IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

IBM and StarWind are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. IBM is ranked #24, while StarWind is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.3. IBM holds a 2.0% mindshare in SDS, compared to StarWind’s 6.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

StarWind Virtual SAN and IBM Spectrum Accelerate compete in the software-defined storage market. StarWind Virtual SAN has an advantage in pricing and support, appealing to cost-conscious buyers, while IBM Spectrum Accelerate stands out with its robust feature set for enterprises needing advanced capabilities.

Features: StarWind Virtual SAN transforms any server into a high-performance storage appliance and supports hyper-converged infrastructures with ease. IBM Spectrum Accelerate offers comprehensive data management functions, advanced data reduction techniques, and cloud integration that cater to organizations with complex data needs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: StarWind Virtual SAN's straightforward deployment model and efficient support facilitate quick setup and issue resolution. IBM Spectrum Accelerate's deployment process can be complex, requiring technical expertise, but it offers support services that cater well to large scale environments.

Pricing and ROI: StarWind Virtual SAN is cost-effective with lower upfront and operational costs, offering quick ROI for smaller to medium-sized businesses. IBM Spectrum Accelerate involves higher setup costs, justified by extensive features and scalability, providing value over time for large organizations ready to invest in sophisticated infrastructure.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. StarWind Virtual SAN Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

September 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 October 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.1%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Accelerate is 2.0%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 6.1%, down from 8.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
StarWind Virtual SAN	6.1%
Pure Storage FlashBlade	4.1%
IBM Spectrum Accelerate	2.0%
Other	87.8%

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Featured Reviews

Parul-Patel

Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

High performance and throughput enhance IT backup management

The multi-dimensional scale-out design feature of Pure Storage FlashBlade is not in use in our environment. Regarding data reduction technologies, we don't get much deduplication because the data is already deduplicated from our FlashArray before we get to backup, so there is no benefit of deduplication. Regarding the integration with cloud-native ecosystem tools, we are not on cloud; we are strictly an on-premises solution. Pure Storage FlashBlade is not used by any end-user; it's used only for IT backup, with only about four people in our group managing it. I cannot recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade to other users depending upon their financial situation because it's an expensive solution, and the cost is very high, including licensing and renewal every year. I rate Pure Storage FlashBlade an eight out of ten.

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reviewer1154616

IS Auditor at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

A robust solution with good performance and support

This is a solution that scales well, although I think that we have stabilized in terms of use. With respect to scalability, we have an open question as to whether we will be able to grow into a cloud-based deployment. We don't know in what ways this solution will assist us with the migration, or whether we can still use it for DR. We don't know about the type of backup, be it full, incremental, or otherwise. We are also looking for a cost-savings if we migrate. These are things that we will find out over time. We have about two petabytes of data.

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Vladimir Simion

Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer

Achieving seamless cost-saving implementation with exceptional support

The best features that StarWind Virtual SAN offers include the price because comparing to other virtual SAN solutions, this one is the best, and it also has a great support team behind it. My experience with their support has been positive, as their guides regarding the integration are very useful. They have some awesome guides online that show you exactly how to configure the product, how to do the initial setup, and you can speak with them directly. They will be able to connect and verify your setup, run its parameters and see exactly what's working and what is not, and they really help you with that. StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization and my customer through initial cost saving. They use this product in a dark site, so I'm not able to provide any additional details about this, but they were really glad about it, they're still using it, and they asked for extending the capacity for it and the support. They really want to use it and are enjoying using it.

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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 feature of this solution is performance."

"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."

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

"Approximately 40% to 50% of my time is saved using Pure Storage FlashBlade compared to different products."

"The product is scalable and easy to expand."

"It has also helped to simplify storage for us in the way that it's easy to manage. Their automatic monitoring really helps when things break or are about to break. They see a problem coming and alert us even before our own system does."

"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."

"The initial setup was straightforward. If you know how to plug in power and network you're pretty much qualified. They were on site to configure the network, the box to fit into our network architecture. Other than that, we self-managed from there."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The ease of use is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's very user-friendly."

"The most valuable feature is the robustness, which is typical of IBM because their software generally just works."

"StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization by giving us the flexibility and freedom to have more time for other projects."

"The Windows-based StarWind GUI is easy to use and understand and integrates seamlessly with VMware's vSphere portal as well."

"It integrates (fully) with VMware and Veeam, my hypervisor, and backup vendors, so for me, all the puzzle pieces simply fit and work smoothly."

"The virtual tapes can be uploaded to the object storage of your choice with object locking/governance which gives you an extra layer of protection."

"It provided the much-needed HA on an extremely low budget."

"The ability to host high availability storage between existing servers without additional hardware is a great benefit. This not only saves money but also reduces the complexity of the hardware configuration creating fewer points of failure."

"The available GUI is excellent for monitoring and operating the system in an easy and direct way."

"PowerShell library is pretty good feature as I created with APC PowerChute a script to put volumes on maintenance mode then turning off the StarWind nodes together with the VM and Hosts when UPS reaches 15 percent, this way after a blackout or electrical problems when turning servers on again, there is no issues for syncing or data loss due to energy interrupts."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

Cons

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

"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."

"I would like to see better integration."

"I would like to see more deduplication."

"There is some room for new features related to authentication and integration with Kubernetes, and other solution using S3 Bucket."

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

"It would be beneficial if the layer could support the S3 protocol and be container ready in the next release."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"he interface is not user-friendly so the ease of use could be improved."

"The reporting mechanisms need improvement."

"There is a general lack of documentation, especially up-to-date documentation to get started."

"It is not very clear within the StarWind Management Console or the StarWind support documentation how to perform maintenance on a single node in a two-node HA cluster."

"Some configuration options still demand service restarting."

"The console is something that I feel could be improved. There is nothing technically wrong with it, but it can be jazzed up and/or made to be a little more intuitive."

"StarWind Virtual SAN architecture is slightly complex and requires the team to carefully identify and study how the solution integrates with VMware vSphere."

"A central management console may be nice to see all nodes."

"They recommend RAID10 for HDD, which reduces the usable storage capacity."

"The main thing I would like to see improved is the level of documentation."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 is a little high."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"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."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

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

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"For a database, on a yearly basis, we pay approximately $3,500 for licensing fees. The solution is sold as a subscription on a yearly basis so there are no other ancillary costs."

"If you are cost-sensitive then this solution is not for you."

"The cost seems a bit steep, and I wish it was less expensive."

"Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs."

"This solution is very accessible and the pro-level for support is well worth the cost."

"The pricing is more than reasonable."

"We evaluated other options and this one was the most cost-effective."

"The licensing is straightforward, with free and trial versions available."

"This solution has competitive prices and the implementation is very easy."

"I would suggest that you download the free version, deploy in your lab, and play with it."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

No data available

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	20

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	161
Midsize Enterprise	54
Large Enterprise	33

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 StarWind Virtual SAN?

It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combin...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for StarWind Virtual SAN was okay.

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What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

Currently, StarWind Virtual SAN is working perfectly fine, so there are no changes I would suggest.

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Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 19% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 7% of the time

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StorMagic SvSAN vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Compared 32% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Compared 25% of the time

IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Compared 18% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Compared 13% of the time

Veritas Access Appliance vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Compared 13% of the time

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VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 20% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 17% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 13% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 12% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 11% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

September 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

September 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Accelerate product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

September 2025

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Also Known As

No data available

IBM XIV

StarWind SAN & NAS

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

IBM Spectrum Accelerate is a software-defined block storage solution designed for rapid deployment across heterogeneous infrastructure for hybrid cloud and delivering consistent service levels to a dynamic workload mix. It is based on proven grid-architecture, enterprise-scale IBM XIV technology. IBM Spectrum Accelerate can be deployed, including as hyper-converged infrastructure, on any x86 server, on pre-installed third-party appliances or on public cloud infrastructure, and is available as a service on IBM Cloud infrastructure.

IBM

StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments without the need for dedicated SAN hardware. It allows for real-time replication between servers, shared storage for Hyper-V clusters, and enables vMotion and High Availability features for VMware vSphere. The solution reduces costs and leverages existing hardware while providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure. Valuable features include ease of use, scalability, top-tier support, hardware agnosticism, and the ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space. StarWind VSAN has helped organizations improve performance, data availability, and data security while reducing downtime and providing cost-saving storage options.

StarWind

Sample Customers

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

Silverpop

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

September 2025

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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