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Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Portworx Enterprise comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (12th), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (8th), File and Object Storage (8th)
Microsoft Storage Spaces Di...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (9th)
Portworx Enterprise
Average Rating
9.2
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Software Defined Storage (3rd), Data Storage for Kubernetes (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

MikaelHellström - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Regin Dalarna
Has handled backup storage needs reliably and supports seamless upgrades
In environments requiring high throughput and low latency, Pure Storage FlashBlade provides high throughput and normal latency, but we do not have any application that requires low latency right now, so the latency of three to five milliseconds is considered kind of high. Pure Storage FlashBlade's ability to integrate with enterprise applications is not important for us, as we only want to present an S3 bucket for our backup, which we have done, and it works very fast. We use the Purity software's data reduction techniques; we have a backup software that compresses everything before sending it to the S3 bucket, achieving a data reduction of 1.1 to one. I would recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade to other companies because it's a very fast and scalable solution for anyone who needs it. On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution an 8.
Stanislaw Mielicki - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution architect at Netland
Achieve cost-effectiveness with superior performance while needing to address cluster support
I am working with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct for applications, SQL, and VRS. I am an integrator for this solution The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct. They introduced the All-Flash array using SSD or NVMe drives without cache drives. It is…
Paulo Jose  Bosco Otto - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at PBOservicos-Informatica
A solution backed by strong customer support, that is stable and scalable
As a company managed in a Kubernetes environment, being trusted by a Kubernetes vendor, Red Hat creates barriers against using other certified solutions that work. Because IBM is a competitor of Pure Storage, things seem to be getting worse. I don't have plans to use Portworx Enterprise in the future because, at the moment, I am working with Ondat, and I have to follow NetApp's direction on that. When evaluating Portworx, one should make sure their company has already chosen Pure Storage. Still, if they are evaluating the solution on Ondat or Dell or other platforms, they should get a roadmap statement from Pure Storage, that they will continue to develop storage hardware diagnostics. I rate Portworx a nine out of ten.

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 use, and it is very fast."
"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."
"The ease of deployment and management has helped us simplify our storage. We also do not have to worry about capacity management as much. A lot of these things are native to Pure Storage."
"Using this solution has made our backups more reliable."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the rewrite speed and the nonstop services."
"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."
"It has absolutely simplified our storage because the dashboards on the consoles show a clear understanding of where you are, and it is also very easy to provision. This been a big help for our teams."
"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."
"Its technical support is excellent."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"It's mainly about the storage expansion, like in hyper-converged solutions."
"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."
"The main advantages are price and performance, and I am happy with the combination."
"The flash ability, in terms of tiering and caching, is amazing"
"The most valuable feature are the caching capabilities using the storage class memory."
"The most valuable feature is that there is no single point of failure."
"Portworx is a simple solution. It's similar to Pure Storage products. They're all easy to use and install. You need to have a little expertise with containers to use Portworx, but it will be no problem for you if you understand containers."
"The solution is user-friendly."
"I like that you have a small dedicated file system that is fast and resilient for containerized workloads."
"The best thing about Portworx is the Stork, they have called the VPS (Volume Replacement Strategy) and they also have topology awareness, and these are the three features I like."
"A custom IBM script is designed to tackle the storage management challenges within containerized environments, providing crucial data services and features required for enterprise applications."
"Portworx virtualizes the aspects of the underlying block storage. That is good because they can also use block storage for their future deployment instead of just NFS."
 

Cons

"Compared to, for example, Hitachi NAS, the solution is not mature at all. It's just in its infancy as far as technology goes."
"We haven't been able to use much of the cloud area of Pure Storage. We have a storage server and it would be better if it could integrate with other cloud features of this solution."
"On our dedupe during our initial buy, we were expecting a number a little higher like 4x. However, we are getting about 3.6. While it is close enough, it doesn't quite hit the numbers. So, this has been a challenge."
"It would be nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."
"Recently, while upgrading the version code, one of the controllers failed. Replacing the controller took between 14 to 20 days."
"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."
"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."
"An area for improvement in Pure Storage FlashBlade is its price. It could be reduced. The technical support for Pure Storage FlashBlade also needs improvement. It used to be good, with more experienced engineers. Nowadays, it isn't, and it takes longer for support to solve problems."
"There is a lot of room for improvement. I would like to have more tools to monitor the function and problems."
"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."
"I think the online documentation needs a lot of work and so do the sizing tools."
"More optimization could be done in terms of mirroring."
"It is scalable, but only beyond two nodes. If I go for two nodes it's not scalable. I need to build a complete cluster from the beginning if I'm going for two nodes."
"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."
"Documentation management could be improved"
"It is difficult to get a hardware compatibility certification for the solution."
"I would like to see a more native mapping to mainframe-type systems."
"I think the vendor could provide more training for new users who may not be familiar with containers."
"It would be highly advantageous to include an integrated backup solution within the same license, rather than purchasing backup separately."
"They have not integrated Portworx with Ondat since they are too focused now on Pure Storage APIs and not on users like us."
"The documentation could be better."
"The integration has room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."
"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."
"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."
"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."
"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."
"Licensing fees are paid yearly."
"With the data center licensing and everything that is connected to that, this solution is relatively costly."
"Cost-wise the product is one of the more affordable within the category of products."
"The solution is expensive."
"I'm not sure how the licensing was broken out, but I don't think our offering of the Portworx was more than USD $20,000."
"The price of Portworx Enterprise is high."
"The price is competitive, but it is too expensive when paired with Red Hat IBM."
"It has two offerings. One is free, which is limited to only five nodes. The other is enterprise, which is a bit pricier."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
No data available
 

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?
Regarding pricing, it is okay; we needed exactly this in size, and the price was a lot lower than competitors, making...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
In my opinion, one way Pure Storage FlashBlade can be improved is by having more compatibility between the FlashArray...
How does VMware vSAN compare with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?
We found VMware’s vSAN was easy to set up, configure, and manage compared to other solutions we considered. It is bes...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?
Overall, I find the cost of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct to be affordable for the on-prem Windows pure solution, b...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?
Microsoft should improve the management aspect of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, as we have raised multiple recomme...
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Also Known As

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MS Storage Spaces Direct
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt
NIO, GE Digital, DreamWorks Animation, Lufthansa, beco, NEW CONTEXT
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