QoreStor vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

Quest Software and StarWind are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Quest Software is ranked #21 with an average rating of 7.0, while StarWind is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.2. Quest Software holds a 1.0% mindshare in SDS, compared to StarWind’s 5.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Quest Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 23, 2025

StarWind Virtual SAN and QoreStor both compete in the data storage and management category, targeting various businesses looking for robust storage solutions. StarWind appears to have an edge in technical support and high availability, particularly excelling in integration with existing infrastructure, whereas QoreStor stands out with its data deduplication and compression efficiency.

Features: StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and ease of integration with existing IT environments, offering straightforward management and robust failover capabilities. It performs efficiently in virtualized settings and allows the use of commodity hardware, enhancing data mobility for SMBs. QoreStor is notable for its exceptional data deduplication and compression features, which minimize storage needs significantly. This flexibility makes it compatible with multiple backup software solutions, offering a scalable and versatile solution for data protection and archiving.

Room for Improvement: StarWind Virtual SAN users suggest more concise documentation and improvements in the web-based management interface. Better automation of iSCSI connections and enhanced monitoring tools are also desired, along with improved integration with Linux and scalability for large deployments. QoreStor users appreciate its performance but call for more streamlined installation and stronger ransomware protection, as well as easier access to diagnostic tools to enhance overall user experience and resilience.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: StarWind Virtual SAN is primarily deployed on-premises and benefits from outstanding technical support, offering rapid problem-solving and expert assistance during setup. Users commend its proactive support backed by deep IT expertise. QoreStor is favored for its straightforward deployment, especially in private cloud environments, with a pricing model that supports effective scalable growth, though it may benefit from faster customer service in urgent situations.

Pricing and ROI: StarWind Virtual SAN presents a cost-efficient solution, maximizing existing infrastructure with straightforward licensing and high ROI, thanks to reduced downtime and maintenance costs. Its licensing supports scalability and performance demands effectively. On the other hand, QoreStor offers competitive pricing, with capacity licensing allowing economical client scaling. Users report significant ROI driven by effective data deduplication and compression, greatly reducing storage costs.

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

Buyer's Guide

QoreStor vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

December 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 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 QoreStor is 1.0%. 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%
Pure Storage FlashBlade	3.3%
QoreStor	1.0%
Other	90.2%

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Featured Reviews

MikaelHellström

IT Manager at Regin Dalarna

Has handled backup storage needs reliably and supports seamless upgrades

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.

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Jeff Manuszak

CTO at EDSI

Cost-efficient, highly scalable, and installable on different types of hardware

They could improve on support a little bit. We have not had to engage their support much, but when we do have issues, it can take longer to get things resolved. We are pretty lenient as we do a lot of IT support ourselves. We are not very hard on support organizations, but when a customer has a support issue, it would be easier if the support processes were a little bit more automated. It would be beneficial to have an easier way to upload diagnostic dump files. They can make it easy for the customer to collect the diagnostic data. There can be some kind of monitoring solutions to alert users to issues with the appliance or software, making it easy for customers to monitor their systems in the field. This is especially critical because it stores customers' backups, and a failure can have significant business impacts. If a customer does not have the backups and has a disaster, they can be out of business, so monitoring is key.

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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.

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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."

"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 initial setup is pretty quick."

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

"The most valuable feature of this solution is performance."

"It is very easy to use, and it is very fast."

"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"We need revisions and safe backup so that it could be held up in court, but deduplication and compression are the main features why we have Quest QoreStor. That's where it really shines. I use ZFS and XFS at home, and Quest QoreStor is even better."

"QoreStor has helped us to reduce our backup storage requirements on-premises. We've been using the same devices for quite a while, and so it lets us keep using them as opposed to having to rip out all that hardware and create a new on-prem solution. The advantage here is even if we had to retire the hardware tomorrow, the QoreStor part doesn't change. We just have to have additional hardware and put the solution back on whatever hardware we pick and it'll do the same thing."

"Quest QoreStor definitely saved us money."

"Deduplication is the most valuable feature. It saves us a lot of space. When we back up 100 terabytes of data, after dedupe, it only uses maybe five to six terabytes for the disk space in QoreStor."

"Data deduplication and replication would be the top two features. The encryption and cloud tiering are also attractive for the future."

"The dedupe and compression are pretty extreme. On disk, we're getting dedupe rates of up to 65 percent of data and compression of 34 percent. When you go to the cloud, it's more like 76 percent for dedupe and almost 50 percent for compression."

"Quest QoreStor is very stable compared to our previous solution."

"I would rate QoreStor a ten out of ten for what it offers for the price."

More QoreStor pros

"The product's core feature of virtualizing our storage is by far the most valuable."

"StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere is a software-defined storage solution that has reduced administration time for storage. It's pretty straightforward to install and setup it and so far it has been robust and worked as advertised from StarWind."

"Although StarWind Virtual SAN free is fully functional and can be used in production, the support that comes with the license is priceless."

"StarWind saved us about 80% of our storage costs over our old solution."

"The support team is available to solve any problem efficiently."

"Without the need for any downtime, enterprises can simply grow their storage infrastructure using StarWind Virtual SAN by adding new servers or disks to the current infrastructure."

"I like the asynchronous replication and failover features. They are what I'm primarily using it for. The asynchronous replication is helpful because our servers are backed up continuously throughout the day. If anything goes wrong we just fail over immediately. That is a very nice feature to have."

"The fact that we can expand our storage and add on to our compute nodes easily and how amazing the StarWind technical support team is really adding value to our purchase."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

Cons

"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."

"It usually comes down to just what you hit and the value you're getting when you spend the money and license the products. I would always go, "If you want to make things better, lower your price and make your licensing simpler." There's always an opportunity around that."

"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."

"The solution is expensive."

"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."

"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."

"I want efficiency. FlashBlade doesn't have efficiency now."

"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."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"In terms of improvement, we would like to have an Air Gap feature to prevent a virus from attaching to something. So that when we don't do a backup, we want the QoreStor to stay offline. It would be a nice feature to have."

"They need to increase their maximum capacity. Other than that, they're doing a pretty good job."

"There can be some kind of monitoring solutions to alert users to issues with the appliance or software, making it easy for customers to monitor their systems in the field."

"The ransomware protection of QoreStor could use improvement."

"The setup of the software is definitely not the easiest thing. I worked a lot with Quest engineers, especially in the early days when we were first testing it and trying it out. I actually had some of the developers working with us at one point because they were going through these point releases, and I was having trouble getting it to work in this S3-compatible situation. We got it all working eventually, but setup is definitely not the easiest thing in the world."

"Overall, I am happy with this solution, but a way to export configuration settings would be beneficial."

"The management interface is in need of improvement. The graphical user interface (GUI) for the web management tools appears clunky, and not super intuitive."

"Overall, I am happy with this solution, but a way to export configuration settings would be beneficial. After everything is set up and configured, there should be a way to export the configuration. In case something happens to the QoreStor server, and we need to reinstall and configure everything, being able to import the configuration would be helpful. This feature does not currently exist."

More QoreStor cons

"Management tools could be improved, sometimes the usage seems to be slowed down and confusing. A native web interface could also be an option. I love to see in the future port of the software on a general Linux distribution like RedHat or Ubuntu in order to avoid windows license costs. I would also like to see features like erasure coding implemented. On the VSAN software, I would like to see some improvements in the storage pools (eliminate the usage of the file as a data container and use the raw partition)."

"StarWind currently has a Windows native application that it uses for management. There is not a web-based GUI at this time."

"The number of different ways you can set it up can make it a little daunting."

"We have found this product to suit our needs."

"Scalability should be further improved, especially considering the possibility that environments may grow exponentially."

"Diagnostics information or alerts on the state of systems could also be implemented to give more visibility."

"An extended trial period would serve as a way to get clean insights into the technology's adaptability and alignment with their specific needs before committing to long-term integration."

"It is difficult to control all of the hardware components."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Support is a separate line item. Support is a different cost, but whatever your support is now, that's what you're going to pay forever. If your support's $100 today, six years from now it's $100. It doesn't fluctuate unless you upgrade it, or change it, etc."

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

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

"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."

"The price could be cheaper."

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

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"Its pricing model is very attractive. You have one price, and you get everything from QoreStor."

"The pricing is good. It is competitive for a managed services provider. I like the ability to pay by the terabyte, allowing for an incremental cost that we and our customers can afford, so the solution grows with the customer."

"Quest QoreStor's pricing is affordable. We evaluated Veeam, a well-known company for backup solutions, but found their pricing to be quite high. Veeam's price was almost double. For us, Quest QoreStor is very affordable."

"The cost is per terabyte, and overall, the cost was reasonable when compared to some competitors."

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

"The license is reusable. We can always rebuild it and apply the license. Then, boom, we get new servers, apply the license, and we're back up and running."

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

"StarWind is best price/performance for SMB."

"Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs."

"There are two tiers of support and in my opinion, support is worth the cost."

"The licensing is a bit weird. If you license the standard version of StarWind, it allows you four terabytes. Then, they have a pro version, but with the pro version, the only difference is it doubles the terabytes to eight."

"I think that purchasing StarWind Virtual SAN Professional Edition would be optimal for most."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Performing Arts

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Media Company

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	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	2

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...

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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...

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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...

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What else besides data replication does QoreStor offer?

Quest QoreStor can be used for multiple things besides data replication. For example, it can be trusted to make a bac...

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How does Quest QoreStore protect your data?

One of our favorite features of Quest QoreStore for data protection isn't the backup, actually, though we're using it...

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How does Quest QoreStore solve repetitive data replicas?

When I first found out about data replication and the many benefits it had, I couldn't help but wonder - what about t...

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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?

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

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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 ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 7% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 6% of the time

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Dell PowerProtect Data Domain vs QoreStor

Compared 14% of the time

HPE StoreOnce vs QoreStor

Compared 10% of the time

Hitachi Thin Image Advanced vs QoreStor

Compared 9% of the time

Dell Avamar vs QoreStor

Compared 9% of the time

Fivetran vs QoreStor

Compared 9% of the time

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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

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

QoreStor

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

December 2025

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Also Known As

No data available

QoreStor

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

QoreStor optimizes storage costs through advanced deduplication and compression, seamlessly integrating with backup infrastructures and supporting diverse hardware. It enhances data security with replication and offers flexible deployment with minimal maintenance.

QoreStor offers significant benefits in deduplication, which leads to space savings and reduced storage expenses. This system integrates effortlessly with backup platforms like NetVault and Veeam, functioning as a reliable backup target for both on-premises and cloud environments. The ease of integration is complemented by its replication capabilities, which add a layer of data security by enabling geographically dispersed backups. Its cloud tiering functionality extends storage capabilities, ensuring cost-effectiveness compared to other solutions. While enhancements are needed in areas like Cloud Tier support, Air Gap features, and GUI intuitiveness, the continued developments aim to further optimize storage and backup solutions.

What are QoreStor's key features?

Deduplication and Compression: Achieves high deduplication rates and space savings.
Seamless Integration: Works well with diverse backup infrastructures.
Replication: Facilitates data security through multi-location backups.
Cloud Tiering: Extends storage capabilities efficiently.
Minimal Maintenance: Requires low maintenance efforts.

What benefits should be considered in user reviews?

Cost-Effectiveness: Offers competitive pricing and optimized storage.
Storage Optimization: Reduces storage needs with advanced data handling.
Flexibility: Supports diverse hardware and deployment options.
Data Security: Enhances protection with robust replication features.

QoreStor is widely implemented in industries for backup and restore operations, providing data deduplication and compression as key functionalities. Its integration as a backup target across platforms like NetVault and Veeam makes it ideal for enterprises that require efficient data management and storage cost control. Many organizations utilize its features to optimize cloud storage seamlessly while focusing on internal data handling or acting as service resellers.

Quest Software

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

American Airlines, at&t, Bank of America. Barclays, ebay, Ford

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

Buyer's Guide

QoreStor vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

December 2025

Free Report: QoreStor vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

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