Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Veritas Access Appliance comparison

Microsoft and Veritas are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Microsoft is ranked #9 with an average rating of 7.8, while Veritas is ranked #26. Microsoft holds a 7.4% mindshare in SDS, compared to Veritas’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Veritas users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct and Veritas Access Appliance are competing products in the data storage management category for enterprise environments. Veritas Access Appliance appears to have the upper hand due to its advanced features and robust data management capabilities, making it worth the investment over Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct.

Features: Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct emphasizes scalable storage, integration with Windows Server, and resilience. Veritas Access Appliance highlights data protection, cross-platform support, and efficient data accessibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct provides straightforward deployment within Windows environments, leading to smoother integration. Veritas Access Appliance offers a comprehensive deployment model that supports varied environments and includes dedicated customer service for setup assistance.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct often presents a lower initial setup cost with a quicker ROI in Windows-centric infrastructure. Veritas Access Appliance may involve higher upfront costs, balanced by long-term benefits through advanced features and expansive data management.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Veritas Access Appliance Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Veritas Access Appliance

July 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 865,384 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 August 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.4%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is 7.4%, up from 7.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Veritas Access Appliance is 0.8%, up from 0.8% 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

M Amin Anwar

Sr. Technical Support Consultant at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Overall functions well, stable, but technical support could improve

Veritas Access Appliance installation is user-friendly. You need network team cooperation for the setup of the cluster configuration. The Veritas Access Appliance initial configuration process is broken into two phases. The first phase requires that you perform each configuration step on each individual node. You should have two terminal windows open during the first phase, each logged into one of the nodes. During the second phase of the initial configuration, you should only perform the steps on one of the nodes. When you start the second phase of the initial configuration, close one of the terminal windows and continue doing the steps on only one of the nodes. When you initiate the cluster configuration, the settings that you configured on the current node are copied over to the second node in a one-time synchronization event.

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

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

"The most valuable features of this solution are the rewrite speed and the nonstop services."

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

"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."

"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."

"Among its most appealing features are its ease of handling and minimal maintenance requirements."

"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."

"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"Its technical support is excellent."

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

"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 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 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

"It is a very stable program."

"Overall the solution works well."

Cons

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

"We initially encountered challenges with the assembly process due to issues with the documentation required during setup, an area where Pure Storage needs improvement."

"The speed could be improved."

"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."

"I have not seen ROI."

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

"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."

"Its configuration should be easier."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"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."

"Documentation management could be improved"

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct cons

"The Veritas support for Access Appliance could improve. They are a pioneer in the industry, and they provide an enterprise-level solution. However, when comparing the storage, they can't compete with the NetBackup solution."

"I would like to see more platforms added."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be cheaper."

"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."

"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."

"Support is a separate line item. Support is a different cost, but whatever your support is now, that's what you're going to pay forever. If your support's $100 today, six years from now it's $100. It doesn't fluctuate unless you upgrade it, or change it, etc."

"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"The solution is expensive."

"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 not expensive compared to other storage solutions."

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

865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

See all answers

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

The pricing of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...

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?

Overall, I find the cost of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct to be affordable for the on-prem Windows pure solution, b...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 19% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

VMware vSAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 59% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 16% of the time

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 7% of the time

StarWind Virtual SAN 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

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Veritas Access Appliance

Compared 100% of the time

More Veritas Access Appliance Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

August 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

August 2025

Download Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

August 2025

Download Veritas Access Appliance product report

Also Known As

No data available

MS Storage Spaces Direct

Access 3340 Appliance, Veritas Access 3340 Appliance

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

The Veritas Access Appliance enables a turnkey deployment of Veritas’ software-defined Access scale-out network attached storage - a storage solution optimized for unstructured data use cases. The appliance is cost-optimized and tuned for high-capacity workloads like long-term retention (LTR), tape replacement and backup archiving.

Veritas

Sample Customers

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

Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Veritas Access Appliance

July 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Veritas Access Appliance

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Veritas Access Appliance and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Veritas Access 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.