Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance comparison

Microsoft and StarWind are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Microsoft is ranked #9 with an average rating of 6.5, while StarWind is ranked #10 with an average rating of 10.0. Microsoft holds a 7.8% mindshare in SDS, compared to StarWind’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 75% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance and Microsoft's Storage Spaces Direct compete in the hyper-converged infrastructure market. StarWind seems to have the upper hand due to its ease of integration and competitive pricing, especially for SMB markets.

Features: StarWind HyperConverged Appliance offers live migration, high availability, and fault tolerance, integrating smoothly into existing environments with preinstalled software, reducing complexity and hardware needs. Storage Spaces Direct provides storage class memory for caching, high performance, and flexibility, albeit at a higher cost.

Room for Improvement: StarWind users suggest better integration with monitoring tools, enhanced web management, and cost-effective hardware options. S2D could benefit from simplified network requirements, easier setup processes, and improved hardware compatibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: StarWind is praised for quick and simple deployment with quality customer support, including proactive monitoring. S2D's deployment is more challenging, and while customer service is reliable, the setup complexity and feature absence pose difficulties.

Pricing and ROI: StarWind offers competitive pricing with cost-effective full package deals, making it accessible for limited budgets. Microsoft's S2D is higher in cost but offers extensive features bundled in Windows Server, with potential long-term savings.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

April 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 851,471 peers since 2012

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 May 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.2%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is 7.8%, up from 7.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is 2.0%, up from 1.6% 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.

Read full review

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…

Read full review

Russ Le Puill

IT Manager at St Peter's Church of England Aided School

Proactive support with improved speed and resilience

There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made clear to us that we needed to provide our own SFP modules to connect to our infrastructure, so that could have been a bit clearer. It would be amazing if there was, perhaps, a more automated process for updating the hosts themselves, although the maintenance mode works well. Our StarWind command center doesn't seem to have all the options available currently, which support is investigating for us.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."

"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."

"It is very easy to use, and it is very fast."

"The solution provides many controllers."

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

"The main feature I have found to be product replication."

"It's very easy-to-use."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"Its technical support is excellent."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

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

"It's mainly about the storage expansion, like in hyper-converged solutions."

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

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

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct pros

"The sales process is easy."

"This solution came preconfigured. All we needed to do was plug it in and move our VMs."

"Being able to upgrade machines and software during business operations just by switching nodes has been a huge improvement. We"

"The redundancy of two identical nodes that can run alone allows us to have truly "no single point of failure" in our computing and primary storage infrastructure."

"The solution has easily deployed instances for multiple fast-paced projects."

"The customer service has been the most valuable feature of the product to me."

"Overall, the solution has improved our system's performance. I was concerned about the physical-to-virtual conversion of our database server. It's actually much faster now, as a virtualized host on this Hyper-V cluster."

"The pricing and discounts given by Starwind on the hardware were unmatched."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pros

Cons

"The speed could be improved."

"Its configuration should be easier."

"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."

"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."

"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."

"To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."

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

"It would be nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"It is difficult to get a hardware compatibility certification 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 integration is not difficult because there is no GUI, but we need to use a PowerShell command. This makes it difficult to monitor and to see the components' statuses."

"Documentation management could be improved"

"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."

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

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

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct cons

"The only thing that can use improvement is the StarWind Management Console and Command Center."

"We were slightly disappointed with the hardware footprint. We were led to believe, and all the pre-sales tech information requirements pointed to the fact, that it was coming on Dell hardware. Then it came on bulk servers."

"I wish I understood what goes into the StarWind software a little bit better. To me, it's kind of magic the way some of it works. As an IT professional, you don't really want things to be magic. I do wish there was a little more "Here's how it works." There could be more documentation given to administrators..."

"The only area that surprised me had to do with the fact that each host runs a StarWind virtual machine used to maintain the health of the vSAN, which individually uses 24GB of memory per host. You should keep this in mind when determining the resources you will need when selecting hardware and components for your specific setup. If I knew that, I would have chosen to add more memory per host to make up for the use."

"I had some initial difficulties understanding the solution which could have been solved via additional documentation aimed at newcomers."

"This product is not one hundred percent enterprise-ready, so it is more suitable for SMB."

"CSVs require the storage to be configured through iSCSI, even though the storage is local."

"At times there has been a language barrier when communicating issues."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"The product is very expensive."

"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."

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

"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."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"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."

"The solution is expensive."

"There is a bit of a start-up cost. Having never used HCAs before, I was reluctant to buy it. I would suggest that you jump in and do it, as I wish I hadn't wasted so much time."

"When I researched they came the most cost-effective."

"The other solutions we were looking at were priced much higher than this and they didn't necessarily have full redundancy... Nutanix and VxRail were in the final running... but it came down to our price point."

"The HCA price is all-inclusive (setup, hardware, support, warranty), except for your standard Microsoft Server licensing."

"A desired feature or service would be the ability to have a hardware subscription plan that ensures routine hardware updates in conjunction with hyper-converged software."

"In terms of cost, a storage array is more expensive... For half the cost of Compellent, I got two hosts, more storage, and redundancy."

"Our entire package was around $35,000 for everything, including three years of support."

"This was all completed at an affordable price point for an SMB, which was also a key element for an NPO."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

851,471 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

27%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Educational Organization

14%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

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...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

Pricing is an advantage of Storage Spaces Direct. Licenses can be on a monthly or yearly basis, depending on the addi...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution. At the moment, the new version does...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

It's not the cheapest, however, the solution works incredibly well and is so simple to licence and maintain.

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

We desperately needed to update yet downsize our data centre. We had six hosts for only approximately 14 or so Virtua...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 21% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

VMware vSAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 64% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 13% of the time

StarWind Virtual SAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 7% of the time

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 6% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct Competitors

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 30% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 20% of the time

VxRail vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 13% of the time

Azure Stack HCI vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 12% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 9% of the time

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

May 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

May 2025

Download Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

April 2025

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report

Download StarWind HyperConverged Appliance product report

Also Known As

No data available

MS Storage Spaces Direct

No data available

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

For SMB, ROBO and Enterprises, who look to bring in quick deployment and operation simplicity to virtualization workloads and reduce related expenses, our solution is StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA). It unifies commodity servers, disks and flash, hypervisor of choice, StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN and associated software into a single manageable layer. The HCA supports scale-up by adding disks and flash, and scale-out by adding extra nodes.

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance consists of StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN “Ready Nodes”, targeting those, who are building their virtualization infrastructure from scratch. In case there is an existing set of servers, we offer a “software only version”, which is essentially our years proven StarWind Virtual SAN. Basically, it’s the fuel powering StarWind HCA.

StarWind

Sample Customers

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

Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt

Sears Home and Franchise Business

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

April 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

851,471 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report.

See our list of best Software Defined Storage (SDS) vendors.

We monitor all Software Defined Storage (SDS) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.