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Red Hat Gluster Storage 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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
222
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
Red Hat Gluster Storage
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (11th)
StarWind Virtual SAN
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
207
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st), HCI (4th)
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
GiovanniRamirez - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Consultant at Xerif
Flexible and scalable file system for growing storage needs
Gluster FS is used for various purposes, including virtualization, collaboration, and data center environments. It is also applied in personal environments. Some specific use cases mentioned include scaling a three-terabyte file system into a 12-terabyte file system with minimal downtime Gluster…
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

"It's extremely stable and has good performance."
"I have seen a huge increase in speed and performance on our databases."
"The most valuable feature is it never goes down. We can expand and create volumes."
"Non-disruptive upgrades: You can upgrade at anytime without worry."
"It is pretty much just plug and play. There is not that much to do with it. It is very easy to use."
"Pure Storage technology allowed us to automate tasks, reducing something which started as a 12-hour turnaround down to about 15 minutes."
"The product has not gone down in a year, so I would say that it is stable, and we haven't seen any high spikes in read/write latency."
"Pure Storage FlashArray is simple and easy to use. It offers protection when removing devices. It has the ability to undo deletes."
"The most valuable feature of the product is that it's very easy to upgrade storage."
"Notable features of Gluster FS include flexibility, scalability, stability, and ease of use."
"If it is designed correctly, it can be used for everything, it has high availability, and that is what we need it for, and the price tag is good compared to the amount of data and high availability provided."
"The technical support team is excellent."
"The price tag is good compared to the amount of data and high availability provided."
"It's very easy to upgrade storage."
"It helped us to save money by not having to purchase a new hardware SAN, the VSAN works better than our existing, older SAN, this software works well for the vital signs capture software we were implementing in a new Hyper-V failover cluster, our organization has less hardware to maintain since we didn't have to purchase a new SAN, and being able to run this software in the new virtual machines saved time and money."
"The product has improved the ability to mimic physical SAN environments to demo scenarios and troubleshoot problems."
"Overall, I really enjoy this product."
"It also provides a high degree of mobility, as the virtual SAN can be moved relatively painlessly between on-site devices and the cloud."
"StarWind Virtual SAN gave us the capability to have shared storage between Hyper-V hosts without buying external storage or using VMware instead of Hyper-V, allowing us to take advantage of existing servers on a very low budget during a worldwide server supply chain issue."
"The main benefit is that StarWind is almost maintenance-free."
"StarWind vSAN has provided us with improved performance (since the storage is Direct Attached and therefore faster than a SAN)."
"Having support is also very valuable to us as we are a small team."
 

Cons

"A three wave application or multi wave application synchronization would be an improvement."
"More cloud connectivity would enhance the solution."
"We have not seen a reduction in our TCO nor have we seen ROI."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve the recent file storage capabilities because it is lacking a lot of features."
"The price of the solution can improve."
"We did have one hiccup with the integration of vCenter. When we were installing Pure Storage, we were using vCenter 6.7, which defaults to the HTML5 Web Client. The current plugin for Pure Storage doesn't show up in that client at all. You have to go and use the legacy FlexFlash client to see the Pure Storage plugin in vCenter."
"In the next release I would like to see integration into other third-party player providers like Google."
"The capability from Pure as far as sharing out files and things of that nature is a little bit lacking."
"In terms of improvement, my initial suggestion would be that the user interface could be simplified."
"The performance of the solution must be improved."
"There is a feature in Red Hat’s commercial version that could be beneficial if integrated into the open-source version."
"The system should be more intuitive and easier to manage."
"The system should be more intuitive and easier to manage."
"The user interface could be simplified."
"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."
"Including their own hyper-visor would be a valuable improvement over simply integrating with Hyper-V."
"The only point they should improve is the amount of documentation available for the user, especially in the first preliminary phase in which we were testing the product on our own."
"Lastly, I think the severity two response time incidents could be improved upon; it's eight hours, and if that could be better, I'd like that."
"The system failovers properly on its own without too much worry."
"I found that certain browsers are not fully compatible with the administration web access portal."
"The documentation can be better for the free tier."
"The only way I can see this product needing improvement is the consultation level of the StarWind sales and engineers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In comparison to the competitors, Pure is very price-competitive for the future functionality that it provides."
"It's priced higher than the market."
"While more expensive than NetApp, Pure Storage FlashArray offers superior performance that often justifies the higher cost and adds value overall."
"I would rate it a seven out of ten for pricing. It could be improved."
"My organization has a yearly license, but I believe that Pure Storage FlashArray has capacity-based licenses as well. I'm definitely happy with the pricing."
"The price of Pure Storage FlashArray is expensive."
"We have a seen a reduction in TCO. It is definitely a cost-effective solution for us. We have seen ROI."
"The best features come included without any additional cost."
"If you need cheap storage, but still need high availability, it's a good product to look at."
"The Price/Performance ratio for this solution is outstanding!"
"The free version is great to use for labs or test environments."
"For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support."
"I think that purchasing StarWind Virtual SAN Professional Edition would be optimal for most."
"This solution has a great price for the functionality."
"This solution is very accessible and the pro-level for support is well worth the cost."
"I think the bang for the buck is much better with StarWind Virtual SAN."
"We evaluated other options and this one was the most cost-effective."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions are best for your needs.
895,151 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Healthcare Company
12%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business67
Midsize Enterprise37
Large Enterprise156
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business166
Midsize Enterprise54
Large Enterprise34
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...
What needs improvement with Red Hat Gluster Storage?
There is a feature in Red Hat’s commercial version that could be beneficial if integrated into the open-source versio...
What is your primary use case for Red Hat Gluster Storage?
Gluster FS is used for various purposes, including virtualization, collaboration, and data center environments. It is...
What advice do you have for others considering Red Hat Gluster Storage?
I would highly recommend Gluster FS to others considering it. The system is robust, flexible, and easy to use. I'd ra...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that we are using the free version, so we did not incur any ...
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
The better features are in the paid version, and I would like to see something from the graphical user interface in t...
What is your primary use case for StarWind Virtual SAN?
In production, I wanted to use StarWind Virtual SAN for shared storage. My main use case for StarWind Virtual SAN is ...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
Red Hat Gluster, Red Hat Storage Server
StarWind SAN & NAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
NTT Plala, McMaster University, University of Basque Country, Goodtech ASA, Cox Automotive, Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), SaskTel, Glashart Media, Casio
Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat Gluster Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
895,151 professionals have used our research since 2012.