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StarWind Virtual SAN vs Veritas Access Appliance 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
StarWind Virtual SAN
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
213
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st), HCI (4th)
Veritas Access Appliance
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (25th)
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
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.
MA
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Now, with Pure Storage, we have totally eliminated that problem."
"Pure Storage has been the go-to storage array for me; it's a lot smaller, easier to set up, faster to upgrade, more reliable, and the performance is very stable."
"From the performance that I've seen, the simplicity of how to use it, the responsiveness, and customer experience, it is one of the best companies that I have worked with so far."
"The most valuable feature is replication."
"Their support is top-notch, and their NPS scores reflect this."
"The mobile app is very helpful."
"Technical support has been amazing."
"The performance is very good."
"The reason I chose StarWind Virtual SAN for this particular scenario is really the features, the ease of use, and most importantly, the price."
"The Windows-based StarWind GUI is easy to use and understand and integrates seamlessly with VMware's vSphere portal as well."
"We are running Hyper-V on twin servers in failover, and being able to manage servers from anywhere I need to, virtually, has been a game changer."
"The product has improved the ability to mimic physical SAN environments to demo scenarios and troubleshoot problems."
"Performance has been excellent with no issues."
"The solution provides great performance for the price it is listed with."
"Overall it has been a great product and company to work with for the past five years and many more to come."
"The most valuable feature is the managed service, which has been an important part of monitoring our critical infrastructure."
"Overall the solution works well."
"Veritas Access Appliance is doing everything for us, such as system recovery, backup, and cloud data protection."
"It is a very stable program."
 

Cons

"This product has only two active controllers, whereas other solutions can have more. This is something that needs to improve."
"The initial setup was a little complex. We had some initial issues with the design and had to help correct some of the white papers for it, but it wasn't your standard use case."
"I would like to see a Nagios monitoring plugin which watches the health and performance of the system. The only one available just checks volume capacity."
"I would like some performance analytics which go deeper than today. It should be specific to some hosts and applications. This would be good."
"I would rate this solution an eight. There's always room for improvement, nobody is perfect to get a ten out of ten. They do what they do well. It's not cheap but we it's for uses that we needed."
"Going forward, don't complicate things for the customers."
"Organizations with security concerns that prevent cloud utilization would benefit from a wider range of instruments available for offline operation. Currently, the limited selection of on-premise instruments hinders Pure Storage FlashArray's ability to compete effectively with other vendors."
"We would like to integrate it more with our backup solutions."
"The gathering of monthly consumption and performance reports for future dissemination to concerned parties is also very important. Unfortunately, StarWinds vSAN doesn't offer this functionality, however, it is something that would be greatly welcomed should they choose to develop it."
"Updates seem to be non-existent."
"Performance when in storage-separate configuration needs to be improved."
"An improvement for StarWind Virtual SAN would be to have an updated admin console."
"There is a limit on HA storage for standard and professional versions which is too low to be very useful for any but the smallest of SMBs or startups."
"Management of VSAN itself could be improved. A Web UI for management would be great rather than an application installation. StarWind is testing a command center virtual appliance that I have installed in my environment."
"While StarWind.com excels in numerous areas, there are a couple of notable functionalities that it currently lacks."
"There should be some kind of active monitoring connected to StarWind vSAN, so you will be able to act when needed."
"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."
"It currently only supports five of the cloud platforms."
"I would like to see more platforms added."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My organization has a yearly license, but I believe that Pure Storage FlashArray has capacity-based licenses as well. I'm definitely happy with the pricing."
"I don't know the exact cost but it's around $1,000."
"The price of the solution can be a bit expensive. There is an additional fee for support."
"In the beginning, we saw that the price is not very good. When we made some compilations about the deduplication and the compression and what the equipment does, including the differentiation of upper management of the storage, the price was not so bad. However, in the beginning, the price was very difficult to justify."
"Price per terabyte is substantially higher than their competition. We would like to see it drop."
"The license for Pure Storage FlashArray includes the support and there are no additional payments that are needed. This is not an inexpensive solution, you need to understand the value of your data before you use a backup solution."
"It's expensive, but you get what you pay for."
"Pricing is very competitive, and it's better than other competitors."
"This solution has a great price for the functionality."
"The licensing is a bit weird. If you license the standard version of StarWind, it allows you four terabytes. Then, they have a pro version, but with the pro version, the only difference is it doubles the terabytes to eight."
"The support contract is well worth it. The price for it was very reasonable and their team has been very engaged whenever we reach out."
"The licensing is straightforward, with free and trial versions available."
"Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs."
"This is a good, economical solution compared to data storage systems."
"The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective."
"The cost takes into account the number of nodes, so the size of the storage is not important."
"The solution is not expensive compared to other storage solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business170
Midsize Enterprise57
Large Enterprise34
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I find the pricing of Everpure FlashArray to be quite high compared to other storage solutions; however, the reliabil...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I believe we have covered the most important features; the architecture of Pure Storage is essential, and features su...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is acceptable for now, but I hope in the future we can find a b...
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
StarWind Virtual SAN can be improved by adding a certificate with the virtual switch in Hyper-V, reducing the license...
What is your primary use case for StarWind Virtual SAN?
My main use case for StarWind Virtual SAN is for clustering in our store, specifically using Windows OS and Hyper-V f...
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Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
StarWind SAN & NAS
Access 3340 Appliance, Veritas Access 3340 Appliance
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
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