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 8.8, while StarWind is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.5. Red Hat holds a 21.1% mindshare in SDS, compared to StarWind’s 7.2% mindshare. Additionally, 81% 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: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

April 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 May 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 Red Hat Ceph Storage is 21.1%, down from 22.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 7.2%, down from 8.4% 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

ANDRE VINICIUS HAMERSKI

IT Private Cloud & Infrastructure Leader at Sicredi

Offers cost-effective scalability through open-source storage integration

Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage. We appreciate the scalability of the open-source solution, allowing us to address our growing data needs without encountering major issues. Having used it as a pilot system in Brazil, we gained significant knowledge and the ability to manage our infrastructure as code.

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WJHG

Soporte IT at Sildan Security

Seamless integrations, high availability, and offers a free version

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

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

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

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

"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."

"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."

"The initial setup is pretty quick."

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

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

"The solution provides many controllers."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The solution is pretty stable."

"Red Hat Ceph Storage is a reliable solution, it works well."

"Replicated and erasure coded pools have allowed for multiple copies to be kept, easy scale-out of additional nodes, and easy replacement of failed hard drives. The solution continues working even when there are errors."

"Most valuable features include replication and compression."

"We use the solution for cloud storage."

"Data redundancy is a key feature, since it can survive failures (disks/servers). We didn’t lose our data or have a service interruption during server/disk failures."

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

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

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pros

"This software lets us maintain storage redundancy across both of our Hyper-V hosts, so if one goes down the environment fails over to the other and we have minimal to no downtime."

"Updates to server hardware are now painless and done during working hours with zero stress. We had a RAID failure a few months back, and nobody in the building even noticed and there was no after hours time used for repair."

"Active-active work mode leads to true redundancy of storage and allows us to distribute the load between multiple nodes."

"Implementing Starwind in our organization has been a game-changer, particularly in terms of cost savings. By leveraging Starwind's virtual tape library (VTL) solution, we have been able to use virtual tapes for our backups, which are then saved in Azure Blob storage."

"They offer top-tier support."

"The ability to keep data accessible even in the event of hardware failures is highly valued, as it ensures business continuity."

"Starwind made it easy to deploy fully redundant, highly available storage at a low cost."

"It has great free trials that allow end users to test a large variety of their products before deciding to buy the full product."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

Cons

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

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

"We haven't been able to use much of the cloud area of Pure Storage. We have a storage server and it would be better if it could integrate with other cloud features of this solution."

"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."

"I have not seen ROI."

"The feature that we're waiting on is better integration with the cell services."

"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."

"Commvault has mainly driven the Analytics, providing data and reports. However, the product has room for improvement, especially regarding storage analytics. Upgrading firmware has caused issues, requiring feature disabling to revert to traditional backups. The firmware upgrades sometimes affect Commvault backups."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"I have encountered issues with stability when replication factor was not 3, which is the default and recommended value. Go below 3 and problems will arise."

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

"Routing around slow hardware."

"It took me a long time to get the storage drivers for the communication with Kubernetes up and running. The documentation could improve it is lacking information. I'm not sure if this is a Ceph problem or if Ceph should address this, but it was something I ran into. Additionally, there is a performance issue I am having that I am looking into, but overall I am satisfied with the performance."

"It takes some time to re-balance the storage in case of server failure."

"The management features are pretty good, but they still have room for improvement."

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

"I would like to see better performance and stability when Ceph is in recovery."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage cons

"In the next release, they could make some graphs of the real-time loading, speed of storage, and interfaces. Of course, these can be viewed in other places. But, in the event of a malfunction or troubleshooting, this would be convenient."

"The only thing that I have any difficulty with is that in order to perform upgrades, it is required that the SANs be detached from the Hosts before that can happen."

"Ability to to test the virtual storage are network area and storage speed from StarWind Management Console."

"Improvements in documentation and support resources could enhance the user experience."

"StarWind really needs to market its product more."

"High availability for direct attached hardware drives could be useful for increasing the performance of a storage appliance."

"More comprehensive reporting and educational resources for error resolution would enhance the user experience."

"With data verification, I would like to know how does the solution perform validation of data being synced between two VSANs."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"The price is a little high."

"The product is very expensive."

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

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

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."

"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."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"We never used the paid support."

"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."

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

"There is no cost for software."

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

"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."

"The price of Red Hat Ceph Storage is reasonable."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pricing and cost advice

"The free version is great to use for labs or test environments."

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

"For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support."

"It's priced fairly. It was definitely cheaper than the competition. The licensing terms are straightforward and reasonable."

"The pricing is more than reasonable."

"This solution is very accessible and the pro-level for support is well worth the cost."

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

"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."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

29%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

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 out...

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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...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

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

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?

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

See all answers

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 can't give a sincere opinion on the installation and licensing costs because, as I have mentioned repeatedly, I am ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

More comprehensive reporting and educational resources for error resolution would enhance the user experience. There ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 21% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

Dell ECS vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 6% of the time

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MinIO vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 40% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 6% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 6% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 4% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 3% of the time

More Red Hat Ceph Storage Competitors

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 25% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 17% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 16% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 11% 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

April 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

April 2025

Download Red Hat Ceph Storage product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

April 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

April 2025

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

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