NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance comparison

NetApp and StarWind are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Additionally, 95% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Report (Updated: May 2025).

Buyer's Guide

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

May 2025

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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

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.

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Pramod-Talekar

Sr Service Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution

The tool's most valuable features are the SnapLock and SnapMirror features. If something goes wrong with the data, we can restore it. This isn't a mirror; we store data in different locations. If there's an issue on the primary site, we can retrieve data from the secondary site. Multiprotocol support in NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is beneficial because it allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution. This feature eliminates the need to purchase different types of storage.

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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.

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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

"It uses the same platform for connectivity so integration is seamless."

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

"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 most valuable feature of this solution is performance."

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

"Approximately 40% to 50% of my time is saved using Pure Storage FlashBlade compared to different products."

"The product is scalable and easy to expand."

"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"One of the most valuable features is its similarity to the physical app, which makes it familiar. It's almost identical to a real NetApp, which means you can run all of the associated NetApp processes and services with it. Otherwise, we would definitely have to deploy some hardware on a site somewhere, which could be a challenge in terms of CapEx."

"We use the mirroring to mirror our volumes to our DR location. We also create snapshots for backups. Snapshots will create a specified snapshot to be able to do a DR test without disrupting our standard mirrors. That means we can create a point-in-time snapshot, then use the ability of FlexClones to make a writeable volume to test with, and then blow it away after the DR test."

"There is unified storage, which provides flexibility. It is set up perfectly for performance and provisioning. We are able to monitor everything using a separate application. It provides error and critical warnings that allow us to take immediate action through ONTAP. We are able to manage everything, log a case, and follow up with the support team, who can fix it. That is how it is unified."

"If you have a larger amount of data than normal in cloud, it is easy to provision and maintain. Waiting for the delivery of the controller, the configuration of enclosures, etc., all this stuff is eliminated compared to using on-premise."

"The stability has been really good."

"Its features help us to have a backup of our volumes using the native technology of NetApp ONTAP. That way, we don't have to invest in other solutions for our backup requirement. Also, it helps us to replicate the data to another geographic location so that helps us to save on the costs of backup products."

"The feature which I like the most is that it has the capabilities that the traditional storage system offers. It provides all the functionality. The deduplication and compression work exactly like ONTAP's traditional storage. So people who have experience with that find it very easy to manage."

"The Cloud Manager application that's on the NetApp cloud site is easy to use. You can set up and schedule replications from there, so you don't have to go into the ONTAP system. Another feature we've recently started using is the scheduled power off. We started with one client and have been slowly implementing it with others. We can cut costs by not having the VM run all the time. It's only on when it's doing replication, but it powers off after."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pros

"It is the perfect solution for hyper-convergence at a fair price. Our customers have Hyper-V and VMware environments, with Windows servers and Linux."

"I do like that I can manage StarWind with a console running on my local desktop."

"It did not hurt that the price for the hardware and three years of support cost less than the disparate hardware the cluster used to run on."

"The software is great. It's very easy to understand. I've not delved into any of the command-line stuff, but there's no real need to script it. Since it went in, pretty much the only thing that I have needed to do is increase device image sizes and that process is very straightforward."

"The high-quality hardware options, directly affecting performance, have significantly improved the user experience and are well worth the cost."

"It improved all services running on the new cluster and took up less space and less energy."

"Repair efforts have been reduced to nearly nothing."

"The biggest thing we were looking for was redundancy, with both the compute and the storage, so that way we could lose a full node and still keep everything up and running, and not have to worry about it... StarWind was able to provide a solution for what we wanted, - to provide for redundancy."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pros

Cons

"There is some room for new features related to authentication and integration with Kubernetes, and other solution using S3 Bucket."

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

"Pure Storage FlashBlade should improve on more cloud integration."

"The feature that we're waiting on is better integration with the cell services."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Its configuration should be easier."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"Scale-up and scale-out could be improved. It would be interesting to have multiple HA pairs on one cluster, for example, or to increase the single instances more, from a performance perspective. It would be good to get more performance out of a single HA pair."

"In the next release, I would like to see more options on the dashboard."

"I would like NetApp to come up with an easier setup for the solution."

"I rate the scalability a five out of ten."

"NetApp's support could improve"

"The product is more restricted with underlying cloud."

"We are getting a warning alert about not being able to connect to Cloud Manager when we log into it. The support has provided links, but this particular issue is not fixed yet."

"Cloud Volumes ONTAP's interface could use an overhaul. Sometimes you have to dig around in Cloud Manager a little bit to find certain things. The layout could be more intuitive."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP cons

"What would have to be done urgently is the adaptation of the hardware to the configuration."

"Possible new features could be CSV-level snapshot capability, Veeam integration, and maybe a more straightforward setup. Granted, you don't have to worry about setups with the HCA, but if you want to implement StarWind vSAN in a lab to test it is a tedious setup process."

"The truth is that the operation and support offered is good, but we consider that the product's usability could improve, as well as the data resynchronization time after an unexpected closure."

"If I had to pick something to add to the product, it would be nice if you could have more than one user account on their command center VM."

"The only thing my team has recommended improving on is possibly a StarWind-customized GUI to monitor the overall system health, similar to 5nine Manager."

"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..."

"It would be nice if it were possible to do the ISCSI setup that you do on Windows directly in the management GUI of StarWind."

"Most meetings are done via Zoom, and I'm sure you could switch to a text based conversation if needed as they seem like a very accommodating team. It's not something I would worry about if you are a potential client."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

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

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."

"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."

"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."

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

"The product is very expensive."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"It is expensive. There are no costs in addition to their standard licensing fees."

"The deal with the seller was acceptable; the pricing is reasonable."

"In addition to the standard licensing fees, there are fees for Azure, the VMs themselves and for data transfer."

"Cost is a big factor, because a lot of companies can't afford enterprise grade equipment all the time. They skimp where they can. I would recommend that they improve the cost."

"They have a very good price which keeps our customers happy."

"For NetApp it's about $20,000 for a single node and $30,000 for the HA."

"If we wanted to use the AWS solution, we would have to manage two or three different platforms and pay more money than what we should have to pay, as some of the features don't even exist. If we wanted to, we could use AWS cloning, but it is useless because it uses more space, is more expensive, and takes more time."

"We find the pricing to be favorable due to the educational sector we belong to."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pricing and cost advice

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

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

"It's an all in one package, making it very easy."

"I was able to bring the price per year down by going out to a five-year plan."

"I honestly feel that there's no one else in the market doing what they're doing for the price point that they're doing it at. That's why I asked them about investing in their company. I think that the options they're providing and the software that they have is sort of revolutionary for the price point... The total cost was $24,400."

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

"We looked at Nutanix and found it did almost the same thing but for more money. In fact, StarWind was nearly one-third of the price; it cost us £36,000. That includes five years of monitoring... The Nutanix was near enough £110,000 for relatively the same amount of performance and storage."

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

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Educational Organization

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

31%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

14%

Educational Organization

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

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

What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the licen...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

The solution's pricing is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

NetApp's support could improve.

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 20% 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 10% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 17% of the time

Amazon S3 vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 12% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 9% of the time

Portworx Enterprise vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 7% of the time

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Competitors

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 28% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 20% of the time

VxRail vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 14% of the time

Azure Stack HCI vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 12% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 11% of the time

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

June 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

June 2025

Download NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

May 2025

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report

Download StarWind HyperConverged Appliance product report

Also Known As

No data available

ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO

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

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is an efficient storage management solution for managing and storing data in the cloud. It offers seamless integration with cloud providers, advanced data replication capabilities, and high data protection. With reliable performance, it is ideal for industries like healthcare and finance.

NetApp

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

1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard

Sears Home and Franchise Business

Buyer's Guide

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

May 2025

Free Report: NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

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See our NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report.

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