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Nexenta vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

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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

Pure Storage FlashBlade
Sponsored
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (12th), File and Object Storage (8th)
Nexenta
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
15th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StarWind Virtual SAN
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
1st
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
204
Ranking in other categories
HCI (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 3.3%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nexenta is 1.5%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 5.5%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
StarWind Virtual SAN5.5%
Pure Storage FlashBlade3.3%
Nexenta1.5%
Other89.7%
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

MikaelHellström - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Regin Dalarna
Has handled backup storage needs reliably and supports seamless upgrades
In environments requiring high throughput and low latency, Pure Storage FlashBlade provides high throughput and normal latency, but we do not have any application that requires low latency right now, so the latency of three to five milliseconds is considered kind of high. Pure Storage FlashBlade's ability to integrate with enterprise applications is not important for us, as we only want to present an S3 bucket for our backup, which we have done, and it works very fast. We use the Purity software's data reduction techniques; we have a backup software that compresses everything before sending it to the S3 bucket, achieving a data reduction of 1.1 to one. I would recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade to other companies because it's a very fast and scalable solution for anyone who needs it. On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution an 8.
Anil Rahulwar - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Engineer at Movate
Offers good features like Fusion and stable product with better customer service
Fusion is the only best feature, but it's a very good feature. Nexenta is a very old product. Nexenta is a well-established product used in the UK, US, India, Dubai, Qatar, and other countries. It is very good. The interface is up to date. Everything is up to date. The OS version was recently upgraded to 5.5 FP3. AI features: DataDirect Networks owns Nexenta and has won awards for AI. They continuously work on AI features. DDN also has a product called Tintri Infinia with AI features. And NVIDIA product also has AI features. I look forward to working on those products.
Jccerong Heron - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Support team has guided us through deploying virtual storage on legacy hardware and reducing operational costs
The reason I chose StarWind Virtual SAN for this particular scenario is really the features, the ease of use, and most importantly, the price. In my opinion, the best features StarWind Virtual SAN offers are easy integration with the system installed in the data center. The integration with my existing systems in the data center works well, especially with VMware, as we already have a big cluster in VMware, and the easy integration with that is helpful to solve some problems with the platform. StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization by reducing OPEX costs. My OPEX costs have gone down as we reutilize some old servers, and this reduces the CAPEX of hardware in the data center.

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."
"We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."
"Speed and ease of use are the two most valuable features."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade's scalability is one of the most valuable features, and importantly, it always works, allowing for seamless upgrades."
"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."
"What I like best about Pure Storage FlashBlade is its object storage functionality, plus it has fast underlying hardware. Pure Storage FlashBlade is also very stable. I find its stability one of its valuable features."
"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."
"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."
"It has a feature called Fusion that makes it more secure and productive."
"Before VSAN, hypervisor configuration changes and updates resulted in VM outages. Now, downtime is dramatically reduced."
"StarWind saved us about 80% of our storage costs over our old solution."
"The feature I have found most valuable in VSAN is its high availability capability."
"Recovery and maintenance are now less stressful and most importantly, it allows our users to keep working."
"It eliminates the use of expensive physical shared storage."
"I've been really impressed with it so far. I think it's pretty great, actually. It does exactly what we need it to do, and it does it well, so I would recommend it. Plus, the support has been very good."
"StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere is a software-defined storage solution that has reduced administration time for storage. It's pretty straightforward to install and setup it and so far it has been robust and worked as advertised from StarWind."
"The StarWind Virtual SAN provides a clever and unique solution to the Computing Split Brain problem."
 

Cons

"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."
"I would also like to see better support for CIFS workloads."
"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."
"Its configuration should be easier."
"In the realm of micro-services, I think that Pure Storage can do well if they start getting in there and making their arrays more micro-services ready."
"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 solution is expensive."
"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."
"There were some SMB issues, but they were resolved."
"A better overall view of the different deployments could be beneficial, although this is difficult due to how flexible the solution is."
"StarWind Command Center's single-pane management solution only works with Hyper-V."
"Being able to run StarWind vSAN on top of any free UNIX operating system to build a resilient iSCSI/FTP/SMB storage system would be useful."
"The gathering of monthly consumption and performance reports for future dissemination to concerned parties is very important. Unfortunately, StarWinds vSAN doesn't offer this functionality."
"An update caused a syncing issue and it took over a month to resolve it"
"The console is something that I feel could be improved. There is nothing technically wrong with it, but it can be jazzed up and/or made to be a little more intuitive."
"When you will cease your contract with StarWind (for support) your product won't be updated and that is a big selling point, especially for us, as we have loads of products from StarWind."
"Including their own hyper-visor would be a valuable improvement over simply integrating with Hyper-V."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."
"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."
"I feel that the price could always be lowered."
"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."
"Licensing fees are paid yearly."
"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."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."
Information not available
"The pricing is fine for the work that it does."
"The Price/Performance ratio for this solution is outstanding!"
"When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."
"The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great."
"Their pricing seems pretty good, and their licensing structure is pretty straightforward."
"The free version is great to use for labs or test environments."
"The cost was ultimately low to implement, which allowed us to be 3-2-1 complaint."
"The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
No data available
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise21
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business165
Midsize Enterprise54
Large Enterprise34
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?
Regarding pricing, it is okay; we needed exactly this in size, and the price was a lot lower than competitors, making...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
In my opinion, one way Pure Storage FlashBlade can be improved is by having more compatibility between the FlashArray...
What needs improvement with Nexenta?
There were some SMB issues, but they were resolved in the latest version. Four to five customers faced intermittent i...
What is your primary use case for Nexenta?
It's for file systems. It's a NAS solution, and it has flexibility. There shouldn't be any outages because if one nod...
What advice do you have for others considering Nexenta?
Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten. I would recommend using it.
What do you like most about StarWind Virtual SAN?
It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combin...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was very good. We were able to get the software at a good cost....
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
The only thing that I would say about documentation is there are some aspects of the documentation that are a little ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
StarWind SAN & NAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
GMO, Northern Backup, Cox Communications, University of Toronto, ScaleMatrix, Wipro, Ruhr University, Drillinginfo, George Washington University, Walton Electric, Faculty of Physics, NAU, ServerCentral
Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
Find out what your peers are saying about Nexenta vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,282 professionals have used our research since 2012.