hand, VMware Software Defined Storage is known for high availability and redundancy, allowing easy data migration and scalability, making it adaptable to growing data needs.

Room for Improvement: HPE StoreVirtual requires improvement in managing latency issues and enhancing scalability for complex environments. Users also report challenges with license management and integration. VMware Software Defined Storage could improve performance and reporting features, and address its high costs with a more favorable licensing model.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE StoreVirtual provides knowledgeable technical support and comprehensive documentation, though users face delays in ticket resolutions and acquiring advanced engineering expertise. VMware offers solid support with experienced staff, yet deployment may vary in complexity based on user expertise and infrastructure needs.

Pricing and ROI: HPE StoreVirtual holds an initial high cost but offers declining cost per user with scale, presenting a valuable long-term investment. It includes high availability and clustering in its licensing model without additional charges, but users find it challenging to navigate. VMware Software Defined Storage is perceived as expensive, swaying users towards more economical choices; however, it promises comparable ROI to smaller SANs, despite potentially high costs for bundled software and hardware.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE StoreVirtual vs. VMware Software Defined Storage Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE StoreVirtual vs. VMware Software Defined Storage

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 Storage FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.4%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE StoreVirtual is 1.3%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Software Defined Storage is 1.2%, up from 0.9% 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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MohammadJundiah

Solutions Architect at Logicom Sales Inc

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…

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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

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

"The initial setup is pretty quick."

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

"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."

"Using this solution has made our backups more reliable."

"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."

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

"The snapshots, replication, and the ability to have immutable blades are the most valuable features. You're putting data snapshots out in those blades, and they cannot be touched. Its performance is great."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The solution is quite stable. We haven't had any issues with glitches or bugs."

"Data is stored in two different places, leveraging more security and availability. Therefore, network problems are having less affect on iSCSI."

"HPE StoreVirtual is very easy to use from the management console."

"A company can scale it easily."

"The seamlessness behind the scenes of block management."

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

"A very flexible solution."

"It appears to be very stable and very robust."

More HPE StoreVirtual pros

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cons

"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."

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

"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."

"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."

"I would like to see better integration."

"File storage needs a lot of improvement. Mainframe connectivity also needs improvement because it requires additional components to be integrated with Pure Storage FlashBlade. If you want to keep your backup data, then this becomes an even more expensive solution because Pure Storage FlashBlade will not be able to meet your backup needs."

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"User interface could be improved."

"It would be nice if there were more parts available in Brazil and HPE could swap out faulty equipment quicker."

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

"I would like to have this solution easily integrate with VMware."

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

"Hardware and disk failures are happening frequently."

"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 initial setup could be simplified to make it easier for new users."

More HPE StoreVirtual cons

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

"I'd like to see improved hardware compatibility"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

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

"The product is very expensive."

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

"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."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

16%

Government

13%

Performing Arts

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...

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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...

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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 do you like most about VMware Software Defined Storage?

VMware Software Defined Storage gives higher availability against data corruption.

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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...

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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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Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 19% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs HPE StoreVirtual

Compared 57% of the time

VMware vSAN vs HPE StoreVirtual

Compared 43% of the time

More HPE StoreVirtual Competitors

IBM Spectrum Scale vs VMware Software Defined Storage

Compared 40% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs VMware Software Defined Storage

Compared 33% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VMware Software Defined Storage

Compared 28% of the time

More VMware Software Defined Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

August 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE StoreVirtual

August 2025

Download HPE StoreVirtual product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Software Defined Storage

July 2025

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

Buyer's Guide

HPE StoreVirtual vs. VMware Software Defined Storage

July 2025

Free Report: HPE StoreVirtual vs. VMware Software Defined Storage

Find out what your peers are saying about HPE StoreVirtual vs. VMware Software Defined Storage and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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