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StarWind Virtual Tape Library vs StorMagic SvSAN comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 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)
StarWind Virtual Tape Library
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
24th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
HCI (30th)
StorMagic SvSAN
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
HCI (8th)
 

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 StarWind Virtual Tape Library is 2.2%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StorMagic SvSAN is 4.5%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
StorMagic SvSAN4.5%
Pure Storage FlashBlade3.3%
StarWind Virtual Tape Library2.2%
Other90.0%
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.
reviewer1414572 - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Director at University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics
Flexible and reliable with helpful support
I am not sure if this is a limitation of my physical hardware or if it is the software itself. However, I would like the throughput to be faster. Who would not like things to be faster? It would be nice if StarWind could come up with a best practice document for configuration. I had to do some playing around in my environment with test runs to get the configuration that really allowed for the maximum amount of throughput that I was going to get with the software. Once I had figured out what worked best, the solution was rather fast for backing up 30+ TB of data
reviewer2619357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Provides immediate benefits after deployment
StorMagic SvSAN is flexible and easy to use. It is compatible with various hardware, including Cisco, HP, Lenovo, and Supermicro. The company is also flexible with its recommended specifications, allowing users to exceed them without issue. I have not encountered any problems with StorMagic SvSAN on any hardware vendor I have tried. The cost of hardware required for StorMagic SvSAN is significantly lower than that of competitive solutions. Their licensing model, based on storage usage, offers flexibility and affordability. For instance, we utilize a two-terabyte license. Overall, StorMagic SvSAN's pricing is comparable to, if not more affordable than other options. StorMagic SvSAN supports various storage types and brands within a cluster, accommodating past and current technologies. Over the years, we've transitioned from traditional spinning disks to SSDs and now utilize NVMe SSDs, with StorMagic seamlessly supporting each upgrade. While faster drives inherently deliver better performance, StorMagic has consistently functioned without issue across a range of drive types and brands. Hardware flexibility is as crucial as cost, especially for a smaller company like ours that needs to adapt quickly. With hardware frequently changing, upgrading, and involving different vendors, maintaining flexibility and consistency is essential. Having a solution that works the same way across all vendors, whether it's Cisco or HP, significantly benefits our small support team. Witness effortlessly manages up to 1,000 SvSAN clusters. While we haven't personally utilized that many, it has effectively handled our multiple clusters without issue. The software's hardware requirements are very flexible. It reportedly runs on platforms as small as a Raspberry Pi. We currently operate it on a small HP desktop computer with excellent results, and it scales seamlessly with the rest of our system. The primary advantage is its two-host architecture, requiring only two hosts plus a Witness for full functionality. This contrasts with competitors who necessitate three hosts, significantly increasing costs. Avoiding the need for a third host translates to substantial savings, estimated at $20,000. Although StoreMagic's costs remain high, the ability to eliminate a host and its associated expenses results in considerable cost savings. This Edge Control provides a simple, visually appealing dashboard for easy administration of all clusters. The well-designed interface ensures clear and understandable cluster management. It provides immediate benefits after deployment. StorMagic SvSAN significantly reduces downtime in our environment by allowing us to perform maintenance or system updates without disrupting user access. With SvSAN, we can seamlessly switch all running machines to a secondary machine, ensuring continuous operation and eliminating noticeable downtime for end-users. This has resulted in substantial savings on maintenance costs and provided peace of mind regarding system reliability. StorMagic SvSAN helped us save costs by eliminating needing a third witness host. Their pricing has remained relatively consistent over the past ten years, with only a modest increase of about 10 to 15 percent. Despite this, their pricing is still very competitive, and they have been proactive in helping us find ways to save money. While I would always like to see even more cost savings, I understand that they need to make a profit as well. We've likely saved 30 to 40 percent annually by using StoreMagic, simply due to the cost reductions in hosting and maintenance time across multiple sites. StorMagic SvSAN provides a hyperconverged high-availability solution with enterprise functionality, and that is all we use it for.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."
"The main feature I have found to be product replication."
"The ease of deployment and management has helped us simplify our storage. We also do not have to worry about capacity management as much. A lot of these things are native to Pure Storage."
"It is very easy to use, and it is very fast."
"The most valuable features of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."
"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."
"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 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."
"StarWind VTL allowed us to back up to virtual tape that was created within Veeam and upload the tape to the cloud."
"It is a stable solution."
"The most valuable feature of the StarWind Virtual Tape Library is the archiving to the AWS cloud."
"The solution made our backups way more reliable."
"I like the fact that we can simultaneously upload the virtual tapes to different cloud providers, and the settings can be adjusted to speed up the upload times even further."
"It helps us prevent any data loss while working with the failover clusters."
"We compared two solutions for this use case, but we went with StorMagic because it had more capabilities than the others. It's also more reliable, especially in production environments that require availability and sustainability."
"StorMagic SvSAN significantly reduces downtime in our environment by allowing us to perform maintenance or system updates without disrupting user access."
"StorMagic SvSAN is a very effective solution and the interface is good."
"The solution is cost-effective and user-friendly."
"I appreciate SvSAN's user-friendly design and quick setup."
"StorMagic SvSAN has significantly enhanced our organization's ability to manage big data."
"What I found most valuable in StorMagic SvSAN is integration. As a software-defined storage solution, it's also very easy to use and it's the trend in the market today. StorMagic SvSAN also made the customer happy because the customer could use his existing hardware with it. The customer had rack-mounted storage, so he didn't want to purchase a dedicated hardware for storage purposes. He just upgraded his hard disk drives."
 

Cons

"In the realm of micro-services, I think that Pure Storage can do well if they start getting in there and making their arrays more micro-services ready."
"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."
"I would like to see better integration."
"It would be beneficial if the layer could support the S3 protocol and be container ready in the next release."
"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."
"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 would also like to see better support for CIFS workloads."
"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."
"I am not sure if this is a limitation of my physical hardware or if it is the software itself. However, I would like the throughput to be faster."
"The main thing that I felt could be improved was having an estimated time of completion for the virtual tape uploads to the cloud."
"The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough."
"The initial installation can be complex and should be simplified."
"In terms of what could be improved in StorMagic SvSAN, I don't have a major issue with it, but its user interface should be more customer-oriented."
"They should enable data compression deduplication features for the platform."
"The only improvement area I can see is their licensing. For example, the memory caching feature is only available in an advanced license. Normally, it's in a standard license. It would be better if they had memory caching features in the product. Some backup features should also be in the product"
"There are two features missing: there's no REST API functionality, and there is no date duplication in it."
"StorMagic SvSAN can improve by simplifying the implementation and training."
"Expanding beyond two nodes significantly increases licensing costs, potentially discouraging clients from growing their infrastructure."
"The deployment of StorMagic SvSAN is very small. However, you need some time to do it. It's important to make a test deployment before the real deployment."
"StorMagic does not have extensive scalability capabilities as it is tailored for SMBs. If catering to a bigger enterprise customer, scalability might be a concern."
 

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."
"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."
"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."
"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."
"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 product is very expensive."
"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."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."
"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible to meet the needs of smaller to mid-market size companies."
"The initial setup and deployment are also covered in the purchase at no additional cost."
"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"While it is less than other solutions, such as vSAN, for instance, it is still significant. However, it is well worth it in terms of the quality of the product and the support that it allows me to have. We are buying the flagship product from them. We are always buying premium support and all the features that we need, so it is a little bit steep upfront, but it is less than other solutions and comes with excellent support."
"70% cheaper than competitors and provides all the enterprise feature requirements at low cost."
"The pricing for StorMagic is okay, but as a distributor, I suggest some reduction."
"The licensing cost is $7,000 per two nodes for two terabytes."
"StorMagic SvSAN offers competitive pricing within the market."
"It's fairly cheap when compared to other options. But it can be improved as some features may not be available in the standard license. The vendor positions it as an edge product, so it isn't suitable to compare with VMware vSAN or Nutanix because that's another product altogether."
"StorMagic SvSAN provided substantial savings."
"The product has good pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
No data available
Comms Service Provider
14%
Healthcare Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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 Business18
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise8
 

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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StorMagic SvSAN?
StorMagic SvSAN is very cost-efficient. The pricing model, based on the usable storage capacity, is simple and predic...
What needs improvement with StorMagic SvSAN?
Maybe the hardware compatibility could be expanded or widened. Another point could be to change the price model since...
What is your primary use case for StorMagic SvSAN?
The purpose is that since I work for a manufacturing company globally, our requirement was to install smaller VMware ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
StorMagic
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Volvo, Sony, Samsung, Hitachi
Sheetz Inc., Giant Eagle, RWE Renewables, Keiser Corp., TDK, Oxford University, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Rommelsbacher, Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Resort, Eugen Forschner GmbH
Find out what your peers are saying about StarWind Virtual Tape Library vs. StorMagic SvSAN and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.