Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs VMware Software Defined Storage comparison

Microsoft and VMware are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Microsoft is ranked #8 with an average rating of 6.5, while VMware is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.5. Additionally, 75% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct and VMware Software Defined Storage are in the storage solutions market. VMware SDS has an edge due to advanced features, though Microsoft S2D is attractive for its competitive pricing and support.

Features: Microsoft S2D provides strong integration with Windows Server, streamlined scalability, and robust performance capabilities. VMware SDS offers advanced automation features, broad hardware support, and seamless integration with VMware's ecosystem.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft S2D could improve its feature set to match competitors, enhance flexibility in non-Windows environments, and expand its automation capabilities. VMware SDS might benefit from reducing the complexity of its deployment, making support more user-friendly for less specialized teams, and optimizing cost efficiency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft S2D is known for its straightforward deployment in Windows-centric setups and effective support from Microsoft's team. VMware SDS offers a robust model that requires more specialization, with extensive support resources.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft S2D is noted for its cost-effectiveness, leading to a quicker ROI. VMware SDS demands a higher initial investment but provides comprehensive features and long-term value.

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

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. VMware Software Defined Storage

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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RashidAnwar

Senior Project Lead at Tetra Pak

A stable solution that can be used for database applications and virtualization for multiple locations

VMware Software Defined Storage is used for database applications and virtualization for multiple locations VMware Software Defined Storage gives higher availability against data corruption. Redundancy and scalability are the other valuable features of the solution. You can scale it on the go,…

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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 onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."

"It has also helped to simplify storage for us in the way that it's easy to manage. Their automatic monitoring really helps when things break or are about to break. They see a problem coming and alert us even before our own system does."

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

"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."

"It uses the same platform for connectivity so integration is seamless."

"Speed and ease of use are the two most valuable features."

"Using this solution has made our backups more reliable."

"The performance of FlashBlade is excellent. It does not necessarily leverage the SOS API that some of the newer products leverage, but I found its speed pretty much on par and comparable. It is fast, and it does what it is supposed to do."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

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

"Its technical support is excellent."

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

"The initial setup is straightforward."

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

"It's mainly about the storage expansion, like in hyper-converged solutions."

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

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

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct pros

"The most valuable features of VMware Software Defined Storage are scalability, high availability, and performance."

"VMware Software Defined Storage gives higher availability against data corruption."

"The single management panel is the main feature that is wonderful for the customer."

"The most valuable features of VMware Software Defined Storage are scalability, high availability, and performance."

"The solution is simple to configure and provides good performance and less footprint."

"The most valuable features of the solution are that it is easy to deploy and the support is really good."

"The best part of the solution is that you can actually scale up to a large number of operating systems without additional hardware."

"This is an easy-to-use product for adding flexibility to your storage solution."

Cons

"It would be nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."

"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."

"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 speed could be improved."

"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."

"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."

"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."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"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."

"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."

"Documentation management could be improved"

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

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

"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 Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct cons

"The license model of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages."

"The performance is not as good as some competing products and reporting can be improved."

"The solution has some limitations in terms of replication to remote sites or cloud infrastructure, which need improvement."

"It doesn't have the ability to be deployed on any kind of hardware and network connectors."

"VMware Software Defined Storage should include a shared database on a standard version."

"I'd like to see improved hardware compatibility"

"Simplifying the licensing model and making it cheaper would improve the solution."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 price is a little high."

"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."

"The product is very expensive."

"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"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."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"With the data center licensing and everything that is connected to that, this solution is relatively costly."

"Cost-wise the product is one of the more affordable within the category of products."

"The solution is expensive."

"The product is quite expensive and is among the most expensive for this type of solution."

"The solution is very expensive."

"VMware Software Defined Storage is a slightly expensive solution."

"A single socket costs you around US $6,000 for three years. At a minimum, you have a three load cluster for a medium or enterprise-scale company. It can get quite expensive because you're likely to need four to six sockets on the other side. It comes to around $30,000."

"I believe there is a yearly licensing fee of around $2000 - $5000. I don't think there are additional costs above that but it depends on the type of infrastructure you're booting."

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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

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...

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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.

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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 VMware Software Defined Storage?

VMware Software Defined Storage gives higher availability against data corruption.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Software Defined Storage?

The price of VMware Software Defined Storage is on the pricey side, rated four out of five in cost. There is room for...

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What needs improvement with VMware Software Defined Storage?

There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages. More automation, such as using Playbook on Ansibl...

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

DataCore SANsymphony vs VMware Software Defined Storage

Compared 56% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs VMware Software Defined Storage

Compared 44% of the time

More VMware Software Defined Storage 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

VMware Software Defined Storage

March 2025

Download VMware Software Defined Storage product report

Also Known As

No data available

MS Storage Spaces Direct

VMware SDS

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

VMware software-defined storage is a simple, yet intelligent, storage data center architecture that aligns with business and application demands—eliminating static, purpose-built and inefficient hardware with dynamic, agile and automated solutions.

VMware

Sample Customers

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

Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt

Helse Nord, Sky

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. VMware Software Defined Storage

April 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. VMware Software Defined Storage

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

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