Scality RING vs Zadara comparison

Scality and Zadara are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Scality is ranked #13 with an average rating of 7.0, while Zadara is ranked #16 with an average rating of 7.5. Additionally, 100% of Scality users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Zadara users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Scality RING and Zadara provide solutions in the object storage and cloud storage markets, with Scality RING noted for its pricing and support, while Zadara is viewed as feature-rich, justifying its cost.

Features: Scality RING offers unlimited scalability, seamless integration with existing IT environments, and advanced life cycle management, which enhances data storage efficiency. Zadara provides robust cloud services, flexible deployment options, and integration with major cloud vendors, enabling versatile storage configurations.

Room for Improvement: Scality RING needs simplification of its physical infrastructure setup and enhancements in feature offerings to compete with Zadara. Zadara could improve by reducing reliance on continuous service support and refining its management of hot data storage to better handle unique workloads.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Scality RING requires substantial initial setup of physical infrastructure, which can complicate deployment despite strong customer support. Zadara delivers a fully-managed solution with easier deployment and excellent service, although it increases dependency on external support.

Pricing and ROI: Scality RING is cost-effective, ensuring a strong return on investment with its scalable infrastructure. Zadara’s pricing is higher but provides adaptable pricing models with expense management, offering competitive long-term ROI. Scality focuses on cost efficiency, whereas Zadara emphasizes pricing flexibility.

To learn more, read our detailed Scality RING vs. Zadara Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Scality RING vs. Zadara

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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Guillaume Lapouge

Cloud Architect at Claranet France

Offers UTIPI (Unified Tiered Infrastructure Per IOPS) feature in billing but lacks extensive testing

It's a very good product, but for large-scale usage, it has limitations. Scality RING's lack of extensive testing and potential hidden limitations. While Scality provides precise architecture guidelines for sizing the storage infrastructure, Orange utilizes a different processor architecture for its Ovi servers, requiring additional optimization beyond what Scality offers. In essence, the product lacks third-party optimization capabilities.

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Kirubel Behailu

Cloud System Engineer at cloud251

Enhancing storage management efficiency with user-friendly experience

Our customers are using Zadara for their research and development environments. We provide infrastructure for government projects, but we are often not fully aware of their specific usage. I typically use it for our infrastructure and offer both Zadara and Microsoft Azure to our customers Zadara…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is pretty quick."

"The solution provides many controllers."

"I like its size. It is smaller than the other competitors. We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte."

"The snapshots, replication, and the ability to have immutable blades are the most valuable features. You're putting data snapshots out in those blades, and they cannot be touched. Its performance is great."

"The initial setup was straightforward. If you know how to plug in power and network you're pretty much qualified. They were on site to configure the network, the box to fit into our network architecture. Other than that, we self-managed from there."

"The tool's most valuable features are data warehousing, speedy recovery, and analytics. Its latest release is cost-effective."

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

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"I think it's the economic factor. This solution has the lowest cost for storage systems."

"The most valuable feature of Scality RING8 is its performance and good interface."

"Another feature I like is the life cycle management that helps me with data storage efficiency."

"It's very easy to expand and compared to other storage systems that we've used, it's a lot more expandable and a lot more flexible in how it's deployed."

"The most valuable feature of Zadara is its ease of use and safety. Overall the solution is a complete package, it has all the features needed."

"The processing is much faster with this product."

"One of the most valuable features is its integration with other cloud solutions. We have a presence within Amazon EC2 and we leverage compute instances in there. Being able to integrate with compute, both locally within Zadara, as well as with other cloud vendors such as Amazon, is very helpful, while also being able to maintain extremely low latency between those connections."

"The most valuable features of Zadara are its visibility and simplicity to use."

"Being able to scale on demand, and being able to get out of our security operation center, and not having to purchase hardware upfront, has drastically reduced the overhead that was required to maintain our information. We have also gained additional capabilities in terms of speed of replicating that information."

"I find Zadara's user-friendliness from both the customer and engineering perspectives highly appreciated."

"It provides very satisfactory storage performance."

More Zadara pros

Cons

"It would be nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."

"I would like to see more VM-Aware features in the next release of this solution."

"I would also like to see better support for CIFS workloads."

"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."

"It usually comes down to just what you hit and the value you're getting when you spend the money and license the products. I would always go, "If you want to make things better, lower your price and make your licensing simpler." There's always an opportunity around that."

"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."

"To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."

"The solution is expensive."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"When we used this solution in 2015, it was not scalable at all. I don't know if they have improved on that, but at the time, scalability was just horrible."

"Scality RING8 could improve by having more features. We have to use two automation tools to meet our needs. We would prefer to use only one."

"Scality RING is not easy to learn for someone new. It is a little bit difficult. There are a lot of components to it, and you also need to understand them to work with it effectively."

"Cost-wise, because it's a pay-per-use model, it may ultimately end up costing us more in the long run than something we developed ourselves."

"The range of support of VMware could be better. It can support Windows, however, it cannot support other operating systems like IBM AIX. This needs to improve."

"I would like to see them be a little bit more proactive in terms of the patches and updates that are available. I would like to see more disclosure and information around what fixes or what enhancements are available within a patch, and help in coordinating and scheduling that. Right now, it's driven more by the customer in reaching out via a support ticket."

"The cost is not favorable as Zadara does not provide competitive rates for regions like South Africa and Ethiopia."

"There are still some storage features that they lack. For example, other vendors implemented the auto-tiering feature a long time ago, while Zadara Storage Cloud is just coming out with this feature today. So, they are a little bit late compared to the market."

"Some of the features are a little bit slow to come to market."

"Having iSCSI over the internet using a VPN, the IPSec tunnel is really the only thing that I find missing from this product."

"The initial setup of the solution is complex."

More Zadara cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."

"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."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"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."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"The initial cost (CAPEX) to set up the infrastructure is expensive due to the specific hardware required."

"The cost of Scality RING8 could be less expensive. It is difficult for smaller businesses to afford it."

"The price of Zadara is very good and it covers everything. There is no subscription needed."

"One of the factors that ruled out several providers was cost. They were way too expensive for the volume of data that we needed and the speed at which we needed to be able to manage it. There aren't a lot of providers that can do that."

"The pricing and licensing are very simple and the cost is predictable, although, like everything that you pay for as you use, you have to be mindful of what you're using."

"If you just take the street price of Zadara Storage Cloud and look up the price or cost per hour, then you could think that Zadara Storage Cloud is extremely expensive or a solution only for enterprise use. That is not true. You need to compare the entire system. This means that you don't stop looking at just the street price, but you need to consider all the features, requirements, and costs of support as well as the extra cost that other vendors have. Other players just play with hidden, additional costs. Everything is included in Zadara Storage Cloud's licensing cost; what you get is what you pay for."

"It is a nice licensing model and it makes it quite simple because we just pay for what we use, and the bill that comes shows us exactly what customers are using what resources."

"For our use, it's appropriately priced and overall, it's proved to be very cost-effective against other tier-one vendors."

"The pricing is very competitive and the fact that they have very compelling discounts for multi-year commitments is great."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

29%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

23%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.

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What do you like most about Scality RING8?

Another feature I like is the life cycle management that helps me with data storage efficiency.

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What needs improvement with Scality RING8?

It's a very good product, but for large-scale usage, it has limitations. Scality RING's lack of extensive testing and...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Scality RING8?

I work with Scality RING for storage, and we have a concrete strategy to offer it to business customers. Many custome...

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What needs improvement with Zadara?

The initial installation was difficult because many steps required the command line interface (CLI). Maintenance can ...

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What is your primary use case for Zadara?

I use this product as storage. Specifically, I use it as big storage. That's the main use case for Zadara ( /products...

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What advice do you have for others considering Zadara?

As for the pros and cons, the main concerns are the complexity of the initial installation and the complicated mainte...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 21% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 12% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 2% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

MinIO vs Scality RING

Compared 16% of the time

Dell ECS vs Scality RING

Compared 16% of the time

Cloudian HyperStore vs Scality RING

Compared 15% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Scality RING

Compared 15% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Scality RING

Compared 3% of the time

More Scality RING Competitors

MinIO vs Zadara

Compared 22% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Zadara

Compared 18% of the time

Amazon S3 vs Zadara

Compared 14% of the time

Wasabi vs Zadara

Compared 10% of the time

Google Cloud Storage vs Zadara

Compared 9% of the time

More Zadara 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 Scality RING product report

Buyer's Guide

Zadara

April 2025

Download Zadara product report

Also Known As

No data available

Scality RING, RING8

No data available

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

Scality RING object storage enables enterprises and cloud service providers to run petabyte-scale, data-rich services like web applications, VOD, active archives, compliance archives, and private storage clouds. The RING is software, so you can deploy it on standard x86 servers of your choice, taking advantage of server and media innovation over time. Acting as a single, distributed system, the RING can scale linearly across thousands of servers, multiple sites, and an unlimited number of objects. Data is protected with policy-based replication, erasure coding, and geo-distribution, achieving up to 14 9s of durability and 100% availability.

Scality

Zadara is a powerful enterprise-level storage solution whose design enables it to handle every aspect of a user’s data storage needs. It can be deployed in any location, using any protocol, and storing any data type that an organization requires. With Zadara, organizations can do everything that they were able to do with more traditional systems in a cheaper and more efficient way.

Zadara Benefits

Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy Zadara include:

Security. Zadara is built with data security in mind. All of a user’s data is heavily encrypted by Zadara’s software so that it is safe both while it is in storage and while it is being transferred somewhere else. It comes with role-based access controls that prevent a user’s data from being seen by those who lack the proper level of authorization. It also comes with dual-factor authentication and other similar methods of identity management.

Reduced costs. While Zadara offers enterprise-level storage capabilities, the costs associated with utilizing it are far less than those of similar solutions. Some of the resources that it offers are totally free of cost. The model that it utilizes is a pay-as-you-go model. Organizations only pay for the resources that they use and nothing more. Users are not required to sign up for any particular period of time. They are in complete and total control of what they spend on the solution.

Storage efficiency. Zadara ensures that users are able to store their data in the most efficient way possible. It takes a number of approaches that prevent insufficient data storage. These approaches are:

1. Thin-provision volumes. This method only allows actually written data to be counted toward the storage capacity that is consumed.

2. Pattern removal. Zadara searches a user’s stored data for repetitive binary sequences. Once it identifies the repetitive binary sequences, it deletes them.

3. Inline deduplication (all-flash only). This method ensures that Zadara only stores unique data blocks in its system.

4. Inline compression. Zadara takes data that is stored in its system and compresses it. This keeps larger blocks of data from taking up too much room.

Zadara Features

Centralized management. Zadara comes with a centralized dashboard that enables organizations to monitor and control their storage operations from a single location.

File analytics. Organizations can leverage a powerful analytics package that can provide them with critical insights. These tools can help users sort through their data and make more informed data management decisions.

Remote mirroring. This feature enables users to replicate data in two remote locations at the same time. This makes it easy for data to be recovered in the event of an unexpected loss. It also aids remote teams in their collaboration efforts by giving them access to the same data at the same time.

Reviews from Real Users

Zadara is a highly effective solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are its extensive suite of cloud solution integrations and its object storage capability.

Steve H., the chief technology officer at Pratum, writes, “One of the most valuable features is its integration with other cloud solutions. We have a presence within Amazon EC2 and we leverage computer instances there. Being able to integrate with computing, both locally within Zadara, as well as with other cloud vendors such as Amazon, is very helpful, while also being able to maintain extremely low latency between those connections.”

Mauro R., the CEO of Momit SRL, says, “The object storage feature is wonderful. With traditional storage, you have a cost per gigabyte that is extremely high or related to the number of disks. With Zadara Storage Cloud, you have a cost per gigabyte that you can cut and tailor to your needs independent of the number or size of the disks.”

Zadara

Sample Customers

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

Comcast, TimeWarner Cable, EuroSport, Orange, Deluxe, DailtMotion, SFR, RTL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Telstra

Time, Inc. A&E Network, The Washington Post, News UK, McGraw Hill, Gilt, Toshiba, Deloitte, VMware

Buyer's Guide

Scality RING vs. Zadara

April 2025

Free Report: Scality RING vs. Zadara

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