Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

Red Hat and StarWind are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Red Hat is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.8, while StarWind is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.5. Red Hat holds a 21.1% mindshare in SDS, compared to StarWind’s 7.2% mindshare. Additionally, 81% of Red Hat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Red Hat Ceph Storage and StarWind Virtual SAN are strong competitors in the enterprise storage solutions market, with StarWind Virtual SAN gaining an edge for its robust features that justify the investment.

Features: Red Hat Ceph Storage is known for its scalability, flexibility, and seamless cloud provider integration. It supports both block and object storage, aligning well with hybrid and open cloud environments. StarWind Virtual SAN offers streamlined management, advanced configuration options, and impressive virtualization capabilities, providing ease of installation and support.

Room for Improvement: Red Hat Ceph Storage could benefit from simplifying its deployment process, enhancing user interfaces, and improving initial setup costs. Additionally, increasing user-friendliness and broadening support documentation would be advantageous. For StarWind Virtual SAN, areas for improvement include expanding its hardware compatibility, reducing management complexities, and enhancing customization options for advanced users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: StarWind Virtual SAN is praised for its straightforward deployment process that minimizes disruption and its proactive, expert customer service. It is designed for easy integration within existing infrastructures. In contrast, Red Hat Ceph Storage requires a more involved deployment, offering vast resources and support channels, which makes it suitable for meticulously planned environments and those aiming for a robust setup.

Pricing and ROI: Red Hat Ceph Storage generally incurs higher initial setup costs due to its scalability and extensive capabilities, leading to a gradual ROI, appealing to businesses focusing on long-term investments. StarWind Virtual SAN, with cost-effective initial setup and swift ROI due to efficient resource allocation, is attractive for businesses seeking quicker returns and lower entry costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

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

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.2%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Ceph Storage is 21.1%, down from 22.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 7.2%, down from 8.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

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.

Read full review

ANDRE VINICIUS HAMERSKI

IT Private Cloud & Infrastructure Leader at Sicredi

Offers cost-effective scalability through open-source storage integration

Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage. We appreciate the scalability of the open-source solution, allowing us to address our growing data needs without encountering major issues. Having used it as a pilot system in Brazil, we gained significant knowledge and the ability to manage our infrastructure as code.

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WJHG

Soporte IT at Sildan Security

Seamless integrations, high availability, and offers a free version

Although I am generally satisfied with VSAN and its performance, there are some areas that could be improved to enhance its effectiveness even further. One area that could benefit from improvement is scalability. While the tool works well in its current configuration, allowing for greater ease and flexibility in adding new nodes to the cluster without complications would be very beneficial, especially in growing environments. Additionally, I would like to see additional features in the next version, such as better support for automated resource management. This could include proactive suggestions for optimizing storage and memory usage, as well as preventive alerts about the health status of the servers. A more intuitive interface or an improved dashboard for monitoring the cluster would also be helpful, as it would facilitate performance tracking and help identify potential issues before they affect services.

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

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

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."

"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."

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

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

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

"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."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The community support is very good."

"We use the solution for cloud storage."

"It has helped to save money and scale the storage without limits."

"radosgw and librados provide a simple integration with clone, snapshots, and other functions that aid in data integrity."

"It's a very performance-intensive, brilliant storage system, and I always recommend it to customers based on its benefits, performance, and scalability."

"The ability to provide block storage and object storage from the same storage cluster is very valuable for us."

"Ceph’s ability to adapt to varying types of commodity hardware affords us substantial flexibility and future-proofing."

"The configuration of the solution and the user interface are both quite good."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pros

"vSAN we found was simple to set up, easy to configure and manage and allows us to achieve storage redundancy."

"The best features are the software's ease of setup and the excellent technical support."

"Starwind support is excellent. They are very fast and have very good knowledge of Starwind and Hyper-V Cluster software."

"Support keeps track of alerts of the system and verifies with us if we need help to fix any issues. They have great and quick technical support."

"Having the ability to scale horizontally if needed is a huge plus for future growth."

"I've had to open a few support cases over the years due to administrator errors, and the support received was top-notch."

"StarWind support has been great in helping resolve other issues not caused by their software."

"The most valuable features are high availability and real-time replication between two servers."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

Cons

"Its configuration should be easier."

"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."

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

"In terms of scalability, it doesn't expand out quite as robustly as some of the others, but it covers 90% of the market in what it does."

"There is some room for new features related to authentication and integration with Kubernetes, and other solution using S3 Bucket."

"It would be beneficial if the layer could support the S3 protocol and be container ready in the next release."

"The solution is expensive."

"We initially encountered challenges with the assembly process due to issues with the documentation required during setup, an area where Pure Storage needs improvement."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"Some documentation is very hard to find."

"Rebalancing and recovery are a bit slow."

"It needs a better UI for easier installation and management."

"The product lacks RDMA support for inter-OSD communication."

"I would like to see better performance and stability when Ceph is in recovery."

"Routing around slow hardware."

"While the documentation for Ceph Storage is helpful, it could be improved."

"This product uses a lot of CPU and network bandwidth. It needs some deduplication features and to use delta for rebalancing."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage cons

"I had issues locating the documentation that applied to my version of StarWind vSAN."

"Currently, the StarWind management console is a bit clunky to navigate and isn't the most user-intuitive interface."

"The software could benefit from more tooling to help with initial deployment."

"Improvements in documentation and support resources could enhance the user experience."

"Feature-wise we are only waiting for the release of a "planned disaster" feature that would allow us to patch a hypervisor node without having to take the full storage offline."

"While we had no problems setting the system up, and service technicians from StarWind could assist us very well, they could provide some form of in-depth documentation."

"There should be publicly available tutorials on YouTube or other platforms that help the users to integrate this solution with other platforms, for example."

"StarWind Command Center's single-pane management solution only works with Hyper-V."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."

"The price is a little high."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"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."

"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."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

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

"The price could be cheaper."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"Most of time, you can get Ceph with the OpenStack solution in a subscription as a bundle."

"There is no cost for software."

"We never used the paid support."

"I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten."

"The price of Red Hat Ceph Storage is reasonable."

"The other big advantage is that Ceph is free software. Compared to traditional SAN based storage, it is very economical."

"The operational overhead is higher compared to Azure because we own the hardware."

"The price of this product isn't high."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is excellent. It will run on anything. You don't have to buy a $100,000 server, with hardware you don't need. You just pay for the license and you're good to go."

"The license is reusable. We can always rebuild it and apply the license. Then, boom, we get new servers, apply the license, and we're back up and running."

"The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective."

"StarWind is best price/performance for SMB."

"The cost seems a bit steep, and I wish it was less expensive."

"The pricing is fine for the work that it does."

"The premium support from StarWinds is a must have. The ability to have access to a storage engineer 24/7 is a must for a production environment."

"The cost, including OPEX, is lower compared to other solutions."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

27%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

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

How does Red Hat Ceph Storage compare with MiniO?

Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This ...

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What do you like most about Red Hat Ceph Storage?

The high availability of the solution is important to us.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Red Hat Ceph Storage?

I have not identified any drawbacks, however, the response to public platform inquiries could be faster.

See all answers

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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?

I can't give a sincere opinion on the installation and licensing costs because, as I have mentioned repeatedly, I am ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

More comprehensive reporting and educational resources for error resolution would enhance the user experience. There ...

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 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

Dell ECS vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 6% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

MinIO vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 40% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 6% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 6% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 4% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 3% of the time

More Red Hat Ceph Storage Competitors

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 25% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 17% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 16% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 11% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 5% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

April 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

April 2025

Download Red Hat Ceph Storage product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

April 2025

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Also Known As

No data available

Ceph

StarWind SAN & NAS

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

Red Hat Ceph Storage is an enterprise open source platform that provides unified software-defined storage on standard, economical servers and disks. With block, object, and file storage combined into one platform, Red Hat Ceph Storage efficiently and automatically manages all your data.

Red Hat

StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments without the need for dedicated SAN hardware. It allows for real-time replication between servers, shared storage for Hyper-V clusters, and enables vMotion and High Availability features for VMware vSphere. The solution reduces costs and leverages existing hardware while providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure. Valuable features include ease of use, scalability, top-tier support, hardware agnosticism, and the ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space. StarWind VSAN has helped organizations improve performance, data availability, and data security while reducing downtime and providing cost-saving storage options.

StarWind

Sample Customers

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

Dell, DreamHost

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

April 2025

Free Report: Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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