Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Veritas Access comparison

Microsoft and Veritas are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Microsoft is ranked #8 with an average rating of 6.5, while Veritas is ranked #17 with an average rating of 9.0. Additionally, 75% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Veritas users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct and Veritas Access are competing in the software-defined storage solutions category. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct holds an advantage in Windows integration, while Veritas Access offers broader environmental support.

Features: Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct provides strong performance, scalability, and native Windows Server integration. Veritas Access offers versatile multi-platform support, comprehensive data management, and diverse storage configurations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct enables simpler deployment for Windows users due to its native integration. Veritas Access, while facing complexity due to broad platform support, provides thorough documentation and expert customer service for diverse setups. Both offer reliable support tailored to their ecosystems.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct's competitive pricing benefits organizations within Microsoft infrastructure, offering potentially higher ROI through lower licensing costs. Veritas Access may require a higher initial investment but delivers long-term ROI in cross-platform environments with its data management capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Veritas Access Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Veritas Access

April 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 Storage FlashBlade

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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Stanislaw Mielicki

Solution architect at Netland

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…

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Jayson Martin

Head IT Data Storage at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Provides seamless integration within the existing infrastructure and has an easy deployment process

We leverage Veritas Access for efficient management of our extensive unstructured data. Its cost-effectiveness, notably providing the lowest cost per terabyte, has influenced our decision to use it for extended data retention periods. We aim to minimize yearly expenditure on capacity while ensuring high-performance levels. Despite focusing on long-term retention, it enables direct and efficient data recovery from the client, ensuring that accessibility is maintained. The most essential feature of Veritas Access for our storage needs is its support for both block and object storage. The data tiering capability of Veritas Access has had a positive impact on our storage efficiency by preventing unnecessary expenditures on capacity, especially in terms of backup operations. It provides seamless integration within the existing infrastructure. It helps us meet compliance and data retention requirements, particularly from an insurer's perspective. I rate the product a nine out of ten.

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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 features are the Metro clustering, and disaster recovery."

"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."

"We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."

"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."

"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."

"The most valuable features include the ease of implementation, ease of use and the speed that you can do backup and recovery on."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is user-friendly. It's replication feature is great because it has active replication and active DR. That's the beauty of the product. It's a perfect solution for block storage."

"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The most valuable feature are the caching capabilities using the storage class memory."

"The most valuable feature is that there is no single point of failure."

"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"Its technical support is excellent."

"The flash ability, in terms of tiering and caching, is amazing"

"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."

"The performance, reliability, and affordability has been most valuable."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct pros

"Veritas Access is user-friendly and the NAS and SAN volumes are valuable."

"The product deployment is easy."

"It has a huge deduplication ratio for backups of long-term archives."

Cons

"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."

"The solution is expensive."

"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."

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

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

"There is some room for new features related to authentication and integration with Kubernetes, and other solution using S3 Bucket."

"It would be beneficial if the layer could support the S3 protocol and be container ready in the next release."

"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."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"Documentation management could be improved"

"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."

"I think the online documentation needs a lot of work and so do the sizing tools."

"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."

"It is difficult to get a hardware compatibility certification for the solution."

"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."

"More optimization could be done in terms of mirroring."

"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."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct cons

"The downtime of Veritas Access could be improved."

"I would like to see Veritas Access included as an S3 target."

"They could improve additional fees for the platform's data capacity. It could be more cost-effective."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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 understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."

"The price could be cheaper."

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

"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"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."

"This product is not cheap. The only extra cost is the licensing."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

33%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

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...

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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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

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

See all answers

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 bes...

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What do you like most about Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

Its technical support is excellent.

See all answers

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 addi...

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What do you like most about Veritas Access?

The product deployment is easy.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Veritas Access?

They could improve additional fees for the platform's data capacity. It could be more cost-effective.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Veritas Access?

We use the product for long-term data retention.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 21% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

VMware vSAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 65% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 12% of the time

StarWind Virtual SAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 8% of the time

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 5% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct Competitors

IBM Spectrum Scale vs Veritas Access

Compared 39% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Veritas Access

Compared 32% of the time

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs Veritas Access

Compared 29% of the time

More Veritas Access Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

March 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

March 2025

Download Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

March 2025

Download Veritas Access product report

Also Known As

No data available

MS Storage Spaces Direct

No data available

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

Storage Spaces Direct uses industry-standard servers with local-attached drives to create highly available, highly scalable software-defined storage at a fraction of the cost of traditional SAN or NAS arrays. Its converged or hyper-converged architecture radically simplifies procurement and deployment, while features like caching, storage tiers, and erasure coding, together with the latest hardware innovation like RDMA networking and NVMe drives, deliver unrivaled efficiency and performance.

Microsoft

Veritas Access is a software-defined, scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) solution for unstructured data that uses intelligent policies to optimize data placement on-premise or on public clouds. Access provides resiliency, multi-protocol access and automated data movement to realize application performance, cost-effectiveness and scalability gains.

Veritas

Sample Customers

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

Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Veritas Access

April 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Veritas Access

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Veritas Access and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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