SolidFire vs StarWind Storage Appliance comparison

NetApp and StarWind are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. NetApp is ranked #28 with an average rating of 9.0, while StarWind is ranked #30 with an average rating of 8.5. NetApp holds a 0.2% mindshare in AFS, compared to StarWind’s 0.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of NetApp 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 Sep 18, 2024

SolidFire and StarWind Storage Appliance are two noteworthy solutions for enterprise storage needs, with preferences differing based on the robust support and competitive pricing of SolidFire, versus the advanced feature set seen in StarWind.

Features: SolidFire is praised for its scalable architecture, excellent integration with various cloud platforms, and efficient performance. StarWind Storage Appliance shines with its extensive feature set, including efficient storage management, high availability, and detailed setup guides.

Room for Improvement: SolidFire users look for better analytics capabilities, improved documentation, and enhanced security features. StarWind users desire better monitoring tools, more straightforward upgrade processes, and reduced deployment complexities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolidFire enjoys a reputation for straightforward deployment and reliable customer service. StarWind users benefit from detailed setup guides, although some encounter occasional complexities during deployment. Despite this, StarWind's customer service effectively resolves challenges.

Pricing and ROI: SolidFire is known for cost-effectiveness and satisfactory ROI. StarWind Storage Appliance is considered a more premium option, with advanced features justifying the higher price and delivering significant ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed SolidFire vs. StarWind Storage Appliance Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

SolidFire vs. StarWind Storage Appliance

July 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 FlashArray X NVMe

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolidFire is 0.2%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Storage Appliance is 0.2%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh

Chief Technology Officer at Lambda256

Supports efficient storage management through volume snapshots and offers reliable non-disruptive upgrades

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, but it does not show the performance by 4K byte unit. It displays IOPS and bandwidth, but IOPS is about real use, and I want to know how many IOPS are currently running in 4K byte units. I cannot see that IOPS because most storage systems report their performance by 4K byte unit. I want to see Pure Storage performance by 4K byte unit to compare with other storage or other internal NVMe SSD.

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Ramil Cerrada

Solution lead at Globe Mobile

A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance

The most significant benefit lies in its exceptional performance, driven by its Flash-based architecture. This enhances routing speed and, consequently, database performance. The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance which is particularly valuable for tasks like data mining, where quick results are essential.

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Kishore CA

Senior Engineering Assistant at Bharat Electronics Limited

Offers stable performance even with a single node failure and manages everything with just two nodes.

The only drawback is that it takes a bit of time during initial synchronization, especially after restarting the environment. This is a potential area of improvement. There's a synchronization time, but it takes time. Initially, when we start the first environment deployment, it starts synchronizing between the storage. So, it is taking time. One thing is that even when you restart. Let's assume that the synchronization is completed and the storage is synchronized. Both storages are fully synchronized, and it is in sync mode. Now, if we want to restart both nodes, there is a case for maintenance purposes. You took both nodes for maintenance, and we rebooted it. Then, it should not synchronize again. It should be a checksum. And if there is a checksum match, there should be no synchronization again. So, one thing that should be taken care of. Another thing is that I used freeware- the community version, free license, which we deployed using PowerShare. In that case, it was very difficult to bring back another node when one node was faulty. Let's assume that both the nodes are working fine. And we found one node faulty. And we destroyed all the volumes in that and tried to bring it back. So that was a difficult factor. The final solution is that we were not able to bring back the failed node. So, we reconstructed a new data source for that. That is another drawback. In future releases, I would like to see the integration with VMware or some other things as a plugin model for VMware.

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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 system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."

"I appreciate the performance."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."

"The solution is scalable."

"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."

"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."

"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."

"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its scalability."

"The dashboard is such that you don't need to be a storage expert to administer it."

"Overall performance of the solution."

"Greater IOPS, speed, it's all-flash. So seeing that everything is going to all-flash, all SSDs, SolidFire fits right in there with the emerging trend in IT."

"SolidFire has seamless performance for the nodes and extensions. I also like the tool’s scalability. The product’s performance does not get affected when we scale either up or down. This is not the case with other products."

"Being able to provide quality of service as promised."

"Templates are already predefined for it. If you're coding it up, it will take two days. You can pick up a template right there from the API, and it just works for you. Implementation done in 10 minutes."

"The quality of service for minimum iOS, to maximum iOS in a multi-terminal environment is very powerful. The SQL service feature is the best part of SolidFire."

More SolidFire pros

"Its user-friendly interface makes it an attractive option, especially for customers who may not be highly tech-savvy."

"We are able to easily back up our data and send it to an offsite location."

"Having instant failover redundancy helps me sleep easier at night."

"They call us when monitoring shows a possible issue and are very flexible in working with our schedule to troubleshoot when it is convenient for us."

"The integration is excellent."

"We saw an ROI. We have saved both time and money by using it."

"Another good feature is that you can pause the appliance if you want to move it from one location to another and then once it's moved you can resume it, this way you can physically move the whole cluster or storage without any downtime. Its really easy to use, if you have a good foundation in storage and clustering then you will need less then one hour to figure out how to operate it."

"StarWind Storage Appliance is simpler and more effective than using Microsoft products. We chose it because it can be easily integrated with Microsoft."

More StarWind Storage Appliance pros

Cons

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."

"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."

"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."

"It is on the expensive side."

"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."

"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."

"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"One of the challenges we faced while using SolidFire was that the product line that we were using in our company was discontinued."

"So feature-wise, I would say more reporting tools that could be merged into it."

"It's a very good Windows-type solution. But we do a lot of legacy systems and the like. So it's getting that incorporated into it that would help us."

"The user interface needs to be improved. Much of the client feedback involves comments such as "Oh, it's hard to navigate through.""

"They could make the mNode more user-friendly. Now you need to configure and add nodes by CLI and it’s not really easy to manage. If they created a web interface to do the management of the mNode, that would be great!."

"I would like to see integration with the cloud, number one. Being able to spin SolidFire in the cloud."

"SolidFire should start from two nodes instead of the four nodes. That's the only thing. In a lot of solutions, we have to use four nodes, that's the better thing. But as a starting point, two is better. That's why their starting point is expensive."

"SolidFire could improve in terms of hardware robustness."

More SolidFire cons

"It needs more integration with backup vendors so there is native integration with it that will allow storage level backup/snapshots. I would love to see integration with Veeam and Commvault so it can be recognized by them directly and added as network storage."

"An improvement would be if they reached out to education customers with other available products."

"StarWind Storage Appliance's demo version should be similar to the paid one."

"With StarWind Storage Appliance, it would be better to have an overall easier setup with a little bit of configuration changes since, currently, even a small mistake may cause the setup process to go wrong."

"StarWind no longer sells HDDs for primary storage."

"The dashboard features are not in the free version."

"StarWind should improve the synchronization time of its product. There should be a standard operating procedure (SOP) for synchronization to reduce the time it takes."

"They could improve by providing integration with HP."

More StarWind Storage Appliance cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."

"The product is expensive."

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for what you get."

"Based on what I heard from other people, its price was on the higher side."

"We would probably use SolidFire more, except we're getting more bang for our buck with our purchases of ONTAP right now, and the deal we made with NetApp, so it's more of just a cost decision"

"On a scale where one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the solution between three and four. It is an expensive solution."

"The price of this solution is more expensive than others."

"We found that the price of StarWind was very good compared to VMware or Nutanix."

"With StarWind Storage Appliance, the payments made towards the licensing part of the product are on a per-node basis, making it cost-effective for us to use the solution in our company."

"StarWind by far provides the best bang for the buck."

"It costs about 50,000 euros."

"On the homepage, you can not see the pricing."

"I rate StarWind Storage Appliance's pricing an eight out of ten."

"The cost is determined by various factors, including the amount of terabyte storage you require, the number of nodes you want to purchase, and the duration of your maintenance agreement"

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could ...

See all answers

What do you like most about SolidFire?

The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance w...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolidFire?

It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay fo...

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolidFire?

There is room for improvement with a focus on creating a centralized storage system, functioning similar to AWS. This...

See all answers

What do you like most about StarWind Storage Appliance?

I would say data protection and easy management are the most valuable features of the product...I rate the technical ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Storage Appliance?

I rate StarWind Storage Appliance's pricing an eight out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind Storage Appliance?

StarWind Storage Appliance's demo version should be similar to the paid one.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 25% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

NetApp AFF vs SolidFire

Compared 100% of the time

More SolidFire Competitors

FreeNAS vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 29% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 20% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 20% of the time

Scality RING vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 18% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 14% of the time

More StarWind Storage Appliance Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

August 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

SolidFire

July 2025

Download SolidFire product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Storage Appliance

July 2025

Download StarWind Storage Appliance product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

No data available

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

Pure Storage

SolidFire delivers all five core elements needed to deliver newfound storage agility to your next generation data center and beyond. With SolidFire you can deploy new applications and capabilities faster, provide more agile and scalable infrastructure, increase application performance and predictability, enable automation and end-user self-service and raise operational efficiency and reduce cost.

NetApp

For SMB and Enterprises who are looking for high performance primary storage for server virtualization, VDI, database and Big Data scenarios, or inexpensive secondary backup tier, our solution is StarWind Storage Appliance. It unifies commodity servers, disks and flash, and associated software into an easily scalable storage platform.

Additionally, the appliance features an optional gateway to Azure public cloud, which helps to implement an effective Disaster Recovery plan or meet regulatory requirements. StarWind SA scales up by adding individual disks and flash modules, or JBODs, while adding ready controller nodes allows scaling out.

StarWind SA targets those, who need high-performance primary storage or secondary storage for backup. In case there is a whole virtualization infrastructure to build from scratch, StarWind HCA will come in handy. Otherwise, if all the required hardware is present, StarWind Virtual SAN will be enough to build a high-performance virtualization setup.

StarWind

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

California Public Utilities Commission, RFA, 1&1, Ultimate Software , Endicia, ezVerify, MercadoLibre, Sungard Availability Services, ServInt, Elastx, Hosted Network, Colt, Crucial, iWeb, Datapipe, Databarracks

Bosch, EC2 IT, Solid Earth Inc., Canon

Buyer's Guide

SolidFire vs. StarWind Storage Appliance

July 2025

Free Report: SolidFire vs. StarWind Storage Appliance

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