Quest QoreStor vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance comparison

Quest QoreStor vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

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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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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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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

"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."

"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."

"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 product is scalable and easy to expand."

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

"I would rate this solution an eight plus. It has has good flexibility and stability, it's easy to manage and the response time is good."

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

"What I like best about Pure Storage FlashBlade is its object storage functionality, plus it has fast underlying hardware. Pure Storage FlashBlade is also very stable. I find its stability one of its valuable features."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"Quest QoreStor definitely saved us money."

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

"The features we use for the data deduplication are nice because we're able to back up a much larger amount of data, yet it doesn't necessarily take up that much data on the devices."

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

"This software solution can be installed on many different types of hardware, which makes it very flexible. We can run it on virtual machines or virtual servers, providing convenience for solutions of varying sizes, from small to large."

"The extreme compression of data is a big thing for us. We were looking for an online backup solution, and QoreStor is very good in terms of data compression. It helps us minimize the required storage in the Blob Storage environment."

"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."

"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."

More Quest QoreStor pros

"However, StarWind HCA won us over in two areas: price and support. We were actually able to install an all-flash StarWind HCA for less than other vendors' spinning rust solutions! We were able to roll five years of warranty and support into the purchase price and still save thousands of dollars upfront."

"The StarWind command centre is a very handy tool to have. It allows less skilled staff to have a view and manage our virtual machines."

"The initial setup seems to be very straightforward."

"Live migration between nodes was quick and simple."

"Servers came pre-configured for our environment and as soon as they were in the rack, Starwind got them up and running."

"The easy way everything can be configured and ready to run in less than a day is great."

"The hardware footprint is great. We've got two 2U servers which replaced four 2U servers. Granted, they were about three years old at that point, but we actually increased our processing capacity by about 50 percent while keeping our storage capacity about the same. We've actually been able to downgrade to a half rack from a full rack because we've gotten rid of some of our network equipment and some of our additional storage arrays."

"We opted for 24-hour monitoring and support, which has already paid for itself."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pros

Cons

"The speed could be improved."

"Recently, while upgrading the version code, one of the controllers failed. Replacing the controller took between 14 to 20 days."

"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."

"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 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."

"I would like to see better integration."

"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."

"I would like to see more VM-Aware features in the next release of this solution."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"The importance of support is significant to me. I was working for a service provider, and all of our customers had a Quest or warning. Sometimes the support really underperforms."

"The installation could use improvement. The initial installation was a little touchy and it's not really user-installable. You have to have a connection to support to install."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More Quest QoreStor cons

"An emphasis on security can be improved."

"I had some initial difficulties understanding the solution which could have been solved via additional documentation aimed at newcomers."

"There is room for improvement in the setup and installation phase. We had massive problems connecting the StarWind appliances to our network infrastructure. That wasn't necessarily a StarWind problem. I don't know if their business partner in the UK wasn't used to having to deal with the supply of the cabling infrastructure, but that's where the problems started."

"I think that the pre-installation questionnaire was a little confusing and ambiguous."

"At times there has been a language barrier when communicating issues."

"Multi cluster support for their Command Console would be very beneficial. Currently, you can only work with a single cluster at a time. The console is new so I expect much growth in this area in the near future. The other area that could be improved is the tech support locale."

"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."

"The only issue we have seen is with the StarWind Server Manager. We have had to continually reboot the server in order to use it."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be cheaper."

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

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

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"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."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

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

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

"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 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."

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

"A desired feature or service would be the ability to have a hardware subscription plan that ensures routine hardware updates in conjunction with hyper-converged software."

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

"Its cost was reasonable."

"The Nutanix piece was about $45,000, getting close to $50,000 with all the licensing involved, whereas the StarWind was less than half of that, after Microsoft licensing and such."

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

"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 other solutions we were looking at were priced much higher than this and they didn't necessarily have full redundancy... Nutanix and VxRail were in the final running... but it came down to our price point."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

28%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Performing Arts

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Computer Software Company

17%

Educational Organization

14%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

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...

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...

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

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

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...

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...

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...

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.

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...

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...

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Compared 31% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

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VxRail vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 13% of the time

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Product Reports

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Quest QoreStor

Download Quest QoreStor product report

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Download StarWind HyperConverged Appliance product report

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report

Also Known As

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QoreStor

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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

Quest QoreStor is commonly used for deduplication, compression, backup, and restore, integrated with NetVault for robust data redundancy and cloud storage replication.

Quest QoreStor optimizes data management with its sophisticated deduplication and compression capabilities, allowing companies to efficiently handle data redundancy. By integrating seamlessly with platforms like NetVault, Veeam, and resellers utilizing SPHiNX and BackBox, Quest QoreStor serves as both local and offsite repositories. This solution manages replication between production and corporate locations, strengthening recovery and improving backup operations. QoreStor's software-based nature ensures flexibility and easy integration, although improvements in replication and installation are sought by users.

What Are Key Features of Quest QoreStor?

Deduplication: Significantly reduces storage usage, achieving deduplication rates up to 76%.
Compression: Lowers data size on disk and cloud storage by up to 50%.
Integration: Compatible with multiple backup software to enhance efficiency.
Cloud Tiering: Facilitates seamless cloud storage expansion.
Encryption & Replication: Ensures secure and reliable data transportation and protection.

What ROI and Benefits Should Be Considered?

Storage Efficiency: Reduces required storage capacity savings on costs.
Backup Optimization: Increases speed and efficiency of backup processes.
Flexibility: Software-based, allowing adaptability to existing infrastructure.
Data Security: Offers strong encryption and replication features.

In sectors such as finance, healthcare, and technology, Quest QoreStor aids in maintaining vital data management with its robust features, enhancing data recovery strategies. Its use with secondary backup targets and replication capabilities supports a wide range of industry requirements. However, challenges such as initial setup complexity and system interface improvements are areas for growth, particularly in expanding capacities and addressing specific cybersecurity concerns like ransomware protection on Linux.

Quest Software

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

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

Sears Home and Franchise Business

Quest QoreStor vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance