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Scality RING vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.6
Pure Storage FlashBlade reduces total cost of ownership by enhancing efficiency, enabling fast restorations, and supporting diverse use cases.
Sentiment score
7.3
Scality RING provides cost-effective storage reducing operating costs, but security and redundancy may increase expenses for some users.
Sentiment score
6.9
StarWind Virtual SAN offers cost-effective, flexible storage solutions reducing operational costs, downtime, and hardware needs, with rapid ROI.
It does not require much management once you set up correctly, so it saves time, allowing an admin to focus on other work.
Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.
I think RING's ability to maintain predictable costs while providing scalable storage solutions impacts our budget by allowing us to pay only for capacity.
Infrastructure architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
For instance, while the cost per gig on a block storage platform may be $2, it's $1.50 for NAS, and only $0.50 for object storage, leading to a remarkable 75% reduction in costs by utilizing the Scality platform.
Storage Engineering Manager at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
Scality RING has reduced our operating costs.
Engineer at MinArm
We don't sell a lot of redundant servers, so it's not a massive ROI, but the ability to rely on their technical support and the software's ease of setup allows us to reduce labor costs and go to market competitively.
Manager, Field Support at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
The cost benefits, as far as we consider, are much better with a StarWind VSAN solution, and the training requirements with the ease of administration simplify and reduce our administrator and professional services costs.
Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Regarding cost savings, for my client, it was about 20K USD for his specific use and as for extending capacity, StarWind made that process easy.
Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.6
Pure Storage FlashBlade's support is generally praised for responsiveness, despite occasional delays and communication issues, maintaining a favorable reputation.
Sentiment score
6.8
Scality RING's customer service is praised for expert, responsive support, with personalized help making most users highly satisfied.
Sentiment score
7.8
StarWind Virtual SAN offers exceptional support with timely responses, expert staff, and 24/7 proactive monitoring for optimal performance.
I would rate them an eight out of ten.
IT Field Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
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.
Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.
Their technical support has been perfect lately, so I would give it a 10.
IT Manager at Regin Dalarna
I've always received responses within the required timeframe, the answers were technically relevant, and there was follow-up—people called us back to check if everything was okay and if the ticket could be closed.
Infrastructure architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Individuals such as Peter Mikolastik really make a difference by saying, 'Come on, what is the problem? I will help you,' rather than just brushing things off.
data center manager at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Technically, when we have major issues in P1, they are very responsive and we can't say that we don't get a response.
Operational Infrastructure Pilot at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Even in the instances where my technical team does not have the ability to manage or troubleshoot or resolve an issue, StarWind's technical team supports and resolves on our behalf very quickly.
Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
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 who will be able to connect, verify your setup, run its parameters, and see exactly what's working and what is not, and adjust it, and they really help you with that.
Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer
The customer support from StarWind Virtual SAN is great, as the people are knowledgeable and have great knowledge about the product and the functionality we require in the system.
System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.6
Pure Storage FlashBlade excels in scalability, with seamless expansion, downtime-free growth, and praised support across various sectors.
Sentiment score
7.1
Scality RING offers high scalability and adaptability, though experiences vary with rebalancing challenges and some seeking improvement.
Sentiment score
7.6
StarWind Virtual SAN impresses users with seamless scalability, allowing effortless upgrades and configurations without downtime, supporting various setups.
Pure Storage FlashBlade is scalable.
Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.
There are between 5 and 10,000 people using it in our organization.
IT Manager at Regin Dalarna
Upwards, I think, almost unlimited by what we can imagine.
System Engineer - Head of Engineering at a retailer with 11-50 employees
I've never had issues with scalability.
Infrastructure architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
We are relatively well informed about their new features, what will be implemented in future versions, and the scalability of the solution.
Operational Infrastructure Pilot at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
If we want to expand our storage or add disks, it is easy to add them, configure the RAID, and then deploy it.
IT Support Engineer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
I believe that scalability should be further improved, especially considering the possibility that environments may grow exponentially.
Soporte IT at Sildan Security
When you move from a two-node cluster to a three-node cluster, you have to completely redo the way that they are connected to each other with iSCSI.
Manager of Systems Administration at Monster Digital
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Pure Storage FlashBlade offers exceptional reliability and impressive stability, featuring 99.999% uptime, seamless upgrades, and high performance.
Sentiment score
7.4
Scality RING offers dependable performance with high uptime, seamless maintenance, quick recovery, and strong resilience against failures.
Sentiment score
8.4
StarWind Virtual SAN offers stable, reliable performance with minimal issues, seamless updates, and efficient VM migrations, even during failures.
In case there is any issue with any blade, the data is moved to another.
IT Field Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It is a platform that is very stable at the customer level and does not generate incidents or blockages that you might encounter with standard storage solutions, where you can lose data.
Operational Infrastructure Pilot at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
I find that Scality RING is very stable because it allows for many maintenance operations without service loss.
Infrastructure architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
There are factors that can cause Scality RING to become occasionally unavailable, but due to the system's resilience, it is capable of recovering or degrading gracefully.
Senior ICT Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
In my experience, StarWind Virtual SAN is very stable, and I have never had a single instability issue.
Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
It has been working for five years and the customer is still happy with it.
Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer
I ran it on a two-node Hyper-V cluster setup, and I didn't experience any unexpected crashes or major issues.
Hosting Operations Senior Analyst at Equinix Brasil
 

Room For Improvement

Users recommend better pricing, cloud integration, support, documentation, and analytics for Pure Storage FlashBlade, improving efficiency and compatibility.
Scality RING requires improvements in rebalancing, feature expansion, UI, administration, S3 compatibility, and performance during scaling and upgrades.
StarWind Virtual SAN needs better documentation, automation, integration, setup simplification, monitoring, and feature enhancements like deduplication and encryption.
Technical support definitely needs significant improvement.
Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.
Its configuration should be easier.
IT Field Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
One way Pure Storage FlashBlade can be improved is by having more compatibility between the FlashArray and FlashBlade.
IT Manager at Regin Dalarna
Encryption and data security need improvement. We don't have a solution for customers who need confidentiality.
Operational Infrastructure Pilot at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
They should prioritize quality over timeliness to minimize customer disruptions and not force customers into a cycle of fixes that interfere with daily work.
Storage Engineering Manager at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
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.
data center manager at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
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.
Soporte IT at Sildan Security
There have been cases where not understanding exactly what's failing on the Virtual SAN has been an issue.
Manager, Field Support at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Limited feedback in the management GUI is the main area where I would like to see StarWind Virtual SAN get better.
Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Setup Cost

Pure Storage FlashBlade is costly but valued for performance, reliability, and reduced administrative overhead, justifying its premium price.
Scality RING targets enterprises with 10 PB needs, high setup costs, expandable licenses, and "Pay As You Grow" model appeal.
StarWind Virtual SAN is competitively priced, simple to license, easy to implement, and offers excellent value with flexible options.
The pricing of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the past, but one benefit is that they have built-in ransomware protection.
Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.
Regarding pricing, it is okay; we needed exactly this in size, and the price was a lot lower than competitors, making it good for us.
IT Manager at Regin Dalarna
Fortunately, in terms of the license, we are able to expand the disks without having to adjust the license.
System Engineer - Head of Engineering at a retailer with 11-50 employees
In the end, it always depends on how much you pay for it.
Senior ICT Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Regarding setup costs and licensing, our initial experience is somewhat dated now as we made a comprehensive purchase, including hardware, software, and system setup, which Scality handled at the time.
data center manager at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
The costs are acceptable and very competitive compared to other hardware-only HCI solutions.
Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
I talked to the sales team, they gave me a quote with a perpetual license with the support and everything went through smoothly.
Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer
This is a great product and good support even you are using free version!
Infrastructure Manager at Beacon Fronline Solutions Inc
 

Valuable Features

Pure Storage FlashBlade excels with ease of use, fast performance, scalability, seamless integration, and efficient storage features.
Scality RING excels in scalability, S3 integration, performance, and cost-effectiveness, offering robust security, data protection, and easy administration.
StarWind Virtual SAN offers cost-effective, high performance solutions with easy management, excellent support, and seamless integration for various platforms.
We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte.
IT Field Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The best features of Pure Storage FlashBlade include better throughput and better performance.
Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.
Pure Storage FlashBlade's scalability is one of the most valuable features, and importantly, it always works, allowing for seamless upgrades.
IT Manager at Regin Dalarna
When a server is lost, the data is still accessible.
Operational Infrastructure Pilot at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
It is even better stored when there is only one copy on a system and there is a second copy on an immutability system, which is almost equivalent to backing it up on tape and taking it offline, making it completely inaccessible.
System Engineer - Head of Engineering at a retailer with 11-50 employees
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.
Storage Engineering Manager at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
Thanks to its seamless integration with Proxmox, the implementation of high availability servers has drastically reduced downtime, which is crucial for our security-focused company.
Soporte IT at Sildan Security
StarWind Virtual SAN helps us keep customer satisfaction and provides the solutions we need without having to hire many IT specialists.
Manager, Field Support at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
StarWind's storage virtualization and failover capabilities have made a difference for my clusters through uptime improvements, with zero downtime specific to server host maintenance or even maintenance of the StarWind software itself.
Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Pure Storage FlashBlade
Sponsored
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (15th), File and Object Storage (8th)
Scality RING
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (6th)
StarWind Virtual SAN
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
1st
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
204
Ranking in other categories
HCI (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 3.5%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Scality RING is 3.9%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 5.6%, down from 8.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
StarWind Virtual SAN5.6%
Scality RING3.9%
Pure Storage FlashBlade3.5%
Other87.0%
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

MikaelHellström - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Sebastien Foucou - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Jccerong Heron - PeerSpot reviewer
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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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business165
Midsize Enterprise54
Large Enterprise34
 

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?
Regarding pricing, it is okay; we needed exactly this in size, and the price was a lot lower than competitors, making...
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...
What do you like most about Scality RING8?
Another feature I like is the life cycle management that helps me with data storage efficiency.
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...
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...
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...
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....
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 ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Scality RING, RING8
StarWind SAN & NAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Comcast, TimeWarner Cable, EuroSport, Orange, Deluxe, DailtMotion, SFR, RTL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Telstra
Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
Find out what your peers are saying about Scality RING vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,259 professionals have used our research since 2012.