Nexenta vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

Nexenta by DDN and StarWind are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Nexenta by DDN is ranked #15 with an average rating of 9.0, while StarWind is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.4. Nexenta by DDN holds a 1.3% mindshare in SDS, compared to StarWind’s 6.2% mindshare. Additionally, 66% of Nexenta by DDN users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Nexenta and StarWind Virtual SAN compete in the software-defined storage market. StarWind Virtual SAN may have the upper hand due to its advanced features, making it a worthy investment despite higher costs.

Features: Nexenta offers robust data management capabilities concentrated on scalability and enterprise compatibility, alongside flexible deployment options. StarWind Virtual SAN provides advanced data protection, seamless integration, and focuses on high availability, making it suitable for businesses emphasizing reliability and manageability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Nexenta allows flexible deployment with various hardware configurations, aiding in integration. It offers responsive customer service for efficient setup. StarWind Virtual SAN simplifies its installation process to minimize downtime and provides comprehensive support, highlighting its streamlined approach.

Pricing and ROI: Nexenta is known for being cost-effective, offering lower setup costs and satisfactory ROI. StarWind Virtual SAN requires a higher initial investment yet justifies the expense with a broad feature set and reliability, often delivering a substantial ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Nexenta vs. StarWind Virtual SAN Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Nexenta vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

September 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

Mindshare comparison

As of September 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 Nexenta is 1.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 6.2%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
StarWind Virtual SAN	6.2%
Pure Storage FlashBlade	4.2%
Nexenta	1.3%
Other	88.3%

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.

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Anil Rahulwar

Storage Engineer at Movate

Offers good features like Fusion and stable product with better customer service

Fusion is the only best feature, but it's a very good feature. Nexenta is a very old product. Nexenta is a well-established product used in the UK, US, India, Dubai, Qatar, and other countries. It is very good. The interface is up to date. Everything is up to date. The OS version was recently upgraded to 5.5 FP3. AI features: DataDirect Networks owns Nexenta and has won awards for AI. They continuously work on AI features. DDN also has a product called Tintri Infinia with AI features. And NVIDIA product also has AI features. I look forward to working on those products.

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Vladimir Simion

Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer

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.

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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

"The product is scalable and easy to expand."

"The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power outages when we need to quickly move data between different data centers. It ensures efficient replication and helps maintain our data centers' uptime."

"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."

"It has also helped to simplify storage for us in the way that it's easy to manage. Their automatic monitoring really helps when things break or are about to break. They see a problem coming and alert us even before our own system does."

"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."

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

"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."

"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."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"It has a feature called Fusion that makes it more secure and productive."

"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."

"Integration with Microsoft clustering has been perfect, allowing us to leverage our investment in MS server licensing to the fullest."

"This solution enables us to make better cost-effective use of our existing hardware and leverage the current infrastructure at a higher level than we could before."

"Speed and high availability have been the most valuable for us."

"StarWind vSAN has allowed us to grow rapidly while still providing flexibility and reliability."

"Highly available storage is the most valuable feature. The entire rollout is hyper-converged and requires no extra storage further than the hosts in which Hyper-V is running. Another feature that has been great is the support from StarWind in general. We have their proactive support package on the main cluster that employs Starwind Virtual SAN."

"The product only requires two VMWare ESXi host servers versus three host servers for VMware's comparable solution."

"The StarWind VSAN is always up and allows us to move VMS to other nodes for maintenance, without interruption to service."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

Cons

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

"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."

"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."

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

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

"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."

"In terms of technical support, the experience has been mixed. The support is done through email and is not that great, making it a very problematic area I've been dealing with for over four years."

"The solution is expensive."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"There were some SMB issues, but they were resolved."

"They need to improve the speed of the interfaces, thus allowing for better traffic on the network."

"If there was one thing we could request, it would be the ability to shrink volumes. For example, we want to be able to decrease in the size of the volume."

"Currently, the StarWind management console is a bit clunky to navigate and isn't the most user-intuitive interface."

"I'd love to see more clarification for us folks who are smart enough to do some damage yet not smart enough to use CLI."

"The documentation could be clearer in terms of explaining the installation."

"The documentation can be better for the free tier."

"When you will cease your contract with StarWind (for support) your product won't be updated and that is a big selling point, especially for us, as we have loads of products from StarWind."

"They need to invest more in the support documents for real issues happening when integrating the solution with the hypervisor."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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 product is very expensive."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

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

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"The licensing is straightforward, with free and trial versions available."

"The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective."

"This solution is very accessible and the pro-level for support is well worth the cost."

"When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."

"The cost seems a bit steep, and I wish it was less expensive."

"Licensing is easy and the whole package is cost-effective."

"I would suggest that you download the free version, deploy in your lab, and play with it."

"This is the best priced solution for an SMB."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

No data available

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	20

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	159
Midsize Enterprise	54
Large Enterprise	33

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

What needs improvement with Nexenta?

There were some SMB issues, but they were resolved in the latest version. Four to five customers faced intermittent i...

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What is your primary use case for Nexenta?

It's for file systems. It's a NAS solution, and it has flexibility. There shouldn't be any outages because if one nod...

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What advice do you have for others considering Nexenta?

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten. I would recommend using it.

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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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?

I had experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing through using the free version of StarWind Virtual SAN for t...

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What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

One area for improvement regarding StarWind Virtual SAN is the lack of a full-feature trial. At the time I tested it,...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 20% 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

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Nexenta

Compared 60% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Nexenta

Compared 40% of the time

More Nexenta Competitors

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 22% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 17% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 13% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 13% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 11% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

August 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

September 2025

Download Nexenta product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

August 2025

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Also Known As

No data available

StarWind SAN & NAS

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

Nexenta is the global leader in Open Source-driven Software-Defined Storage - what we call Open Software-Defined Storage (OpenSDS).We uniquely integrate software-only "Open Source" collaboration with commodity hardware-centric "Software-Defined Storage" (SDS) innovation.

Nexenta by DDN

StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments without the need for dedicated SAN hardware. It allows for real-time replication between servers, shared storage for Hyper-V clusters, and enables vMotion and High Availability features for VMware vSphere. The solution reduces costs and leverages existing hardware while providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure. Valuable features include ease of use, scalability, top-tier support, hardware agnosticism, and the ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space. StarWind VSAN has helped organizations improve performance, data availability, and data security while reducing downtime and providing cost-saving storage options.

StarWind

Sample Customers

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

GMO, Northern Backup, Cox Communications, University of Toronto, ScaleMatrix, Wipro, Ruhr University, Drillinginfo, George Washington University, Walton Electric, Faculty of Physics, NAU, ServerCentral

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

Buyer's Guide

Nexenta vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

September 2025

Free Report: Nexenta vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

Find out what your peers are saying about Nexenta vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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