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Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs VMware vSAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Microsoft Storage Spaces Di...
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (8th)
VMware vSAN
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
229
Ranking in other categories
HCI (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct and VMware vSAN aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is designed for Software Defined Storage (SDS) and holds a mindshare of 8.2%, up 7.5% compared to last year.
VMware vSAN, on the other hand, focuses on HCI, holds 16.4% mindshare, down 18.4% since last year.
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Lawrence Tse - PeerSpot reviewer
A great solution for fostering the natural expansion of the traditional hybrid culture
Most of the VMware customers I have been engaging with say they have experienced engagement problems. VMware is trying to sell off the VMware enterprise cost and the whole solution is being sold down to a customer, whereas, usually they would try to intentionally avoid talking about the related Windows license. It's not very eye-catching but it's still sizable and we have implemented several Storage Spaces Direct projects for our customers. Currently, we're working hard to replace some of the special storage and hopefully even replace the harder converged storage, etc. Documentation management could be improved. The reason why this product is not being widely accepted by the public is that it doesn't include intuitive streamline, which makes it far from complete. Storage Spaces Direct is powerful and the performance is amazing, but if you need to deliver a high price-performance ratio and visible performance, you need to have expertise in tuning. Many people will not be able to enjoy this opportunity because it's not included in the training. In this case, you need to have a system integrator. A Complete management UI using a web-based interface would be a beneficial feature. They should also use a direct API — currently, they are only using partial API. Often, our customers need to work with other web-based solutions, so they require full API. I am writing my own API for this reason, and our customers are ok with that, but full API would be a very helpful feature that would lead to much more customer satisfaction. Microsoft should provide support for other channels. Microsoft OS supports other channels, but when they become the S2D storage solution, it's very easy to customize the quality. Technically, you can switch channels and replace your storage, but you will need to store away all of the fiber channel equipment, the hardware, and the cables, which can be very expensive.
Lipaz Hessel - PeerSpot reviewer
Expensive solution that requires professional services for installation and implementation
I'm still using a different solution. I only took two servers with vSAN to support one application that needs one feature that only VMware has. If not for that feature, I wouldn't touch VMware. Now, I'm looking at products like Nutanix, Silver Peak, Flexione, and FortiGate. For products that I choose, I don't need a specialist of that vendor. In VMware, I need a specialist in VMware. That's the issue I have with VMware. It's not like I can take any IT person, and they will know what to do. I need to make sure he will do the call, get the certificate and time to practice.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The flash ability, in terms of tiering and caching, is amazing"
"It's mainly about the storage expansion, like in hyper-converged solutions."
"The performance, reliability, and affordability has been most valuable."
"The most valuable feature is that there is no single point of failure."
"Its technical support is excellent."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The most valuable feature are the caching capabilities using the storage class memory."
"The solution has high performance."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"It is scalable, overall. If you need to add storage, it makes it easy to scale by adding additional hard drives into the existing servers or you can add storage by just adding more servers."
"It easily integrates with all types of storage."
"The valuable feature of the solution is the total hyperconverged facility."
"The migration of servers feature makes server rack maintenance easy."
"The product's initial setup phase is simple."
"One of the valuable features of vSAN is it has a universal type of technology that allows you to deploy it on any server or hardware. Competitors, such as Nutanix, provides the AOS and can be deployed only on certified hardware. For vSAN, it does not require any kind of certified hardware."
 

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."
"More optimization could be done in terms of mirroring."
"Documentation management could be improved"
"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."
"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."
"The vSan product uses a software system called Vsphere to monitor the system. It is sometimes difficult to manage the PCs within the systems."
"It would be ideal if the solution offered some intelligent monitoring."
"The solution could maybe improve failure protection."
"VMware vSAN could improve by adding NAS and object storage."
"VMware vSAN could improve by having faster reload time and a single point of failure. Resynchronization of many hardware could be better. If you have an outage of a disc or a full system, the replication time is too slow. This has room for improvement."
"As no product is 100% perfect, the price for VMware vSAN could still be improved, though it is good when compared to some of its competitors."
"I am looking for more of a software-defined storage platform that uses different protocols, such as iSCSI, NFS, and CIS, and maybe also has an object as part of that. They should 100% make it more of a storage-based product where it is not linked just to VMware, and it also has NFS and iSCSI built-in at a scalable level. They should turn it more into a dedicated storage-as-a-service platform instead of just being built into the VMware kernel. Their level one and level two support is not at all good, and it should be improved."
"Some intelligence can be added to the newest version to provide more flexibility between storage tiers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cost-wise the product is one of the more affordable within the category of products."
"The solution is expensive."
"With the data center licensing and everything that is connected to that, this solution is relatively costly."
"This solution is expensive. Nutanix provides us with Acropolis Operating System (AOS) along with its hardware, while VMware provides vSAN, vCenter, and vSphere which all have separate licenses and costs."
"There is a license required for this solution, it is a one-time payment. However, if they want support for the solution, it can be paid annually or for three years."
"The solution is relatively expensive compared to similar products."
"The price is okay."
"I'd love for this product to be cheaper."
"The vSAN is somewhat expensive to license."
"It is too expensive."
"The vSAN licensing is not an inexpensive product. It does cost more than hypervisor."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
52%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 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 engineered system. The choice to choose which technology depends on two major fac...
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 interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
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 researched VMware vSAN but found HPE was a better option for us. HPE SimpliVity has ...
 

Also Known As

MS Storage Spaces Direct
vSAN
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt
Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here
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