Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

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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:

ROI

Sentiment score

6.6

Pure Storage FlashBlade reduces total cost of ownership by enhancing efficiency, enabling fast restorations, and supporting diverse use cases.

Sentiment score

6.9

Nutanix Unified Storage boosts ROI by reducing costs, enhancing uptime, scalability, and efficiency, while improving data management and productivity.

Sentiment score

6.9

StarWind Virtual SAN offers cost-effective, flexible storage solutions reducing operational costs, downtime, and hardware needs, with rapid ROI.

It does not require much management once you set up correctly, so it saves time, allowing an admin to focus on other work.

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure Storage FlashBlade report

Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

For me, the biggest return on investment when using this solution is that we do not have to have much support staff to run it.

Tom Hiles

Senior Manager, IT Infrastructure & Support at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

The scalability challenge with previous systems is lessened with Nutanix since we can expand by adding new hardware without needing migrations.

Ryan Salaheddine

Infrastructure Architect & Manager at a real estate/law firm with 201-500 employees

We are saving approximately 20% to 25% compared with the competition.

reviewer2703840

Global of Central Computing IT Operations Head at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) report

We don't sell a lot of redundant servers, so it's not a massive ROI, but the ability to rely on their technical support and the software's ease of setup allows us to reduce labor costs and go to market competitively.

Kyle Buxton

Manager, Field Support at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

The cost benefits, as far as we consider, are much better with a StarWind VSAN solution, and the training requirements with the ease of administration simplify and reduce our administrator and professional services costs.

Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Regarding cost savings, for my client, it was about 20K USD for his specific use and as for extending capacity, StarWind made that process easy.

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Virtual SAN report

Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer

Customer Service

Sentiment score

7.6

Pure Storage FlashBlade's support is generally praised for responsiveness, despite occasional delays and communication issues, maintaining a favorable reputation.

Sentiment score

7.5

Nutanix Unified Storage customer service is efficient and knowledgeable, with high satisfaction but room for improvement in complex cases.

Sentiment score

7.8

StarWind Virtual SAN offers exceptional support with timely responses, expert staff, and 24/7 proactive monitoring for optimal performance.

I would rate them an eight out of ten.

IT Field Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

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.

Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

Their technical support has been perfect lately, so I would give it a 10.

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure Storage FlashBlade report

IT Manager at Regin Dalarna

They come on the call, start troubleshooting immediately, and resolve issues effectively.

Ashish Savaratkar

Senior System Administrator at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

They are very knowledgeable, and if they can't solve the problem, they find the answer within a day or so.

Shawn Greisen

Manager, System Engineering at a mining and metals company with 10,001+ employees

I would give the customer service and technical support a ten out of ten.

Manuel Heredia

PreSales at IKUSI

For more quotes and insights, download the Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) report

Even in the instances where my technical team does not have the ability to manage or troubleshoot or resolve an issue, StarWind's technical team supports and resolves on our behalf very quickly.

Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

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 who will be able to connect, verify your setup, run its parameters, and see exactly what's working and what is not, and adjust it, and they really help you with that.

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Virtual SAN report

Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer

The customer support from StarWind Virtual SAN is great, as the people are knowledgeable and have great knowledge about the product and the functionality we require in the system.

Jccerong Heron

System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

8.6

Pure Storage FlashBlade excels in scalability, with seamless expansion, downtime-free growth, and praised support across various sectors.

Sentiment score

7.8

Nutanix Unified Storage offers scalable, efficient, and stable storage expansion with easy integration and intuitive licensing for diverse environments.

Sentiment score

7.6

StarWind Virtual SAN impresses users with seamless scalability, allowing effortless upgrades and configurations without downtime, supporting various setups.

Pure Storage FlashBlade is scalable.

Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

There are between 5 and 10,000 people using it in our organization.

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure Storage FlashBlade report

IT Manager at Regin Dalarna

This means you don't have to buy everything upfront; you can buy what you need and add more as you grow, which is advantageous.

ChrisGeaghan

Sales engineer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees

These three components utilize scalability tools, enabling storage addition to nodes and supporting independent, linear performance growth.

Amarnath Charugundla

System Engineer at Tata Consultancy

I find the scalability of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) to be excellent, and I would rate it a ten based on my clients' requirements.

SaurabhShukla

Technical Lead at Cognizant

For more quotes and insights, download the Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) report

If we want to expand our storage or add disks, it is easy to add them, configure the RAID, and then deploy it.

Christian Nissia

IT Support Engineer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

I believe that scalability should be further improved, especially considering the possibility that environments may grow exponentially.

WJHG

Soporte IT at Sildan Security

When you move from a two-node cluster to a three-node cluster, you have to completely redo the way that they are connected to each other with iSCSI.

Tyler Lejeune

Manager of Systems Administration at Monster Digital

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Virtual SAN report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.1

Pure Storage FlashBlade offers exceptional reliability and impressive stability, featuring 99.999% uptime, seamless upgrades, and high performance.

Sentiment score

8.0

Nutanix Unified Storage is stable and reliable, offering smooth upgrades, quick issue resolution, and effective technical support.

Sentiment score

8.4

StarWind Virtual SAN offers stable, reliable performance with minimal issues, seamless updates, and efficient VM migrations, even during failures.

In case there is any issue with any blade, the data is moved to another.

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure Storage FlashBlade report

IT Field Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

We have not experienced these issues with Nutanix, which I attribute to the all-flash technology, the quality of their platform, and the responsiveness of the hyper-converged infrastructure.

Ryan Adams

System Administrator II at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is very stable.

Ashish Savaratkar

Senior System Administrator at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

It automatically triggers tasks, causing performance issues.

reviewer2700540

Nutanix Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) report

In my experience, StarWind Virtual SAN is very stable, and I have never had a single instability issue.

Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

It has been working for five years and the customer is still happy with it.

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Virtual SAN report

Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer

I ran it on a two-node Hyper-V cluster setup, and I didn't experience any unexpected crashes or major issues.

Daniel Philot

Hosting Operations Senior Analyst at Equinix Brasil

Room For Improvement

Users recommend better pricing, cloud integration, support, documentation, and analytics for Pure Storage FlashBlade, improving efficiency and compatibility.

Nutanix Unified Storage requires upgrades in storage capabilities, ease of use, FTP compatibility, analytics, security, support, and pricing.

StarWind Virtual SAN needs better documentation, automation, integration, setup simplification, monitoring, and feature enhancements like deduplication and encryption.

Technical support definitely needs significant improvement.

Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

Its configuration should be easier.

IT Field Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

One way Pure Storage FlashBlade can be improved is by having more compatibility between the FlashArray and FlashBlade.

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure Storage FlashBlade report

IT Manager at Regin Dalarna

The main concern is pricing, which could deter some customers; addressing this would enhance its appeal.

Mrudula Oruganti

Senior Solution Software Engineer at Gigamon

The system should move towards AI-driven optimization and enhance S3 object storage capabilities.

Sukhwinder-Singh

Corporate Trainer at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees

System downtime can disturb the entire ecosystem and impact all applications.

Amarnath Charugundla

System Engineer at Tata Consultancy

For more quotes and insights, download the Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) report

A more intuitive interface or an improved dashboard for monitoring the cluster would also be helpful, as it would facilitate performance tracking and help identify potential issues before they affect services.

WJHG

Soporte IT at Sildan Security

There have been cases where not understanding exactly what's failing on the Virtual SAN has been an issue.

Kyle Buxton

Manager, Field Support at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

Limited feedback in the management GUI is the main area where I would like to see StarWind Virtual SAN get better.

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Virtual SAN report

Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Setup Cost

Pure Storage FlashBlade is costly but valued for performance, reliability, and reduced administrative overhead, justifying its premium price.

Nutanix Unified Storage offers competitive pricing, appreciated for cost-effectiveness, but may be expensive for small businesses or specific regions.

StarWind Virtual SAN is competitively priced, simple to license, easy to implement, and offers excellent value with flexible options.

The pricing of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the past, but one benefit is that they have built-in ransomware protection.

Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

Regarding pricing, it is okay; we needed exactly this in size, and the price was a lot lower than competitors, making it good for us.

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure Storage FlashBlade report

IT Manager at Regin Dalarna

Compared to buying three or four vendor solutions, it is much cheaper.

Tom Hiles

Senior Manager, IT Infrastructure & Support at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

The cost has doubled for the same amount of data, which was a challenge when presenting use case justifications for the increased cost.

Ryan Salaheddine

Infrastructure Architect & Manager at a real estate/law firm with 201-500 employees

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) has definitely helped reduce our total cost of ownership.

Nidhi Lnu

Information Technology Managed Services Provider at SCE

For more quotes and insights, download the Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) report

The costs are acceptable and very competitive compared to other hardware-only HCI solutions.

Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

I talked to the sales team, they gave me a quote with a perpetual license with the support and everything went through smoothly.

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Virtual SAN report

Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer

This is a great product and good support even you are using free version!

Jose Escario

Infrastructure Manager at Beacon Fronline Solutions Inc

Valuable Features

Pure Storage FlashBlade excels with ease of use, fast performance, scalability, seamless integration, and efficient storage features.

Nutanix Unified Storage offers scalability, efficiency, robust security, seamless cloud integration, and simplifies IT management, enhancing storage reliability.

StarWind Virtual SAN offers cost-effective, high performance solutions with easy management, excellent support, and seamless integration for various platforms.

We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte.

IT Field Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

The best features of Pure Storage FlashBlade include better throughput and better performance.

Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

Pure Storage FlashBlade's scalability is one of the most valuable features, and importantly, it always works, allowing for seamless upgrades.

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure Storage FlashBlade report

IT Manager at Regin Dalarna

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is appreciated for its fault tolerance and redundancy at the cluster level, which ensures reliable storage of files, folders, and other information accessible on the client side.

reviewer2700540

Nutanix Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

The cybersecurity features of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) when dealing with unstructured data, such as ransomware threats, provide the ability to detect and back up block-based storage, allowing me to restore repositories or sets of block storage with one button click, which is automatic.

Andrew Essien

Network Engineer at Alabama A & M University

My experience with using Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) for data-intensive workloads is that we have many SQL Servers and they perform much better than they did when we used hybrid converged previously.

Tom Hiles

Senior Manager, IT Infrastructure & Support at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) report

Thanks to its seamless integration with Proxmox, the implementation of high availability servers has drastically reduced downtime, which is crucial for our security-focused company.

WJHG

Soporte IT at Sildan Security

StarWind Virtual SAN helps us keep customer satisfaction and provides the solutions we need without having to hire many IT specialists.

Kyle Buxton

Manager, Field Support at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

StarWind's storage virtualization and failover capabilities have made a difference for my clusters through uptime improvements, with zero downtime specific to server host maintenance or even maintenance of the StarWind software itself.

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Virtual SAN report

Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Categories and Ranking

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 3.3%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is 4.1%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 5.5%, down from 8.2% 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	5.5%
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)	4.1%
Pure Storage FlashBlade	3.3%
Other	87.1%

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Featured Reviews

Has handled backup storage needs reliably and supports seamless upgrades

IT Manager at Regin Dalarna

In environments requiring high throughput and low latency, Pure Storage FlashBlade provides high throughput and normal latency, but we do not have any application that requires low latency right now, so the latency of three to five milliseconds is considered kind of high. Pure Storage FlashBlade's ability to integrate with enterprise applications is not important for us, as we only want to present an S3 bucket for our backup, which we have done, and it works very fast. We use the Purity software's data reduction techniques; we have a backup software that compresses everything before sending it to the S3 bucket, achieving a data reduction of 1.1 to one. I would recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade to other companies because it's a very fast and scalable solution for anyone who needs it. On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution an 8.

Read full review

Amarnath Charugundla

System Engineer at Tata Consultancy

Unified management and cost-effectiveness lead to positive experiences and future savings

Improvement is necessary wherein the memory or storage should not breach 90%, because if breached, it becomes unmanageable. We have to set alerts or CPU triggering for 95% for the first warning. Other activities on nodes or file systems should be properly maintained. We must monitor the dashboard for P1, P2 alerts in the Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) file share system including SMB, NFS, objects, and blocks. Attention should be maintained for any alerts such as CPU, memory, and RAM alerts, as exceeding these creates issues within teams. If triggered to 95% and forgotten, it crosses the SLA breach, causing disturbances to application, web, and platform teams. Continuous monitoring on the Nutanix dashboard is essential. Even a highly experienced person in Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) cannot provide a 10 rating out of 10 because it is a vast system. I would rate it eight from my perspective.

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Jccerong Heron

System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Support team has guided us through deploying virtual storage on legacy hardware and reducing operational costs

The reason I chose StarWind Virtual SAN for this particular scenario is really the features, the ease of use, and most importantly, the price. In my opinion, the best features StarWind Virtual SAN offers are easy integration with the system installed in the data center. The integration with my existing systems in the data center works well, especially with VMware, as we already have a big cluster in VMware, and the easy integration with that is helpful to solve some problems with the platform. StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization by reducing OPEX costs. My OPEX costs have gone down as we reutilize some old servers, and this reduces the CAPEX of hardware in the data center.

Read full review

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.

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879,853 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

24%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Educational Organization

University

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	21

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	27
Midsize Enterprise	30
Large Enterprise	63

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	165
Midsize Enterprise	54
Large Enterprise	34

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?

Regarding pricing, it is okay; we needed exactly this in size, and the price was a lot lower than competitors, making...

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

In my opinion, one way Pure Storage FlashBlade can be improved is by having more compatibility between the FlashArray...

What do you like most about Nutanix Unified Storage?

Nutanix has excellent product documentation available on their portals, written in simple, easy-to-understand language.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix Unified Storage?

It is very cost-effective compared to the traditional environment. With new hardware, it's a long-term investment but...

What needs improvement with Nutanix Unified Storage?

To improve Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS), cost is always an issue for every company, especially when we talk about la...

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?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was very good. We were able to get the software at a good cost....

What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

The only thing that I would say about documentation is there are some aspects of the documentation that are a little ...

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Comparisons

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 7% of the time

Scality RING vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 2% of the time

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Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon S3 vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 6% of the time

Qumulo vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 4% of the time

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) Competitors

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 13% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 12% of the time

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 9% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

Product Reports

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Download Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) product report

StarWind Virtual SAN

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Also Known As

No data available

Nutanix Files Storage, Nutanix Volumes Block Storage, Nutanix Objects Storage

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

Nutanix Unified Storage offers seamless scalability and high availability with a user-friendly interface, supporting multi-protocol operations while integrating effortlessly with cloud platforms. It enhances performance and security with features like ransomware protection and advanced data management.

Nutanix Unified Storage streamlines storage management by consolidating infrastructure and optimizing virtualization. It reduces operational complexity and enhances performance across diverse workloads. Despite feedback on integration challenges and suggestions for improving pricing, API capabilities, and security, it remains a key choice for dependable storage solutions. Calls for streamlined implementation and enhanced AI capabilities reflect its potential to better support evolving organizational strategies, driving cost efficiency and data accessibility.

What are the key features of Nutanix Unified Storage?

Intuitive Interface: Simplifies management with easy navigation.
High Availability: Ensures minimal downtime and reliable performance.
Seamless Scalability: Adapts to increasing data requirements effortlessly.
Multi-Protocol Support: Facilitates comprehensive operations across different systems.
Advanced Security: Offers ransomware protection and secure data backup.
Cloud Integration: Allows smooth interaction with cloud platforms.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Operational Efficiency: Reduced complexity through streamlined management.
Cost Optimization: Achieved via data compression and consolidation.
Enhanced Data Visibility: Improved insights with advanced data lens.
Performance Improvement: Significant uplift in workload handling and database performance.
Scalable Infrastructure: Enables growth and adaptation to changing demands.

In industries, Nutanix Unified Storage is deployed to centralize storage needs, improve database efficiency, and enhance file sharing and security. Organizations use it to consolidate infrastructure, support virtualization, optimize costs, and facilitate virtual machine hosting. It's instrumental in scalable object storage, ransomware protection, integrating legacy systems, and catering to critical applications.

Nutanix

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

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs. StarWind Virtual SAN