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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

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)
Red Hat Gluster Storage
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
4
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 Red Hat Gluster Storage is 3.0%, up from 2.7% 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%
Red Hat Gluster Storage3.0%
Other88.2%
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.
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

"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."
"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade's scalability is one of the most valuable features, and importantly, it always works, allowing for seamless upgrades."
"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 most valuable feature of this solution is performance."
"It performs well and it is also very fast."
"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."
"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."
"The price tag is good compared to the amount of data and high availability provided."
"The technical support team is excellent."
"Notable features of Gluster FS include flexibility, scalability, stability, and ease of use."
"It's very easy to upgrade storage."
"I like the asynchronous replication and failover features. They are what I'm primarily using it for. The asynchronous replication is helpful because our servers are backed up continuously throughout the day. If anything goes wrong we just fail over immediately. That is a very nice feature to have."
"Having the ability to migrate machines live in our environment was made possible by this software."
"This software lets us maintain storage redundancy across both of our Hyper-V hosts, so if one goes down the environment fails over to the other and we have minimal to no downtime."
"The fact that the solution is vendor-agnostic allows it to be used with any virtualization vendor while remaining a powerful abstraction over storage."
"This product now allows us to migrate virtual machines between nodes as if we had a dedicated $100,000 SAN in the mix without the additional cost and management of the SAN."
"Virtualizing data infrastructure with StarWind Virtual SAN improves efficiency and reduces operational costs."
"We have experienced multiple hardware failures at one site and the fault-tolerant volume worked exactly as expected with zero downtime."
"StarWind vSAN has a lot of great features and is a perfect solution for mirroring internal disks and flash between servers."
 

Cons

"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."
"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."
"In terms of technical support, the experience has been mixed. The support is done through email and is not that great, making it a very problematic area I've been dealing with for over four years."
"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."
"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."
"Recently, while upgrading the version code, one of the controllers failed. Replacing the controller took between 14 to 20 days."
"It would be beneficial if the layer could support the S3 protocol and be container ready in the next release."
"There is some room for new features related to authentication and integration with Kubernetes, and other solution using S3 Bucket."
"The user interface could be simplified."
"The system should be more intuitive and easier to manage."
"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."
"If there was a way to automatically put disks in maintenance mode when shutting the host down and exit maintenance mode automatically, that would simplify things."
"StarWind really needs to market its product more."
"StarWind Virtual SAN can be improved by adding a possibility to install bare metal on hardware to use as storage without using it in a hyper-converged configuration."
"Improvements in documentation and support resources could enhance the user experience."
"I would love to see more vendor selection to be available for the HCA/vSAN appliances."
"It would be great to have more automated tooling around managing the iSCSI connections in Windows"
"StarWind Virtual SAN architecture is slightly complex and requires the team to carefully identify and study how the solution integrates with VMware vSphere."
"If there are domain controllers inside the cluster, there needs to be some sort of logic allowing them to boot independently so all the rest of the domain clients can gain the authority they need to come online."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."
"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."
"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."
"The price is a little high."
"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."
"The product is very expensive."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."
"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."
"If you need cheap storage, but still need high availability, it's a good product to look at."
"The free version is great to use for labs or test environments."
"It's priced fairly. It was definitely cheaper than the competition. The licensing terms are straightforward and reasonable."
"The pricing is more than reasonable."
"The cost takes into account the number of nodes, so the size of the storage is not important."
"We found that the pricing was perfect; simple and clear."
"StarWind is best price/performance for SMB."
"I think the bang for the buck is much better with StarWind Virtual SAN."
"StarWind is a low-cost, full-featured alternative to the traditional SAN environment, and their support will guide you every step of the setup."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
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 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 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
Red Hat Gluster, Red Hat Storage Server
StarWind SAN & NAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
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: December 2025.
881,036 professionals have used our research since 2012.