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Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs VMware Software Defined Storage 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 (15th), File and Object Storage (8th)
Microsoft Storage Spaces Di...
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Software Defined Sto...
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 VMware Software Defined Storage is 1.2%, up from 0.9% 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…
MohammadJundiah - PeerSpot reviewer
Data security and performance excel but integration and licensing need improvement
I used Nutanix for its hyper-converged infrastructure capabilities and VMware Site Recovery for disaster recovery.  Additionally, I worked with VMware Software Defined Storage both internally and with partners to consolidate servers into one solution The most valuable features of VMware Software…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is scalable and easy to expand."
"It performs well and it is also very fast."
"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 main feature I have found to be product replication."
"It is very easy to use, and it is very fast."
"The ease of deployment and management has helped us simplify our storage. We also do not have to worry about capacity management as much. A lot of these things are native to Pure Storage."
"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."
"The solution provides many controllers."
"The performance, reliability, and affordability has been most valuable."
"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 price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."
"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."
"The most valuable feature are the caching capabilities using the storage class memory."
"Its technical support is excellent."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The most valuable features of the solution are that it is easy to deploy and the support is really good."
"The best part of the solution is that you can actually scale up to a large number of operating systems without additional hardware."
"The most valuable features of VMware Software Defined Storage are scalability, high availability, and performance."
"This is an easy-to-use product for adding flexibility to your storage solution."
"The most valuable features of VMware Software Defined Storage are scalability, high availability, and performance."
"VMware Software Defined Storage gives higher availability against data corruption."
"The solution is simple to configure and provides good performance and less footprint."
"The single management panel is the main feature that is wonderful for the customer."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."
"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."
"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."
"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."
"There is some room for new features related to authentication and integration with Kubernetes, and other solution using S3 Bucket."
"The feature that we're waiting on is better integration with the cell services."
"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."
"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 difficult to get a hardware compatibility certification for the solution."
"There is a lot of room for improvement. I would like to have more tools to monitor the function and problems."
"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."
"Documentation management could be improved"
"I think the online documentation needs a lot of work and so do the sizing tools."
"The license model of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Simplifying the licensing model and making it cheaper would improve the solution."
"I'd like to see improved hardware compatibility"
"The performance is not as good as some competing products and reporting can be improved."
"VMware Software Defined Storage should include a shared database on a standard version."
"The solution has some limitations in terms of replication to remote sites or cloud infrastructure, which need improvement."
"There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages."
"It doesn't have the ability to be deployed on any kind of hardware and network connectors."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."
"I feel that the price could always be lowered."
"Our licensing is renewed annually."
"Licensing fees are paid yearly."
"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."
"The price is a little high."
"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."
"VMware Software Defined Storage is a slightly expensive solution."
"A single socket costs you around US $6,000 for three years. At a minimum, you have a three load cluster for a medium or enterprise-scale company. It can get quite expensive because you're likely to need four to six sockets on the other side. It comes to around $30,000."
"I believe there is a yearly licensing fee of around $2000 - $5000. I don't think there are additional costs above that but it depends on the type of infrastructure you're booting."
"The solution is very expensive."
"The product is quite expensive and is among the most expensive for this type of solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
No data available
 

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 of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...
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...
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 do you like most about VMware Software Defined Storage?
VMware Software Defined Storage gives higher availability against data corruption.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Software Defined Storage?
The price of VMware Software Defined Storage is on the pricey side, rated four out of five in cost. There is room for...
What needs improvement with VMware Software Defined Storage?
There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages. More automation, such as using Playbook on Ansibl...
 

Also Known As

No data available
MS Storage Spaces Direct
VMware SDS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt
Helse Nord, Sky
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. VMware Software Defined Storage and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.