Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Red Hat Ceph Storage comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

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
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (12th), File and Object Storage (8th)
Microsoft Storage Spaces Di...
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat Ceph Storage
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 3.3%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is 6.1%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ceph Storage is 14.3%, down from 21.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Red Hat Ceph Storage14.3%
Pure Storage FlashBlade3.3%
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct6.1%
Other76.3%
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

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…
Rifat Rahman - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Architect & CEO at Tirzok Private Limited
Offers reliable performance and availability for large deployments
I would like to see improvements in Red Hat Ceph Storage not because I necessarily think it needs improvement, but because I generally prefer to do things manually rather than following the containerization part. Current deployments are based on containers, but I deploy manually with my scripts and controls. If there are no Kubernetes-like requirements, I often prefer to deploy a whole manual process. I don't ask for improvements in the deployment model because Red Hat has its own philosophy about making things, but it's my personal choice that I prefer things manually. Some features are available only in the containerization part, so if those are also available in manual deployment, that will help.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"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."
"Approximately 40% to 50% of my time is saved using Pure Storage FlashBlade compared to different products."
"I would rate this solution an eight plus. It has has good flexibility and stability, it's easy to manage and the response time is good."
"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."
"Speed and ease of use are the two most valuable features."
"The solution provides many controllers."
"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."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade is user-friendly. It's replication feature is great because it has active replication and active DR. That's the beauty of the product. It's a perfect solution for block storage."
"The flash ability, in terms of tiering and caching, is amazing"
"The performance, reliability, and affordability has been most valuable."
"Its technical support is excellent."
"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 main positive impact that Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct has had on my company over the years is increasing performance; our checks show it is three times faster than VMware, making us extremely happy and motivated to keep using it."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"One of the best things about Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is that it allows for optimized storage solutions and high availability, which is beneficial for managing workloads efficiently."
"We are using Ceph internal inexpensive disk and data redundancy without spending extra money on external storage."
"We have not encountered any stability issues for the product."
"I would definitely recommend Red Hat Ceph Storage. It is a complete solution for cloud-native storage needs."
"Most valuable features include replication and compression."
"Ceph was chosen to maintain exact performance and capacity characteristics for customer cloud."
"Red Hat Ceph Storage is a reliable solution, it works well."
"High reliability with commodity hardware."
"The community support is very good."
 

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."
"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."
"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."
"It would be nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."
"I would like to see better integration."
"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."
"In my opinion, one way Pure Storage FlashBlade can be improved is by having more compatibility between the FlashArray and FlashBlade, allowing for synchronized data between both platforms."
"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."
"I think the online documentation needs a lot of work and so do the sizing tools."
"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."
"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."
"The management tool within this solution could be improved. We would also like to be able to access services like Azure when using this solution."
"Documentation management could be improved"
"On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the customer service and technical support of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct a three, as there were issues that the Microsoft team could not pinpoint, leading to delays in finding solutions."
"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."
"There is a lot of room for improvement. I would like to have more tools to monitor the function and problems."
"It takes some time to re-balance the storage in case of server failure."
"Ceph is not a mature product at this time. Guides are misleading and incomplete. You will meet all kind of bugs and errors trying to install the system for the first time. It requires very experienced personnel to support and keep the system in working condition, and install all necessary packets."
"An area for improvement would be that it's pretty difficult to manage synchronous replication over multiple regions."
"The management features are pretty good, but they still have room for improvement."
"Rebalancing and recovery are a bit slow."
"While the documentation for Ceph Storage is helpful, it could be improved."
"It took me a long time to get the storage drivers for the communication with Kubernetes up and running. The documentation could improve it is lacking information. I'm not sure if this is a Ceph problem or if Ceph should address this, but it was something I ran into. Additionally, there is a performance issue I am having that I am looking into, but overall I am satisfied with the performance."
"Ceph does not deal very well with, or takes a long time to recover from, certain kinds of network failures and individual storage node failures."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."
"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."
"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."
"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."
"The product is very expensive."
"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."
"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."
"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."
"The solution is expensive."
"Cost-wise the product is one of the more affordable within the category of products."
"With the data center licensing and everything that is connected to that, this solution is relatively costly."
"Most of time, you can get Ceph with the OpenStack solution in a subscription​​ as a bundle.​"
"The price of Red Hat Ceph Storage is reasonable."
"The operational overhead is higher compared to Azure because we own the hardware."
"There is no cost for software."
"The price of this product isn't high."
"The other big advantage is that Ceph is free software. Compared to traditional SAN based storage, it is very economical."
"If you can afford a product like Red Hat Ceph Storage then go for it. If you cannot, then you need to test Ceph and get your hands dirty."
"We never used the paid support."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions are best for your needs.
880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
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
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise15
 

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...
How does Red Hat Ceph Storage compare with MiniO?
Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This ...
What do you like most about Red Hat Ceph Storage?
The high availability of the solution is important to us.
What needs improvement with Red Hat Ceph Storage?
Areas of Red Hat Ceph Storage that have room for improvement include more promotion. Many people do not know about th...
 

Also Known As

No data available
MS Storage Spaces Direct
Ceph
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt
Dell, DreamHost
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Red Hat Ceph Storage and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.