Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

Red Hat and StarWind are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Red Hat is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.9, while StarWind is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.4. Red Hat holds a 19.8% mindshare in SDS, compared to StarWind’s 6.4% mindshare. Additionally, 82% of Red Hat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Red Hat Ceph Storage and StarWind Virtual SAN are strong competitors in the enterprise storage solutions market, with StarWind Virtual SAN gaining an edge for its robust features that justify the investment.

Features: Red Hat Ceph Storage is known for its scalability, flexibility, and seamless cloud provider integration. It supports both block and object storage, aligning well with hybrid and open cloud environments. StarWind Virtual SAN offers streamlined management, advanced configuration options, and impressive virtualization capabilities, providing ease of installation and support.

Room for Improvement: Red Hat Ceph Storage could benefit from simplifying its deployment process, enhancing user interfaces, and improving initial setup costs. Additionally, increasing user-friendliness and broadening support documentation would be advantageous. For StarWind Virtual SAN, areas for improvement include expanding its hardware compatibility, reducing management complexities, and enhancing customization options for advanced users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: StarWind Virtual SAN is praised for its straightforward deployment process that minimizes disruption and its proactive, expert customer service. It is designed for easy integration within existing infrastructures. In contrast, Red Hat Ceph Storage requires a more involved deployment, offering vast resources and support channels, which makes it suitable for meticulously planned environments and those aiming for a robust setup.

Pricing and ROI: Red Hat Ceph Storage generally incurs higher initial setup costs due to its scalability and extensive capabilities, leading to a gradual ROI, appealing to businesses focusing on long-term investments. StarWind Virtual SAN, with cost-effective initial setup and swift ROI due to efficient resource allocation, is attractive for businesses seeking quicker returns and lower entry costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN Report (Updated: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

August 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 August 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.4%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ceph Storage is 19.8%, down from 21.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 6.4%, down from 8.8% 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.

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Rifat Rahman

Infrastructure Architect & CEO at Tirzok Private Limited

Offers reliable performance and availability for large deployments

I would like to see improvements in Red Hat Ceph Storage not because I necessarily think it needs improvement, but because I generally prefer to do things manually rather than following the containerization part. Current deployments are based on containers, but I deploy manually with my scripts and controls. If there are no Kubernetes-like requirements, I often prefer to deploy a whole manual process. I don't ask for improvements in the deployment model because Red Hat has its own philosophy about making things, but it's my personal choice that I prefer things manually. Some features are available only in the containerization part, so if those are also available in manual deployment, that will help.

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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 most valuable features are the Metro clustering, and disaster recovery."

"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."

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

"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."

"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."

"The product is scalable and easy to expand."

"Using this solution has made our backups more reliable."

"The main feature I have found to be product replication."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"I like the distributed and self-healing nature of the product."

"Ceph has simplified my storage integration. I no longer need two or three storage systems, as Ceph can support all my storage needs. I no longer need OpenStack Swift for REST object storage access, I no longer need NFS or GlusterFS for filesystem sharing, and most importantly, I no longer need LVM or DRBD for my virtual machines in OpenStack."

"I would definitely recommend Red Hat Ceph Storage. It is a complete solution for cloud-native storage needs."

"We have some legacy servers that can be associated with this structure. With Ceph, we can rearrange these machines and reuse our investment."

"We have not encountered any stability issues for the product."

"radosgw and librados provide a simple integration with clone, snapshots, and other functions that aid in data integrity."

"Stratus allows more reliability than all the other types of computers available."

"Ceph’s ability to adapt to varying types of commodity hardware affords us substantial flexibility and future-proofing."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pros

"The control panel is nice. It gives you a lot of good feedback as to the status and health of the VSAN."

"The most valuable feature is the reliable storage replication, which enables me to create a robust infrastructure to run our business."

"The best features are the software's ease of setup and the excellent technical support."

"When it comes to ease of installation, the whole process is designed to be user-friendly and straightforward."

"Ten gigabit Ethernet compatibility, support, ease of use, and management are some positive features."

"StarWind Virtual SAN is a very easy-to-use solution that can be quickly and easily deployed and configured without intimate and specific knowledge in the virtualization sphere."

"StarWind Virtual SAN has impacted my organization positively by saving a lot of money over purchasing a new SAN."

"The most valuable features of StarWind Virtual SAN include its cost-effective repurposing of older hardware, seamless integration with vSphere, and high scalability."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

Cons

"Compared to, for example, Hitachi NAS, the solution is not mature at all. It's just in its infancy as far as technology goes."

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

"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."

"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."

"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."

"It would be beneficial if the layer could support the S3 protocol and be container ready in the next release."

"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."

"It would be nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"The product lacks RDMA support for inter-OSD communication."

"Routing around slow hardware."

"If you use for any other solution like other Kubernetes solutions, it's not very suitable."

"Please create a failback solution for OpenStack replication and maybe QoS to allow guaranteed IOPS."

"I have not identified any drawbacks, however, the response to public platform inquiries could be faster."

"What could be improved in Red Hat Ceph Storage is its user interface or GUI."

"It needs a better UI for easier installation and management."

"I've heard the integration with OpenShift is great, however, the licensing cost is excessively high."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage cons

"We would like the documentation to be more complete. Most items are covered, but if you don't know something, you may need to contact their support."

"The interface of the management console of the StarWind Virtual SAN is complex, and it's difficult for the novice user to interact with the management having less knowledge or training in the product."

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

"It would be great if it provided thin provisioned virtual disks."

"Perhaps more reporting features on the utilization, usage, and performance of the configured high-availability images and underlying physical disks would be helpful."

"I am expecting to see it more user-friendly in the future."

"I would love to see more vendor selection to be available for the HCA/vSAN appliances."

"The management console of StarWind Virtual SAN is pretty complex."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be cheaper."

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

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

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

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

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"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."

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"The price of this product isn't high."

"The operational overhead is higher compared to Azure because we own the hardware."

"The other big advantage is that Ceph is free software. Compared to traditional SAN based storage, it is very economical."

"We never used the paid support."

"If you can afford a product like Red Hat Ceph Storage then go for it. If you cannot, then you need to test Ceph and get your hands dirty."

"There is no cost for software."

"I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten."

"Most of time, you can get Ceph with the OpenStack solution in a subscription as a bundle."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pricing and cost advice

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

"This solution has competitive prices and the implementation is very easy."

"If you are looking at a traditional SAN for a small cluster, give StarWind vSAN because you will save thousands without any compromise."

"The scalability limitation for us is its licensing. At some point in the fairly near future, we will probably have to upgrade our license so we can store eight terabytes instead of four. We are currently at four terabytes, but we're starting to knock on the door of that capacity."

"We found that the pricing was perfect; simple and clear."

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

"This solution has a great price for the functionality."

"The pricing is fine for the work that it does."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

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...

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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...

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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

How does Red Hat Ceph Storage compare with MiniO?

Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This ...

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What do you like most about Red Hat Ceph Storage?

The high availability of the solution is important to us.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Red Hat Ceph Storage?

Areas of Red Hat Ceph Storage that have room for improvement include more promotion. Many people do not know about th...

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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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 19% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

Dell ECS vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 5% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

MinIO vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 39% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 6% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 4% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 3% of the time

More Red Hat Ceph Storage Competitors

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 24% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 16% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 14% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 14% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 5% 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

Red Hat Ceph Storage

August 2025

Download Red Hat Ceph Storage product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

July 2025

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Also Known As

No data available

Ceph

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

Red Hat Ceph Storage is an enterprise open source platform that provides unified software-defined storage on standard, economical servers and disks. With block, object, and file storage combined into one platform, Red Hat Ceph Storage efficiently and automatically manages all your data.

Red Hat

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

Dell, DreamHost

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

August 2025

Free Report: Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

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