Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs VMware vSAN comparison

The compared Microsoft and VMware solutions aren't in the same category. Microsoft is ranked #8 in SDS , with an average rating of 6.5, and holds a 8.6% mindshare in the category. VMware is ranked #2 in HCI , with an average rating of 8.7, and holds a 15.6% mindshare. Additionally, 75% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of VMware users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct and VMware vSAN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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To learn more, read our detailed Software Defined Storage (SDS) Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

March 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

Mindshare comparison

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

HCI

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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Yves Sandfort

CEO & Majority Shareholder at Comdivision Consulting GmbH

Gives us a lot of advantages when we need to expand resources

Stability can be improved. Adding all these new features is nice, but we are now at the level where most of the features you need in production are there. The stability is not from a day-to-day operations perspective, but more from a supportability perspective, because currently some of the support scenarios require you to completely evacuate hosts or the complete cluster. That sometimes can be a stretch. This would clearly be an improvement if the support teams were given additional tools to make that easier. Upgradability could be a bit easier sometimes. We are now where vSAN can be updated without ESXi, but there is still enough dependency. So that would be good if that actually would be uncoupled even more. Dashboards are there, and we use vROps as well. So, we have all the beauty of capacity planning and everything over there. That's not really something where we need a lot of other things.

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

"The most valuable features are the Metro clustering, and disaster recovery."

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

"I would rate this solution an eight plus. It has has good flexibility and stability, it's easy to manage and the response time is good."

"It's very easy-to-use."

"The snapshots, replication, and the ability to have immutable blades are the most valuable features. You're putting data snapshots out in those blades, and they cannot be touched. Its performance is great."

"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."

"It has absolutely simplified our storage because the dashboards on the consoles show a clear understanding of where you are, and it is also very easy to provision. This been a big help for our teams."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"Its technical support is excellent."

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

"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."

"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 initial setup is straightforward."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct pros

"Provides good performance as well as integration with deployment tools."

"A one-stack solution from one vendor is the main benefit here."

"vSAN that has been most effective in streamlining storage operations. For data recovery alerts, it uses tools like snapshots and vMotion."

"The product is highly scalable and significantly supports our organization's needs."

"The valuable features of vSAN are that you can get it up and running quickly, you get redundancy built-in, and it's pretty much the perfect solution for a cluster."

"It's completely hyper-converged, so it's very convenient."

"I have used VMware for 15 years and I never had any problems with stability."

"Easy-to-use, and easy-to-scale product."

More VMware vSAN pros

Cons

"Compared to, for example, Hitachi NAS, the solution is not mature at all. It's just in its infancy as far as technology goes."

"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."

"The technical support needs to improve. When we open a case, it is auto assigned to a support tech person. Nine out of ten times, we get an email right back saying that person is off until tomorrow. I cannot handle that. They just did this over the weekend to us, too. I had to call our rep and have them do something about it."

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

"The feature that we're waiting on is better integration with the cell services."

"The speed could be improved."

"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."

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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct cons

"I would like to see the availability of more template based VMware systems. Combined with the ability to check and measure multiple and converging data segments. Another issue I've seen is that the tool seems to be slow when first starting up."

"Ease of administration is one area where vSAN could be improved."

"The UI could certainly be better. The inside into what's actually going on with vSAN would be nice to know."

"They should make the software updates easier. We should be able to upgrade it more easily."

"External storage would be a good thing to have in the next release, something other than iSCZI, something a little more, not HA, a little more production-oriented, than iSCZI."

"Maybe incorporation of automation to build clusters in a more automated way would be beneficial."

"This solution would benefit from better collaboration with Cisco for driver updates."

"The product's complex setup phase is an area of concern where improvements are required."

More VMware vSAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

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

"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."

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"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."

"The solution is expensive."

"The solution is relatively expensive compared to similar products."

"The product’s pricing is a bit higher than other solutions."

"The product's price is not high. The tool is available at a normal price."

"With the new pricing model, it's expensive for the customer."

"The price of VMware vSAN is expensive and there is an annual license required."

"In comparison with other solutions, such as HP or Cisco, I find the solution to be quite pricey."

"I'd love for this product to be cheaper."

"It is slightly expensive. They can be more competitive in terms of pricing."

More VMware vSAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

31%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

51%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?

While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an e...

See all answers

Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?

We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interfa...

See all answers

How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?

HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We resea...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 21% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 12% 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

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

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct Competitors

VxRail vs VMware vSAN

Compared 18% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs VMware vSAN

Compared 8% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs VMware vSAN

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs VMware vSAN

Compared 7% of the time

Azure Stack HCI vs VMware vSAN

Compared 5% of the time

More VMware vSAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

April 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

April 2025

Download Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware vSAN

March 2025

Download VMware vSAN product report

Also Known As

No data available

MS Storage Spaces Direct

vSAN

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 vSAN is a software-defined storage product that is used in collaboration with VMware ESXi hypervisor and that provisions and manages storage based on policies, regardless of the underlying hardware. The solution enables you to prime your business for growth through its seamless evolution (it is integrated with vSphere and requires no new tools), its flexibility, and its multi-cloud capabilities. As an industry-leading software, VMware vSAN provides high levels of performance with minimal impact on CPU and memory.

VMware vSAN Features

VMware vSAN has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Storage policy-based management (SPBM): VMware vSAN supports storage policy-based management for automated management of storage profiles.

Software-defined data-at-rest encryption: With this VMware vSAN feature, you can prevent unauthorized access of data at rest.

Multiple nodes: VMware vSAN provides clusters that can include as few as 2 nodes or as many as 64 nodes.

High security and availability: VMware vSAN offers stretched clusters, allowing more than one virtualization host server to be used in the same setup, promoting higher security as well as availability.

Deduplication: VMware vSAN’s deduplication compresses data to ensure efficient storage management and security.

HCI mesh updates: VMware vSAN clusters can share storage capacity with non-HCI Sphere clusters and can adopt HCI without having to scale computing resources and storage or replace existing servers.

Simplified file services: With VMware vSAN’s file services, backup of file shares is simplified. You can use APIs that allow backup and recovery software vendors to integrate with your VMware vSAN file services, which enables backup software to track new data and add scalability enhancements to files.

VMware vSAN Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing VMware vSAN. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Reduced total cost of ownership (TCO): VMware vSAN helps you reduce upfront costs for businesses because it can be easily deployed on inexpensive x86 servers. In addition, its highly scalable infrastructure and quick deployment also save organizations time and money, making it an efficient storage solution.

Good manageability: VMWare vSAN is easy to set up, manage, and provision, without sacrificing performance.

Scalability: VMware vSAN is agile and allows administrators to scale storage on demand, quickly, and efficiently via policies and rules.

Simplicity: VMWare vSAN is simple to configure since it is embedded in the vSphere hypervisor. Installing it using the vSphere Web Client can be done quickly.

Reduced risk: VMWare vSAN reduces the risk associated with digital transformations by utilizing existing tools, skill sets, and solutions.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the VMware vSAN solution.

PeerSpot user Yves S., CEO, Cloud Evangelist at Comdivision Consulting GmbH, says, “vSAN gives us a lot of advantages when we need to expand resources. We have an overall larger host infrastructure, and we split that up for specific customer test and use cases. In that specific scenario, we can easily add more hosts or reduce the number of hosts in the environment.”

A reviewer who works in Infrastructure Security explains, “The ease of use is great. The initial setup and upgrade process was pretty straightforward. And, technical support is great.”

Laurent N., Director at Softlogic, comments, "The feature that I have found most valuable is that it is easy to deploy. It is easy to create and delete virtual servers. It is easy to create the load balancing and the clustering."

VMware

Sample Customers

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

Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt

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March 2025

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