StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs Veritas Access Appliance comparison

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs. Veritas Access Appliance

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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 StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is 2.0%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Veritas Access Appliance is 0.7%, down from 0.9% 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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Russ Le Puill

IT Manager at St Peter's Church of England Aided School

Proactive support with improved speed and resilience

There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made clear to us that we needed to provide our own SFP modules to connect to our infrastructure, so that could have been a bit clearer. It would be amazing if there was, perhaps, a more automated process for updating the hosts themselves, although the maintenance mode works well. Our StarWind command center doesn't seem to have all the options available currently, which support is investigating for us.

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M Amin Anwar

Sr. Technical Support Consultant at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Overall functions well, stable, but technical support could improve

Veritas Access Appliance installation is user-friendly. You need network team cooperation for the setup of the cluster configuration. The Veritas Access Appliance initial configuration process is broken into two phases. The first phase requires that you perform each configuration step on each individual node. You should have two terminal windows open during the first phase, each logged into one of the nodes. During the second phase of the initial configuration, you should only perform the steps on one of the nodes. When you start the second phase of the initial configuration, close one of the terminal windows and continue doing the steps on only one of the nodes. When you initiate the cluster configuration, the settings that you configured on the current node are copied over to the second node in a one-time synchronization event.

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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 feature is Safe Mode."

"The solution provides many controllers."

"It performs well and it is also very fast."

"It's very easy-to-use."

"The initial setup was straightforward. If you know how to plug in power and network you're pretty much qualified. They were on site to configure the network, the box to fit into our network architecture. Other than that, we self-managed from there."

"The ease of deployment and management has helped us simplify our storage. We also do not have to worry about capacity management as much. A lot of these things are native to Pure Storage."

"The snapshots, replication, and the ability to have immutable blades are the most valuable features. You're putting data snapshots out in those blades, and they cannot be touched. Its performance is great."

"The most valuable features of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The presence of built-in storage saved the company from having to purchase a separate storage array and related network equipment."

"The easy way everything can be configured and ready to run in less than a day is great."

"We no longer need multiple staff members performing small, mundane tasks."

"Having this all backed up by pro-active support gives us good peace of mind."

"However, StarWind HCA won us over in two areas: price and support. We were actually able to install an all-flash StarWind HCA for less than other vendors' spinning rust solutions! We were able to roll five years of warranty and support into the purchase price and still save thousands of dollars upfront."

"In our experience with StarWind, the support has been by far the most valuable feature."

"It did not hurt that the price for the hardware and three years of support cost less than the disparate hardware the cluster used to run on."

"The hardware footprint is great. We've got two 2U servers which replaced four 2U servers. Granted, they were about three years old at that point, but we actually increased our processing capacity by about 50 percent while keeping our storage capacity about the same. We've actually been able to downgrade to a half rack from a full rack because we've gotten rid of some of our network equipment and some of our additional storage arrays."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pros

"Overall the solution works well."

"It is a very stable program."

Cons

"On our dedupe during our initial buy, we were expecting a number a little higher like 4x. However, we are getting about 3.6. While it is close enough, it doesn't quite hit the numbers. So, this has been a challenge."

"I would like to see more VM-Aware features in the next release of this solution."

"I would like to see better integration."

"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."

"To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."

"File storage needs a lot of improvement. Mainframe connectivity also needs improvement because it requires additional components to be integrated with Pure Storage FlashBlade. If you want to keep your backup data, then this becomes an even more expensive solution because Pure Storage FlashBlade will not be able to meet your backup needs."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"The only area that the product could improve would be user training."

"The only thing my team has recommended improving on is possibly a StarWind-customized GUI to monitor the overall system health, similar to 5nine Manager."

"It would be nice if it were possible to do the ISCSI setup that you do on Windows directly in the management GUI of StarWind."

"If I had to pick something to add to the product, it would be nice if you could have more than one user account on their command center VM."

"This product is not one hundred percent enterprise-ready, so it is more suitable for SMB."

"We struggle a little with capacity management with the StarWind Hyperconverged appliance."

"Updates need improvement."

"The monitoring and reporting console can be improved in the sense that it can have more information on it."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance cons

"The Veritas support for Access Appliance could improve. They are a pioneer in the industry, and they provide an enterprise-level solution. However, when comparing the storage, they can't compete with the NetBackup solution."

"I would like to see more platforms added."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

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

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

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

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

"The price is a little high."

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"We didn't have any issue with pricing or any of the sales process."

"Its cost was reasonable."

"A desired feature or service would be the ability to have a hardware subscription plan that ensures routine hardware updates in conjunction with hyper-converged software."

"There is a bit of a start-up cost. Having never used HCAs before, I was reluctant to buy it. I would suggest that you jump in and do it, as I wish I hadn't wasted so much time."

"When I researched they came the most cost-effective."

"We looked at Nutanix and found it did almost the same thing but for more money. In fact, StarWind was nearly one-third of the price; it cost us £36,000. That includes five years of monitoring... The Nutanix was near enough £110,000 for relatively the same amount of performance and storage."

"I honestly feel that there's no one else in the market doing what they're doing for the price point that they're doing it at. That's why I asked them about investing in their company. I think that the options they're providing and the software that they have is sort of revolutionary for the price point... The total cost was $24,400."

"This was all completed at an affordable price point for an SMB, which was also a key element for an NPO."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pricing and cost advice

"The solution is not expensive compared to other storage solutions."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

28%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Educational Organization

14%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

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...

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

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

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

It's not the cheapest, however, the solution works incredibly well and is so simple to licence and maintain.

What needs improvement with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made...

What is your primary use case for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

We desperately needed to update yet downsize our data centre. We had six hosts for only approximately 14 or so Virtua...

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

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Comparisons

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Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

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Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

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StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

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VxRail vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

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Azure Stack HCI vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

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Dell PowerFlex vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

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Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Veritas Access Appliance

Compared 100% of the time

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Product Reports

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Download StarWind HyperConverged Appliance product report

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Download Veritas Access Appliance product report

Also Known As

No data available

Access 3340 Appliance, Veritas Access 3340 Appliance

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

For SMB, ROBO and Enterprises, who look to bring in quick deployment and operation simplicity to virtualization workloads and reduce related expenses, our solution is StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA). It unifies commodity servers, disks and flash, hypervisor of choice, StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN and associated software into a single manageable layer. The HCA supports scale-up by adding disks and flash, and scale-out by adding extra nodes.

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance consists of StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN “Ready Nodes”, targeting those, who are building their virtualization infrastructure from scratch. In case there is an existing set of servers, we offer a “software only version”, which is essentially our years proven StarWind Virtual SAN. Basically, it’s the fuel powering StarWind HCA.

StarWind

The Veritas Access Appliance enables a turnkey deployment of Veritas’ software-defined Access scale-out network attached storage - a storage solution optimized for unstructured data use cases. The appliance is cost-optimized and tuned for high-capacity workloads like long-term retention (LTR), tape replacement and backup archiving.

Veritas

Sample Customers

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

Sears Home and Franchise Business

Information Not Available

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs. Veritas Access Appliance