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HPE StoreVirtual vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct comparison

 

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

HPE StoreVirtual
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
19th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Storage Spaces Di...
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
8th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of HPE StoreVirtual is 1.2%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is 8.4%, up from 7.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

Vebjorn Nergaard - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable with helpful support and good replication
The setup is okay, however, it comes with a moderate amount of difficulty. If you are new to the product, it is difficult. You do get used to the process over time and it gets easier. A company just needs one person to maintain the solution as it just runs. You don't need any support staff. It's very, very hands-off except when you do updates. The product is living its own life.
Stanislaw Mielicki - PeerSpot reviewer
Achieve cost-effectiveness with superior performance while needing to address cluster support
I am working with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct for applications, SQL, and VRS. I am an integrator for this solution The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct. They introduced the All-Flash array using SSD or NVMe drives without cache drives. It is…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"A company can scale it easily."
"The network RAID feature gives us maximum availability, since we cannot afford any downtime, even for a second."
"Thin provisioning lets us get the most value from the hard drives."
"HPE StoreVirtual is very easy to use from the management console."
"Simplicity of not having to buy FC or FCoE SAN. Instead, we buy servers with their own storage."
"It allows compute and storage to operate separately, and has the ability to take SAN nodes out of production for maintenance with little effort and zero downtime."
"StoreVirtual is that it is our software-defined solution and it's everywhere."
"It's very stable and it's easy to use."
"It's mainly about the storage expansion, like in hyper-converged solutions."
"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."
"The most valuable feature are the caching capabilities using the storage class memory."
"The flash ability, in terms of tiering and caching, is amazing"
"The most valuable feature is that there is no single point of failure."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."
"Its technical support is excellent."
 

Cons

"f you're doing the 10Gb adapters, SFPs don't come with it, but it doesn't say that. It might say that somewhere else, but it's not clear."
"It would be nice if there were more parts available in Brazil and HPE could swap out faulty equipment quicker."
"In our country, Qatar, most of the industry isn't using too much HP. StoreVirtual doesn't move fast. It's not a popular product."
"The product is coming to end-of-life in the next three years."
"It is a costly solution."
"The management aspect of the solution needs to be improved in order to make the product stronger."
"User interface could be improved."
"One of the areas that need improvement is the consolidated management platform, to manage all of the nodes from one place and the licensing around that."
"The integration is not difficult because there is no GUI, but we need to use a PowerShell command. This makes it difficult to monitor and to see the components' statuses."
"The management tool within this solution could be improved. We would also like to be able to access services like Azure when using this solution."
"It is scalable, but only beyond two nodes. If I go for two nodes it's not scalable. I need to build a complete cluster from the beginning if I'm going for two nodes."
"It is difficult to get a hardware compatibility certification for the solution."
"I think the online documentation needs a lot of work and so do the sizing tools."
"Documentation management could be improved"
"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."
"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you buy a five-year license, not only does the technical support expire after five years, but you also lose the ability to change and expand the VSA, and the systems won't go down."
"One of the key features about it is that when you buy either a VSA license or a StoreVirtual appliance, all your software's included."
"It costs less than $10,000 for one machine. If it costs more than 15% higher than this, then the customer may change to another solution."
"The prices are OK, so we don't have much difficulty selling HPE in Brazil."
"For our organization, I believe the cost is 16,000 Euros for a three-year license. It costs a bit more to do the maintenance on our servers as well. It's also on an HP ProLiant server and an organization will need to do the maintenance there also. I believe the price for that is around 2000 Euros a year."
"Licensing is not exactly straightforward, but not the worst I have ever seen."
"The solution is expensive."
"Cost-wise the product is one of the more affordable within the category of products."
"With the data center licensing and everything that is connected to that, this solution is relatively costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
25%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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How does VMware vSAN compare with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?
We found VMware’s vSAN was easy to set up, configure, and manage compared to other solutions we considered. It is best suited for small- to medium-sized organizations. It is easy to create load bal...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?
Pricing is an advantage of Storage Spaces Direct. Licenses can be on a monthly or yearly basis, depending on the addition of software assurance.
 

Also Known As

HPE StoreVirtual, HPE VSA
MS Storage Spaces Direct
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NBrIX, WIND Telecom, Netrics
Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE StoreVirtual vs. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.