Quest QoreStor vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance comparison

Quest Software and StarWind are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Quest Software is ranked #37, while StarWind is ranked #9 with an average rating of 10.0. Additionally, 100% of Quest Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance and Quest QoreStor compete in the hyper-converged and data storage optimization market. StarWind has the upper hand in cost-effectiveness for small to medium-sized businesses due to its affordable pricing and comprehensive support, while Quest QoreStor is noted for its data deduplication and compression capabilities.

Features: StarWind offers seamless live migration, consolidated storage management, and proactive support. It provides high availability and fault tolerance in a turnkey solution with a reduced hardware footprint. Quest QoreStor excels with extreme data deduplication and compression rates, offering significant storage optimization and cost savings. Its flexibility with different hardware and software integration stands out.

Room for Improvement: StarWind could improve by enhancing monitoring tools and GUI, and better integration with Microsoft Windows. Minor issues with hardware costs and technical documentation exist. Quest QoreStor could enhance its installation process and user interface. Further development in ransomware protection and multi-cloud replication is desirable.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: StarWind excels in ease of deployment with a reputation for proactive support and ease of setup. Quest QoreStor also receives positive feedback for its fast response times, although it relies less on proactive support. Both companies provide strong customer service, but StarWind's comprehensive support is notably recognized.

Pricing and ROI: StarWind is recognized for economic pricing, especially for SMEs, with bundled support, hardware, and licensing costs leading to reduced management complexity and infrastructure savings. Quest QoreStor offers a capacity-based pricing model with reasonable licensing costs, beneficial for deduplication needs, providing cost-efficient disk space savings.

To learn more, read our detailed Quest QoreStor vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Quest QoreStor vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

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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Jeff Manuszak

CTO at EDSI

Cost-efficient, highly scalable, and installable on different types of hardware

They could improve on support a little bit. We have not had to engage their support much, but when we do have issues, it can take longer to get things resolved. We are pretty lenient as we do a lot of IT support ourselves. We are not very hard on support organizations, but when a customer has a support issue, it would be easier if the support processes were a little bit more automated. It would be beneficial to have an easier way to upload diagnostic dump files. They can make it easy for the customer to collect the diagnostic data. There can be some kind of monitoring solutions to alert users to issues with the appliance or software, making it easy for customers to monitor their systems in the field. This is especially critical because it stores customers' backups, and a failure can have significant business impacts. If a customer does not have the backups and has a disaster, they can be out of business, so monitoring is key.

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Russ Le Puill

IT Manager at St Peter's Church of England Aided School

Proactive support with improved speed and resilience

There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made clear to us that we needed to provide our own SFP modules to connect to our infrastructure, so that could have been a bit clearer. It would be amazing if there was, perhaps, a more automated process for updating the hosts themselves, although the maintenance mode works well. Our StarWind command center doesn't seem to have all the options available currently, which support is investigating for us.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution provides many controllers."

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

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

"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."

"The initial setup is pretty quick."

"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."

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

"It is very easy to use, and it is very fast."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"This software solution can be installed on many different types of hardware, which makes it very flexible. We can run it on virtual machines or virtual servers, providing convenience for solutions of varying sizes, from small to large."

"The features we use for the data deduplication are nice because we're able to back up a much larger amount of data, yet it doesn't necessarily take up that much data on the devices."

"The extreme compression of data is a big thing for us. We were looking for an online backup solution, and QoreStor is very good in terms of data compression. It helps us minimize the required storage in the Blob Storage environment."

"The dedupe and compression are pretty extreme. On disk, we're getting dedupe rates of up to 65 percent of data and compression of 34 percent. When you go to the cloud, it's more like 76 percent for dedupe and almost 50 percent for compression."

"I would rate QoreStor a ten out of ten for what it offers for the price."

"QoreStor has helped us to reduce our backup storage requirements on-premises. We've been using the same devices for quite a while, and so it lets us keep using them as opposed to having to rip out all that hardware and create a new on-prem solution. The advantage here is even if we had to retire the hardware tomorrow, the QoreStor part doesn't change. We just have to have additional hardware and put the solution back on whatever hardware we pick and it'll do the same thing."

"Deduplication is the most valuable feature. It saves us a lot of space. When we back up 100 terabytes of data, after dedupe, it only uses maybe five to six terabytes for the disk space in QoreStor."

"It integrates with various backup software solutions, which makes it compatible with existing backup workflows and processes."

More Quest QoreStor pros

"It is the perfect solution for hyper-convergence at a fair price. Our customers have Hyper-V and VMware environments, with Windows servers and Linux."

"The redundancy of two identical nodes that can run alone allows us to have truly "no single point of failure" in our computing and primary storage infrastructure."

"The setup was easy to deploy, and management is simplified compared with traditional SAN solutions."

"Customer service has been excellent. Any questions we have had have been answered quickly."

"Repair efforts have been reduced to nearly nothing."

"The StarWind command centre is a very handy tool to have. It allows less skilled staff to have a view and manage our virtual machines."

"The most valuable aspect of StarWind is the all-in-one solution that they provide."

"The hosts came preconfigured, and it was plug-and-play."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pros

Cons

"Pure Storage FlashBlade should improve on more cloud integration."

"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."

"We haven't been able to use much of the cloud area of Pure Storage. We have a storage server and it would be better if it could integrate with other cloud features of this solution."

"Commvault has mainly driven the Analytics, providing data and reports. However, the product has room for improvement, especially regarding storage analytics. Upgrading firmware has caused issues, requiring feature disabling to revert to traditional backups. The firmware upgrades sometimes affect Commvault backups."

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

"I have not seen ROI."

"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."

"Its configuration should be easier."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"They could improve on support a little bit. We have not had to engage their support much, but when we do have issues, it can take longer to get things resolved."

"Overall, I am happy with this solution, but a way to export configuration settings would be beneficial."

"The installation could use improvement. The initial installation was a little touchy and it's not really user-installable. You have to have a connection to support to install."

"The ransomware protection of QoreStor could use improvement."

"Overall, I am happy with this solution, but a way to export configuration settings would be beneficial. After everything is set up and configured, there should be a way to export the configuration. In case something happens to the QoreStor server, and we need to reinstall and configure everything, being able to import the configuration would be helpful. This feature does not currently exist."

"There can be some kind of monitoring solutions to alert users to issues with the appliance or software, making it easy for customers to monitor their systems in the field."

"They need to increase their maximum capacity. Other than that, they're doing a pretty good job."

"In terms of improvement, we would like to have an Air Gap feature to prevent a virus from attaching to something. So that when we don't do a backup, we want the QoreStor to stay offline. It would be a nice feature to have."

More Quest QoreStor cons

"CSVs require the storage to be configured through iSCSI, even though the storage is local."

"Shipping options should be explained in detail and offer more white glove delivery options even if it comes at an additional cost for some SMBs without docks."

"The only issue we have had was the issue of performance, however, that is only due to the fact that we purchased a mix of SSD and regular spindle drives, and restoring databases was slow as it was trying to restore the database using the spindle drives."

"At times there has been a language barrier when communicating issues."

"The only thing my team has recommended improving on is possibly a StarWind-customized GUI to monitor the overall system health, similar to 5nine Manager."

"The only area that surprised me had to do with the fact that each host runs a StarWind virtual machine used to maintain the health of the vSAN, which individually uses 24GB of memory per host. You should keep this in mind when determining the resources you will need when selecting hardware and components for your specific setup. If I knew that, I would have chosen to add more memory per host to make up for the use."

"I wish I understood what goes into the StarWind software a little bit better. To me, it's kind of magic the way some of it works. As an IT professional, you don't really want things to be magic. I do wish there was a little more "Here's how it works." There could be more documentation given to administrators..."

"An emphasis on security can be improved."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"The price could be cheaper."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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

"Its pricing model is very attractive. You have one price, and you get everything from QoreStor."

"The pricing is good. It is competitive for a managed services provider. I like the ability to pay by the terabyte, allowing for an incremental cost that we and our customers can afford, so the solution grows with the customer."

"Quest QoreStor's pricing is affordable. We evaluated Veeam, a well-known company for backup solutions, but found their pricing to be quite high. Veeam's price was almost double. For us, Quest QoreStor is very affordable."

"The cost is per terabyte, and overall, the cost was reasonable when compared to some competitors."

"In terms of cost, a storage array is more expensive... For half the cost of Compellent, I got two hosts, more storage, and redundancy."

"There is a bit of a start-up cost. Having never used HCAs before, I was reluctant to buy it. I would suggest that you jump in and do it, as I wish I hadn't wasted so much time."

"Our entire package was around $35,000 for everything, including three years of support."

"We didn't have any issue with pricing or any of the sales process."

"I honestly feel that there's no one else in the market doing what they're doing for the price point that they're doing it at. That's why I asked them about investing in their company. I think that the options they're providing and the software that they have is sort of revolutionary for the price point... The total cost was $24,400."

"This was all completed at an affordable price point for an SMB, which was also a key element for an NPO."

"It's an all in one package, making it very easy."

"We looked at Nutanix and found it did almost the same thing but for more money. In fact, StarWind was nearly one-third of the price; it cost us £36,000. That includes five years of monitoring... The Nutanix was near enough £110,000 for relatively the same amount of performance and storage."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

33%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Performing Arts

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

17%

Educational Organization

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

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...

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

What else besides data replication does QoreStor offer?

Quest QoreStor can be used for multiple things besides data replication. For example, it can be trusted to make a bac...

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How does Quest QoreStore protect your data?

One of our favorite features of Quest QoreStore for data protection isn't the backup, actually, though we're using it...

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How does Quest QoreStore solve repetitive data replicas?

When I first found out about data replication and the many benefits it had, I couldn't help but wonder - what about t...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

It's not the cheapest, however, the solution works incredibly well and is so simple to licence and maintain.

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

We desperately needed to update yet downsize our data centre. We had six hosts for only approximately 14 or so Virtua...

See all answers

Comparisons

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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

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Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs Quest QoreStor

Compared 100% of the time

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Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 33% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 19% of the time

VxRail vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 12% of the time

Azure Stack HCI vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

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Dell PowerFlex vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 10% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

March 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Quest QoreStor

March 2025

Download Quest QoreStor product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

March 2025

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report

Download StarWind HyperConverged Appliance product report

Also Known As

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QoreStor

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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

Quest QoreStor is commonly used for deduplication, compression, backup, and restore, integrated with NetVault for robust data redundancy and cloud storage replication.

Quest QoreStor optimizes data management with its sophisticated deduplication and compression capabilities, allowing companies to efficiently handle data redundancy. By integrating seamlessly with platforms like NetVault, Veeam, and resellers utilizing SPHiNX and BackBox, Quest QoreStor serves as both local and offsite repositories. This solution manages replication between production and corporate locations, strengthening recovery and improving backup operations. QoreStor's software-based nature ensures flexibility and easy integration, although improvements in replication and installation are sought by users.

What Are Key Features of Quest QoreStor?

Deduplication: Significantly reduces storage usage, achieving deduplication rates up to 76%.
Compression: Lowers data size on disk and cloud storage by up to 50%.
Integration: Compatible with multiple backup software to enhance efficiency.
Cloud Tiering: Facilitates seamless cloud storage expansion.
Encryption & Replication: Ensures secure and reliable data transportation and protection.

What ROI and Benefits Should Be Considered?

Storage Efficiency: Reduces required storage capacity savings on costs.
Backup Optimization: Increases speed and efficiency of backup processes.
Flexibility: Software-based, allowing adaptability to existing infrastructure.
Data Security: Offers strong encryption and replication features.

In sectors such as finance, healthcare, and technology, Quest QoreStor aids in maintaining vital data management with its robust features, enhancing data recovery strategies. Its use with secondary backup targets and replication capabilities supports a wide range of industry requirements. However, challenges such as initial setup complexity and system interface improvements are areas for growth, particularly in expanding capacities and addressing specific cybersecurity concerns like ransomware protection on Linux.

Quest Software

For SMB, ROBO and Enterprises, who look to bring in quick deployment and operation simplicity to virtualization workloads and reduce related expenses, our solution is StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA). It unifies commodity servers, disks and flash, hypervisor of choice, StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN and associated software into a single manageable layer. The HCA supports scale-up by adding disks and flash, and scale-out by adding extra nodes.

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance consists of StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN “Ready Nodes”, targeting those, who are building their virtualization infrastructure from scratch. In case there is an existing set of servers, we offer a “software only version”, which is essentially our years proven StarWind Virtual SAN. Basically, it’s the fuel powering StarWind HCA.

StarWind

Sample Customers

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

American Airlines, at&t, Bank of America. Barclays, ebay, Ford

Sears Home and Franchise Business

Buyer's Guide

Quest QoreStor vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

April 2025

Free Report: Quest QoreStor vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Find out what your peers are saying about Quest QoreStor vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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