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Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

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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
7.8
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (16th), File and Object Storage (8th)
Microsoft Storage Spaces Di...
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
9th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StarWind Virtual SAN
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
1st
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
196
Ranking in other categories
HCI (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.2%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is 7.6%, up from 7.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 6.7%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

Eric Black - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Stanislaw Mielicki - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Vladimir Simion - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

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 features include the ease of implementation, ease of use and the speed that you can do backup and recovery on."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the rewrite speed and the nonstop services."
"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."
"We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."
"The most valuable features are the Metro clustering, and disaster recovery."
"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."
"It's very easy-to-use."
"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."
"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."
"It's mainly about the storage expansion, like in hyper-converged solutions."
"The most valuable feature are the caching capabilities using the storage class memory."
"The flash ability, in terms of tiering and caching, is amazing"
"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."
"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."
"The biggest benefit was that it allowed us to provide SAN services on a limited hardware budget."
"In the three years that we have been using StarWind, the product has yet to cause us any problems."
"When using new (warranty) servers, you can forget about the storage service for several years. The users will not even notice the failure of two servers out of three."
"You can turn your local disk storage into high-availability iSCSI storage."
"Integration with virtualization platforms helped us to resolve many issues we were facing while using the physical storage."
"The StarWind Virtual SAN management console is intuitive and easy to use."
"Having support is also very valuable to us as we are a small team."
 

Cons

"The technical support needs to improve. When we open a case, it is auto assigned to a support tech person. Nine out of ten times, we get an email right back saying that person is off until tomorrow. I cannot handle that. They just did this over the weekend to us, too. I had to call our rep and have them do something about it."
"Commvault has mainly driven the Analytics, providing data and reports. However, the product has room for improvement, especially regarding storage analytics. Upgrading firmware has caused issues, requiring feature disabling to revert to traditional backups. The firmware upgrades sometimes affect Commvault backups."
"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."
"I want efficiency. FlashBlade doesn't have efficiency now."
"In the realm of micro-services, I think that Pure Storage can do well if they start getting in there and making their arrays more micro-services ready."
"In terms of scalability, it doesn't expand out quite as robustly as some of the others, but it covers 90% of the market in what it does."
"I have not seen ROI."
"I would like to see better integration."
"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."
"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."
"Documentation management could be improved"
"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."
"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 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 one issue as far as licensing goes and that is a lack of documentation online for users when transitioning from the free version to the paid version, or vice versa."
"We just need more integration with Veeam."
"I would like to see different levels of support offered."
"A central management console may be nice to see all nodes."
"While using StarWind Virtual SAN so far, I have not found anything missing."
"Geolocation could be better, for example, for site mirroring for DR purposes."
"It would be nice to add the ability to use raw partitions instead of file containers."
"To enable the proactive support capability that is part of our support agreement, I would ask that the terms and conditions be revised and made acceptable to corporate security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."
"The product is very expensive."
"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."
"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."
"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."
"Licensing fees are paid yearly."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."
"We used a reseller for the purchase."
"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."
"If you are looking at a traditional SAN for a small cluster, give StarWind vSAN because you will save thousands without any compromise."
"The cost seems a bit steep, and I wish it was less expensive."
"The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great."
"The cost was ultimately low to implement, which allowed us to be 3-2-1 complaint."
"I would suggest that you download the free version, deploy in your lab, and play with it."
"We evaluated other options and this one was the most cost-effective."
"This is the best priced solution for an SMB."
"Cost is affordable and licensing is smooth."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
 

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...
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...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.
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?
Pricing is an advantage of Storage Spaces Direct. Licenses can be on a monthly or yearly basis, depending on the addi...
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...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
I have had no setup costs and no challenges with setup and installation for StarWind Virtual SAN. The costs are accep...
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
There are times when the feedback in the event of an impending issue or an actual failure can be limited. The remedia...
 

Also Known As

No data available
MS Storage Spaces Direct
StarWind SAN & NAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt
Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.