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StarWind Virtual Tape Library vs StorMagic SvSAN comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 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

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)
StarWind Virtual Tape Library
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
13th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
HCI (17th)
StorMagic SvSAN
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
HCI (8th)
 

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 StarWind Virtual Tape Library is 2.1%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StorMagic SvSAN is 4.7%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
StorMagic SvSAN4.7%
Pure Storage FlashBlade3.5%
StarWind Virtual Tape Library2.1%
Other89.7%
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.
reviewer1414572 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
reviewer2619357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Provides immediate benefits after deployment
StorMagic SvSAN is flexible and easy to use. It is compatible with various hardware, including Cisco, HP, Lenovo, and Supermicro. The company is also flexible with its recommended specifications, allowing users to exceed them without issue. I have not encountered any problems with StorMagic SvSAN on any hardware vendor I have tried. The cost of hardware required for StorMagic SvSAN is significantly lower than that of competitive solutions. Their licensing model, based on storage usage, offers flexibility and affordability. For instance, we utilize a two-terabyte license. Overall, StorMagic SvSAN's pricing is comparable to, if not more affordable than other options. StorMagic SvSAN supports various storage types and brands within a cluster, accommodating past and current technologies. Over the years, we've transitioned from traditional spinning disks to SSDs and now utilize NVMe SSDs, with StorMagic seamlessly supporting each upgrade. While faster drives inherently deliver better performance, StorMagic has consistently functioned without issue across a range of drive types and brands. Hardware flexibility is as crucial as cost, especially for a smaller company like ours that needs to adapt quickly. With hardware frequently changing, upgrading, and involving different vendors, maintaining flexibility and consistency is essential. Having a solution that works the same way across all vendors, whether it's Cisco or HP, significantly benefits our small support team. Witness effortlessly manages up to 1,000 SvSAN clusters. While we haven't personally utilized that many, it has effectively handled our multiple clusters without issue. The software's hardware requirements are very flexible. It reportedly runs on platforms as small as a Raspberry Pi. We currently operate it on a small HP desktop computer with excellent results, and it scales seamlessly with the rest of our system. The primary advantage is its two-host architecture, requiring only two hosts plus a Witness for full functionality. This contrasts with competitors who necessitate three hosts, significantly increasing costs. Avoiding the need for a third host translates to substantial savings, estimated at $20,000. Although StoreMagic's costs remain high, the ability to eliminate a host and its associated expenses results in considerable cost savings. This Edge Control provides a simple, visually appealing dashboard for easy administration of all clusters. The well-designed interface ensures clear and understandable cluster management. It provides immediate benefits after deployment. StorMagic SvSAN significantly reduces downtime in our environment by allowing us to perform maintenance or system updates without disrupting user access. With SvSAN, we can seamlessly switch all running machines to a secondary machine, ensuring continuous operation and eliminating noticeable downtime for end-users. This has resulted in substantial savings on maintenance costs and provided peace of mind regarding system reliability. StorMagic SvSAN helped us save costs by eliminating needing a third witness host. Their pricing has remained relatively consistent over the past ten years, with only a modest increase of about 10 to 15 percent. Despite this, their pricing is still very competitive, and they have been proactive in helping us find ways to save money. While I would always like to see even more cost savings, I understand that they need to make a profit as well. We've likely saved 30 to 40 percent annually by using StoreMagic, simply due to the cost reductions in hosting and maintenance time across multiple sites. StorMagic SvSAN provides a hyperconverged high-availability solution with enterprise functionality, and that is all we use it for.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."
"What I like best about Pure Storage FlashBlade is its object storage functionality, plus it has fast underlying hardware. Pure Storage FlashBlade is also very stable. I find its stability one of its valuable features."
"The most valuable features include the ease of implementation, ease of use and the speed that you can do backup and recovery on."
"It uses the same platform for connectivity so integration is seamless."
"It's very easy-to-use."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the rewrite speed and the nonstop services."
"We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."
"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."
"The solution made our backups way more reliable."
"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."
"It is a stable solution."
"StarWind VTL allowed us to back up to virtual tape that was created within Veeam and upload the tape to the cloud."
"StorMagic SvSAN's best feature is that it is platform agnostic."
"I appreciate SvSAN's user-friendly design and quick setup."
"StorMagic SvSAN's most valuable feature is its simplicity, requiring only 30 minutes to install, configure, and deploy."
"It gives zero downtime and it works with two nodes rather than three nodes, unlike other solutions."
"The solution is cost-effective and user-friendly."
"StorMagic SvSAN reduced downtime in our environment by 50 percent."
"The solution is cost-effective and user-friendly."
"StorMagic SvSAN has significantly enhanced our organization's ability to manage big data."
 

Cons

"It usually comes down to just what you hit and the value you're getting when you spend the money and license the products. I would always go, "If you want to make things better, lower your price and make your licensing simpler." There's always an opportunity around that."
"I would like to see better integration."
"In terms of technical support, the experience has been mixed. 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."
"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."
"It would be beneficial if the layer could support the S3 protocol and be container ready in the next release."
"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."
"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."
"I want efficiency. FlashBlade doesn't have efficiency now."
"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."
"The initial installation can be complex and should be simplified."
"To enhance competitiveness, StorMagic SvSAN could benefit from improved enterprise modelling and increased scalability to cater to larger organizations."
"Maybe the hardware compatibility could be expanded or widened."
"One area for improvement would be to enhance the Edge Control capabilities. Currently, it shows the VSA and hypervisors but doesn't offer much in terms of VSA configuration management."
"It would be beneficial if they adopted the recommended configuration for other vendors and offered pre-built, pre-configured scenarios with best practices readily available on their websites."
"StorMagic SvSAN's management or witness server, a standard Linux box, lacks security hardening."
"They should enable data compression deduplication features for the platform."
"StorMagic does not have extensive scalability capabilities as it is tailored for SMBs. If catering to a bigger enterprise customer, scalability might be a concern."
"One area for improvement would be to enhance the Edge Control capabilities. Currently, it shows the VSA and key providers but doesn't offer much in terms of VSA configuration management."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."
"The price could be cheaper."
"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."
"Licensing fees are paid yearly."
"Our licensing is renewed annually."
"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 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."
"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible to meet the needs of smaller to mid-market size companies."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"The initial setup and deployment are also covered in the purchase at no additional cost."
"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."
"The product has good pricing."
"The price of the solution is reasonable. Our budget was two terabytes and the price met our use case well."
"While not the cheapest option, it offers comparable functionality for 20 to 30 percent lower than its competitors."
"The licensing cost is $7,000 per two nodes for two terabytes."
"70% cheaper than competitors and provides all the enterprise feature requirements at low cost."
"The pricing of StorMagic SvSAN is fairly good because if you compare it with VMware, it's at a better price. This is an important thing to remember."
"I would rate the cost a one out of ten with ten being the most costly."
"While I lack specific cost details, StorMagic's segmented pricing options offer valuable flexibility, allowing companies to choose solutions based on their needs and capacity."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
No data available
Comms Service Provider
14%
Healthcare Company
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise21
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise8
 

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...
Ask a question
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StorMagic SvSAN?
StorMagic SvSAN is very cost-efficient. The pricing model, based on the usable storage capacity, is simple and predic...
What needs improvement with StorMagic SvSAN?
Maybe the hardware compatibility could be expanded or widened. Another point could be to change the price model since...
What is your primary use case for StorMagic SvSAN?
The purpose is that since I work for a manufacturing company globally, our requirement was to install smaller VMware ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
StorMagic
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Volvo, Sony, Samsung, Hitachi
Sheetz Inc., Giant Eagle, RWE Renewables, Keiser Corp., TDK, Oxford University, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Rommelsbacher, Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Resort, Eugen Forschner GmbH
Find out what your peers are saying about StarWind Virtual Tape Library vs. StorMagic SvSAN and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,259 professionals have used our research since 2012.