Pure Storage FlashBlade vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

June 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:

ROI

Sentiment score

8.5

Pure Storage FlashBlade delivers cost savings, efficiency gains, and increased VM density, with returns seen within four years.

Sentiment score

7.4

StarWind Virtual SAN offers high ROI by reducing costs, downtime, and using existing servers for efficient deployment.

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

System admin at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

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.

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

7.0

Pure Storage FlashBlade's customer service is praised for expertise but sometimes experiences slower responses due to growth challenges.

Sentiment score

8.4

StarWind Virtual SAN excels in customer service with quick, professional support, seamless integration, and clear communication, ensuring satisfaction.

I would rate them an eight out of ten.

IT Field Support Engineer at Unisys

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.

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

System admin at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

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.

Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer

When we set it up, they validate our settings and configurations to ensure we don't miss anything.

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

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

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

8.8

Pure Storage FlashBlade is praised for its scalability and ease of expansion, satisfying various industries like banking and media.

Sentiment score

7.8

StarWind Virtual SAN offers scalable, flexible storage solutions, easily adapting to infrastructure growth with minimal reconfiguration, despite some licensing limitations.

Pure Storage FlashBlade is scalable.

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

System admin at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

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

Soporte IT at Sildan Security

I have never needed to scale up or add additional nodes with StarWind Virtual SAN, but we have had to expand, and customer support has been excellent.

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

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

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.8

Pure Storage FlashBlade is highly rated for stability, reliability, and performance, with minimal downtime and swift recovery.

Sentiment score

8.6

StarWind Virtual SAN is highly reliable with minimal maintenance, offering seamless, dependable operations across diverse environments, and earning user trust.

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 Unisys

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

Room For Improvement

Users want better cloud integration, support, pricing, efficiency, and improvements in analytics, configuration, and backup for FlashBlade.

StarWind Virtual SAN users seek better documentation, management tools, and integration features, while appreciating its affordability and high availability.

Technical support definitely needs significant improvement.

System admin at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

Its configuration should be easier.

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

IT Field Support Engineer at Unisys

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.

Soporte IT at Sildan Security

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

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 costlier but valued for performance, ease, and reliability, justifying its comprehensive licensing with included software.

StarWind Virtual SAN is cost-effective, easy to set up, offers flexible scalability, and has responsive support with perpetual licenses.

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.

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

System admin at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

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

The pricing can be a bit complex depending on the features you need.

JohnPerez

IT Administrator at Panoptic Services, Inc.

Valuable Features

Pure Storage FlashBlade offers high performance, scalability, and ease of use with excellent data protection and seamless integration for large storage needs.

StarWind Virtual SAN offers robust features, simplicity, and reliability with seamless integration and automation for enhanced data redundancy and resilience.

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

IT Field Support Engineer at Unisys

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

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

System admin at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

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.

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.

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

Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)

7th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

All-Flash Storage (16th), File and Object Storage (6th)

StarWind Virtual SAN

Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)

1st

Average Rating

9.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

194

Ranking in other categories

HCI (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.2%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 7.0%, down from 8.5% 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

Seamless integrations, high availability, and offers a free version

Soporte IT at Sildan Security

Although I am generally satisfied with VSAN and its performance, there are some areas that could be improved to enhance its effectiveness even further. One area that could benefit from improvement is scalability. While the tool works well in its current configuration, allowing for greater ease and flexibility in adding new nodes to the cluster without complications would be very beneficial, especially in growing environments. Additionally, I would like to see additional features in the next version, such as better support for automated resource management. This could include proactive suggestions for optimizing storage and memory usage, as well as preventive alerts about the health status of the servers. 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.

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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859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Educational Organization

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

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 outages when we need to quickly move data between different data centers. It ensure...

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 performance it delivers, including quick response times.

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.

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) combines flash and disks of the cluster and forms a virtual shared storage “pool” acce...

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

I have had no setup costs and no challenges with setup and installation for StarWind Virtual SAN. The costs are acceptable and very competitive compared to other hardware-only HCI solutions.

What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

There are times when the feedback in the event of an impending issue or an actual failure can be limited. The remediation steps are usually fairly simple to resolve the issue, but the management GU...

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Product Reports

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Pure Storage FlashBlade

June 2025

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

StarWind Virtual SAN

May 2025

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

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

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School