Scality RING vs StarWind Virtual Tape Library comparison

Scality and StarWind are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Scality is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.2, while StarWind is ranked #24. Scality holds a 4.0% mindshare in SDS, compared to StarWind’s 2.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Scality users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Scality RING and StarWind Virtual Tape Library compete in optimizing data storage solutions. Scality RING offers superior scalability for large enterprises, while StarWind excels in virtualization, making it preferable for specific use cases despite Scality's pricing advantage.

Features: Scality RING provides seamless scalability, robust data protection, and integration flexibility, ideal for complex environments. StarWind Virtual Tape Library focuses on virtualization ease, efficient disaster recovery, and cost-effectiveness, appealing to businesses requiring virtualized tape environments.

Room for Improvement: Scality RING could enhance user interface simplicity, offer more affordable scaling options, and improve metadata management. StarWind Virtual Tape Library might benefit from expanded cloud integration, more comprehensive user training resources, and simplified management for non-technical users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Scality RING involves a complex deployment model catering to enterprise needs with robust support. StarWind Virtual Tape Library offers straightforward deployment in virtual environments with responsive customer service, making it preferable in virtual settings.

Pricing and ROI: Scality RING has a higher initial setup cost but delivers significant ROI through scalable storage and reliability. StarWind Virtual Tape Library offers a more affordable setup with cost-effective virtualization, providing quicker ROI for businesses focused on virtual tape solutions, with pricing potentially favoring Scality based on scalability needs.

To learn more, read our detailed Scality RING vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Scality RING vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library

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 Scality RING is 4.0%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual Tape Library is 2.2%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Scality RING	4.0%
Pure Storage FlashBlade	3.3%
StarWind Virtual Tape Library	2.2%
Other	90.5%

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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Sebastien Foucou

Infrastructure architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Leverages seamless data access with efficient storage management

I would improve Scality RING by bundling the Operating System with RING and modernizing the graphical interfaces. As for areas for improvement—if I had to summarize—a technical aspect would be the Operating System part, which today isn't really covered by Scality RING, whereas it is with Artesca. It would be a real advantage for customers to have a bundle that includes both the Operating System and Scality RING, with an install and maintenance model handled by Scality. Secondly, perhaps a more cosmetic point—the graphical interfaces could be modernized a bit. There's been work done on Artesca; maybe it should be extended more to RING. I believe that should come with version 10, so I'm not too concerned. I find RING's cyber resilience against ransomware threats somewhat complicated to assess. The product itself offers sufficient protection, and the features provided via S3 allow you to protect against this kind of attack—provided you implement these features, such as object lock with retention and everything that goes with it. If I had to identify an area for improvement, it would be the OS part—but that doesn't necessarily concern RING, unlike Artesca, which comes bundled with an OS. There's been real work done by the Scality teams to secure the system layer in Artesca. It didn't influence us. We know the product and what needs to be implemented to protect data, and it's part of the best practices we also pass on to our clients.

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reviewer1414572

DevOps Director at University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics

Flexible and reliable with helpful support

I am not sure if this is a limitation of my physical hardware or if it is the software itself. However, I would like the throughput to be faster. Who would not like things to be faster? It would be nice if StarWind could come up with a best practice document for configuration. I had to do some playing around in my environment with test runs to get the configuration that really allowed for the maximum amount of throughput that I was going to get with the software. Once I had figured out what worked best, the solution was rather fast for backing up 30+ TB of data

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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 product is scalable and easy to expand."

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

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

"The initial setup is pretty quick."

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

"The tool's most valuable features are data warehousing, speedy recovery, and analytics. Its latest release is cost-effective."

"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."

"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"We have virtually zero data loss thanks to this resilience."

"Scality RING has influenced our approach to scaling in different dimensions by providing a cost-effective solution for the tremendous amount of data we generate every day for each customer. It allows us to store, sort, and analyze data effectively while meeting our performance thresholds."

"Scality RING has had a positive impact on our business in that we can store backups more securely than before even though this has nothing directly to do with Scality RING but also with an S3."

"The best functionality of Scality RING is its ease of administration; it is out of the box and was set up for us in collaboration with Scality and HP."

"The best functionality in Scality RING is the ability to handle three interfaces over a single infrastructure: S3, NFS, and SMB."

"The most valuable feature of Scality RING8 is its performance and good interface."

"Another feature I like is the life cycle management that helps me with data storage efficiency."

"The best features of Scality RING include multiple aspects, but a few that we specifically appreciate are the scalability platform, which allows us to scale our growth; second is metadata indexing and S3 API capabilities that allow us to access the data from one source."

More Scality RING pros

"The solution made our backups way more reliable."

"StarWind VTL allowed us to back up to virtual tape that was created within Veeam and upload the tape to the cloud."

"It is a stable solution."

"The most valuable feature of the StarWind Virtual Tape Library is the archiving to the AWS cloud."

"I like the fact that we can simultaneously upload the virtual tapes to different cloud providers, and the settings can be adjusted to speed up the upload times even further."

Cons

"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."

"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."

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

"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."

"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."

"There is some room for new features related to authentication and integration with Kubernetes, and other solution using S3 Bucket."

"I would like to see more deduplication."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"Scality RING is not easy to learn for someone new. It is a little bit difficult. There are a lot of components to it, and you also need to understand them to work with it effectively."

"When considering the initial setup of Scality RING in 2015, it was, at first, very complicated. Installation and documentation were still being finalized."

"What we are currently missing and will be demanding in the new tender is an additional external backup of all data, ideally on a simple system, to safeguard against any severe local incidents so that we still have the data protected elsewhere."

"I evaluate the simplicity of managing large volumes of data via Scality RING's user interface as limited because the user interface is mainly used for administration or monitoring purposes."

"They should prioritize quality over timeliness to minimize customer disruptions and not force customers into a cycle of fixes that interfere with daily work."

"Scality RING has contributed to overall company costs in that it has not reduced costs but rather increased them because we are now using this product as an additional protection mechanism for the backup."

"When we used this solution in 2015, it was not scalable at all. I don't know if they have improved on that, but at the time, scalability was just horrible."

"I would like to see more possibilities in the UI for managing aspects of the RING as indicated in the roadmap for the next version of their product. Apart from the UI improvements, I would like to see more features implemented with S3 since not all features are implemented in Scality RING, particularly features such as the S3 select in AWS and the possibility to manage all RINGs with one portal."

More Scality RING cons

"The initial installation can be complex and should be simplified."

"The main thing that I felt could be improved was having an estimated time of completion for the virtual tape uploads to the cloud."

"I am not sure if this is a limitation of my physical hardware or if it is the software itself. However, I would like the throughput to be faster."

"The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

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

"The product is very expensive."

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

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."

"The price is a little high."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"The initial cost (CAPEX) to set up the infrastructure is expensive due to the specific hardware required."

"The cost of Scality RING8 could be less expensive. It is difficult for smaller businesses to afford it."

"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."

"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible to meet the needs of smaller to mid-market size companies."

"The initial setup and deployment are also covered in the purchase at no additional cost."

"The solution is cost-effective."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Manufacturing Company

No data available

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	3
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	12

No data available

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 do you like most about Scality RING8?

Another feature I like is the life cycle management that helps me with data storage efficiency.

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What needs improvement with Scality RING8?

There are areas that may have room for improvement, and the Scality team is aware of it. You can obtain information d...

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What is your primary use case for Scality RING8?

Scality RING serves multiple use cases for storage, for GenAI and analytics, unstructured and structured data, backup...

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Comparisons

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 26% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Scality RING

December 2025

Download Scality RING product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

December 2025

Download StarWind Virtual Tape Library product report

Also Known As

No data available

Scality RING, RING8

No data available

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

Scality RING is the scalable and resilient object storage solution designed for modern workloads, providing seamless data protection against evolving cyber threats.

Scality RING leverages S3 object storage to meet unpredictable demands with a patented MultiScale Architecture that offers limitless scalability across capacity, performance, and more. It delivers end-to-end cyber resilience with CORE5 for ransomware protection, while its cloud-style economics and intuitive management empower enterprises to accelerate AI initiatives and optimize cloud deployments. Its flexibility is ideal for service providers managing extensive data needs.

What are the key features of Scality RING?

S3 and CDMI Support: Ensures compatibility for application needs.
Erasure Coding: Provides cost-efficient, durable storage.
Unified Tiered Infrastructure: Aids billing per IOPS.
Lifecycle Management: Optimizes storage utilization.
Unlimited Scalability: Ideal for large enterprise demands.
Data/Metadata Ring Deployment: Ensures robust performance and tailored SLAs.

What benefits or ROI should users expect?

Economic Value: Offers cost-effective storage solutions.
Effective Support: Enhances collaboration through responsive assistance.
Improved Flexibility: Adaptable deployment models for complex needs.

Scality RING is extensively implemented in backup solutions across industries, supporting platforms like Veeam and CommVault. It aids in storage expansion and management of large data volumes alongside multi-site architectures. While not leading in AI spaces due to performance constraints, there's potential with faster disk support. It's also used in archives, binary lakes, multimedia services, and AI data lakes.

Scality

For SMB and Enterprises, who either look to get rid of backup tapes completely, or are willing to accelerate backup process and add an extra level of protection, our solution is StarWind Virtual Tape Library (VTL). It is an appliance that eliminates the need in physical tape and “pretends” to be a supported tape drive or autoloader, keeping all data on inexpensive, fast and high-capacity spinning disks.

Even with explosive data growth, StarWind VTL fits the backup into backup window by accelerating it, so the process does not overlap with production time. Optionally, it creates additional copy of backup data for better safety. It is also available in a software-only form, as part of StarWind VSAN functionality.

StarWind VTL targets those, who need to replace existing tape backup infrastructure or accelerate it if regulatory requirements prohibit replacement. In case the goal is just virtualizing tape backup or creating a stretched backup infrastructure, StarWind Tape Redirector will come in handy.

StarWind

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

Comcast, TimeWarner Cable, EuroSport, Orange, Deluxe, DailtMotion, SFR, RTL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Telstra

Volvo, Sony, Samsung, Hitachi

Buyer's Guide

Scality RING vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library

December 2025

Free Report: Scality RING vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library

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