Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Red Hat Gluster Storage comparison

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Red Hat Gluster 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 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 Gluster Storage is 3.0%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Pure Storage FlashBlade	3.3%
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct	6.1%
Red Hat Gluster Storage	3.0%
Other	87.6%

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Featured Reviews

MikaelHellström

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.

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Stanislaw Mielicki

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…

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GiovanniRamirez

Senior IT Consultant at Xerif

Flexible and scalable file system for growing storage needs

Gluster FS is used for various purposes, including virtualization, collaboration, and data center environments. It is also applied in personal environments. Some specific use cases mentioned include scaling a three-terabyte file system into a 12-terabyte file system with minimal downtime Gluster…

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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 initial setup is pretty quick."

"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."

"We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."

"The tool's most valuable features are data warehousing, speedy recovery, and analytics. Its latest release is cost-effective."

"I like its size. It is smaller than the other competitors. We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte."

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

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

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"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 most valuable feature is that there is no single point of failure."

"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."

"The flash ability, in terms of tiering and caching, is amazing"

"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 performance, reliability, and affordability has been most valuable."

"The main advantages are price and performance, and I am happy with the combination."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct pros

"The technical support team is excellent."

"Notable features of Gluster FS include flexibility, scalability, stability, and ease of use."

"It's very easy to upgrade storage."

"The price tag is good compared to the amount of data and high availability provided."

Cons

"In terms of technical support, the experience has been mixed. The support is done through email and is not that great, making it a very problematic area I've been dealing with for over four years."

"I would like to see more deduplication."

"Its configuration should be easier."

"The Pure Storage Orchestrator is our biggest pain point at the moment. If we can have more say in future developments of feature sets that we will need to support for our use case, that would be pretty beneficial to us."

"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."

"The solution is expensive."

"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."

"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."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."

"Documentation management could be improved"

"More optimization could be done in terms of mirroring."

"It is difficult to get a hardware compatibility certification for the solution."

"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."

"There is a lot of room for improvement. I would like to have more tools to monitor the function and problems."

"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."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct cons

"There is a feature in Red Hat’s commercial version that could be beneficial if integrated into the open-source version."

"The performance of the solution must be improved."

"The system should be more intuitive and easier to manage."

"The user interface could be simplified."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"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."

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

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

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"With the data center licensing and everything that is connected to that, this solution is relatively costly."

"The solution is expensive."

"Cost-wise the product is one of the more affordable within the category of products."

"If you need cheap storage, but still need high availability, it's a good product to look at."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	21

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	3

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...

What needs improvement with Red Hat Gluster Storage?

There is a feature in Red Hat’s commercial version that could be beneficial if integrated into the open-source versio...

What is your primary use case for Red Hat Gluster Storage?

Gluster FS is used for various purposes, including virtualization, collaboration, and data center environments. It is...

What advice do you have for others considering Red Hat Gluster Storage?

I would highly recommend Gluster FS to others considering it. The system is robust, flexible, and easy to use. I'd ra...

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Comparisons

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 7% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 6% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

VMware vSAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 50% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 17% of the time

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 9% of the time

StarWind Virtual SAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 7% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Red Hat Gluster Storage

Compared 17% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Red Hat Gluster Storage

Compared 14% of the time

LizardFS vs Red Hat Gluster Storage

Compared 13% of the time

IBM Spectrum Scale vs Red Hat Gluster Storage

Compared 11% of the time

LINBIT SDS vs Red Hat Gluster Storage

Compared 11% of the time

More Red Hat Gluster Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Download Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct product report

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Download Red Hat Gluster Storage product report

Also Known As

No data available

MS Storage Spaces Direct

Red Hat Gluster, Red Hat Storage Server

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

Storage Spaces Direct uses industry-standard servers with local-attached drives to create highly available, highly scalable software-defined storage at a fraction of the cost of traditional SAN or NAS arrays. Its converged or hyper-converged architecture radically simplifies procurement and deployment, while features like caching, storage tiers, and erasure coding, together with the latest hardware innovation like RDMA networking and NVMe drives, deliver unrivaled efficiency and performance.

Microsoft

Red Hat Gluster Storage (formerly known as Red Hat Storage Server) is a software-defined storage (SDS) platform designed to handle the requirements of traditional file storage—high-capacity tasks like backup and archival as well as high-performance tasks of analytics and virtualization. But unlike traditional storage systems, Red Hat Gluster Storage isn’t rigid and expensive. It easily scales across bare metal, virtual, container, and cloud deployments.

Red Hat

Sample Customers

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

Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt

NTT Plala, McMaster University, University of Basque Country, Goodtech ASA, Cox Automotive, Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), SaskTel, Glashart Media, Casio

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Red Hat Gluster Storage