ScaleIO [EOL] vs VMware vSAN comparison

Why PeerSpot?

The compared Dell Technologies and Broadcom solutions aren't in the same category. Broadcom is ranked #2 in HCI , with an average rating of 9.0, and holds a 7.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between ScaleIO [EOL] and VMware vSAN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about StarWind, Nutanix, Red Hat and others in Software Defined Storage (SDS).

To learn more, read our detailed Software Defined Storage (SDS) Report (Updated: November 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

November 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 921,523 peers since 2012

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

Featured Reviews

Cristian Ion

Senior Information Technology Engineer at Eta2u

All-flash storage has unified my clients’ workloads and has reduced TCO through efficient data services

The pricing and licensing of Everpure FlashArray is a problem because Everpure is considered more expensive than competitors. IBM, Lenovo, and Dell are more aggressive on prices. It is a very complicated market, especially now, and I understand the prices are higher at Everpure because of the software and all the enhancements it has. However, in this competitive market, we have a big problem selling to customers that are on a tight budget. A product with better pricing would be a win in the end. The RC or C20, for example, was a very good product that I could sell more easily than other options. Everpure FlashArray//C is sufficient for most workloads and virtualization workloads if you do not have very large databases. A product like that helps, and perhaps a new product in the future that is a little cheaper than the current options would be a possibility to gain more market share. I see the return on investment clearly from using Everpure FlashArray, but the challenge is selling it to customers for the first time. There are many customers who fall in the sweet spot where they are too small for an X or even a C model. They need something a little cheaper, they have the money for a cheaper version, and they need the performance of a Pure system. These customers could be more easily approached if Everpure offers a version of a local device in the future that is even cheaper than the C-class. I am trying now to help customers understand the concept behind AG1. I know that AG1 is not profitable if capacity is less than 50 terabytes. However, some customers would be very willing to pay for 25 terabytes in a cloud operated by Pure and to have it accessible with very good speed. We will see what the future brings.

Read full review

SunilKumar

Manager at Securetech

Meets our customers' needs but they should move towards high-level scaling

I the product already has scalability features, but in terms of size maybe they could do more to work with parent storage and move to high-level scaling. That area, I feel, is a place where there could be some more options in this solution. It would be a way to improve the scalability in another direction, maybe options to scale out rather than just up. So far we have done very few installations. So maybe in the coming days, weeks and months, we would be able to come up with some additional features that are needed, but right now the product has the competitive features that our clients need.

Read full review

ShyamikaThamel

Associate Tech Specialists at Seatrium

Managing mixed RAID workloads has improved data protection and delivers strong performance

VMware vSAN can be improved in certain areas. In cases involving our large data stores with large VMs, we experience some latency, not during normal operation, but during database backup operations. We observed latency due to buffer issues from the top-of-the-rack switches. These issues are mostly network-related because all storage data traffic travels through the network. I have recently used Nutanix, and I observed that Nutanix provides better performance than VMware vSAN due to its data locality features. VMware vSAN is now providing data locality, but we did not use that option. If VMware vSAN provides additional features in the next release, such as the VM balancing feature called DRS on the cluster that VMware previously had, it would be beneficial. With DRS, VMs can move easily from one node to another within the same cluster. Nutanix does not provide that flexibility. When placing a VM on a cluster in Nutanix, the placement uses a balancing component. After that, the VM remains on the same host. If any contention occurs on the CPU or memory side, the VM stays in place until contention happens. If issues occur, the VM migrates to another host while transferring all objects to the same host. This is how their data locality is maintained. When a VM moves to any host, it moves with all VM objects. VMware vSAN does not currently offer this option. If a VM moves to another host, it accesses the disk object through the network, which increases latency. VMware vSAN now offers an option to select data locality, but it does not function like Nutanix. This is why some latency remains. If VMware vSAN can improve this feature, it would be very helpful and VMware would regain its top position.

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

"Pricing is very competitive, and it's better than other competitors, as we've looked at some of the other competitors on the market."

"This solution has improved our organization in the way that we used to see latency but now with this solution we don't. It also has good performance. Latencies have come down for our performance in the SQL databases. We can put a lot more in a lot less in terms of space savings. We also save data center space have good deduplication."

"The data reduction technology part of the scalability has been impressive, like its ability to host additional workloads, volumes of data, and databases."

"Having an intuitive user interface to get things running is great."

"It is very easy to use."

"It's a great return on investment, based on the mission."

"It worked flawlessly."

"The most valuable feature is the speed of it, as it is much faster than anything that we can get from similar competitors, and the solution helps to simplify storage."

More Everpure FlashArray pros

"Comparing other products that are competing with Dell EMC (Enhanced Memory Controller), Dell seems to us to always come out on the high-side."

"Automatic rebalancing is the feature saving administration time, and also auto rebuilding."

"The ScaleIO UI: EMC has been working with storage for a long time; therefore, they know how to clearly present any important data, including data flow and each drive's IOPS/bandwidth, and allow the user to easily monitor bottlenecks and problems, especially the rebuild and rebalance status of child objects."

"We are using it as the primary virtualization storage (both for internal corporate users and external customers) for VMware and Hyper-V virtualization platforms."

"To give you an idea, we spend roughly 50% less on equivalent storage by using VSAN to replace our more traditional SAN architecture."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is the simplicity to implement and to maintain."

"The technical support has been great from VMware vSAN."

"What VSAN allows us to do is give them an enterprise-class array, enterprise-class solution at usually half the cost of the traditional arrays."

"The most important thing is the simplicity of the product. It is a well-established product with good stability."

"We didn't only choose vSAN; we chose VMware because of SR-IOV, which is more on the hypervisor level and not on the vSAN storage. It's part of the whole system."

"Storage policies are used to perform operations in the VMs. This feature allows you to create storage policies for VMs to get performance, high availability, I/O policies, etc."

"vSAN is scalable for us. If any additional capacity needs to be included, we just add to the host and configure the vSAN cluster."

More VMware vSAN pros

Cons

"I find the pricing of Everpure FlashArray to be quite high compared to other storage solutions; however, the reliability and features are commendable."

"Just some nit picky stuff, like allowing servers and volumes to be grouped. Therefore, it would easier to work with them in the GUI."

"Everpure FlashArray can be improved as the pricing is expensive, but you do get what you pay for; you are paying a premium for better service, better warranties, less downtime, and other things, so I do not know that a lower price would work out because you probably would not have that high of quality for those things."

"The capability from Pure as far as sharing out files and things of that nature is a little bit lacking."

"I would rate this solution an eight because we have had outages. The commit times went very high in the database. The whole array went down so our customers were down for around eight hours. This was a very big outage which could have been our fault because we didn't do the upgrade in time."

"It would be good to have metrics of the box's performance so we can see what it delivers, but currently, I can't see what it's actually doing."

"We have not seen a reduction in our TCO nor have we seen ROI."

"Improved reporting on the deduplication and compression functionality would be beneficial."

More Everpure FlashArray cons

"I think ScaleIO already has some features for scalability as it is part of the reason for the product, but in terms of size, maybe they should try to address parent storage."

"It would be nice to set minimum IOPS per volume, besides just the maximum, to be able to satisfy this demand from customers out-of-the-box, not by calculating number of disks, etc."

"Ecosystem around the product: There is no built-in system for viewing history data, such as volume IOPS. We have to provide graphing by Prometheus and Grafana, which would be a good new feature in ScaleIO."

"If they could introduce a write cache feature, the product would be perfect overall."

"There is room for improvement in the area of horizontal scaling."

"Its integration with a hybrid cloud can be improved. Its scalability can also be improved so that it can be integrated with more than 32 nodes."

"If not for that feature, I wouldn't touch VMware."

"Try it and evaluate it – it's not a fit for every company, but you should at least do an evaluation to see if it is a fit."

"I would have liked it to have been more scalable. It's scalable but not as much as, for example, the ScaleIO systems were or the Kaminario."

"The management of vSAN (dashboard, alerts, monitoring) has a significant amount of growth potential."

"The list of hardware supported should be increased in the future."

"The pricing model is sometimes a challenge for us because their licenses are very costly."

"It doesn't seem like it gives the performance that an actual SAN would give for heavy IOPS, read/writes."

More VMware vSAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In comparison to the competitors, Pure is very price-competitive for the future functionality that it provides."

"All storage is expensive so any price improvement would help."

"In terms of other contemporary arrays, Pure is something you need to have a use case for, as it's not priced for you to buy one off-the-shelf. If you have a use case, heavy lift Oracle Databases, any type of noticeable virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), or need low latency and high throughput, you should consider all-flash at least and probably Pure Storage."

"Once you purchase Pure Storage FlashArray it is all-inclusive, you receive all the licenses needed."

"The price of the solution can be a bit expensive. There is an additional fee for support."

"We consume it as a service, and that's actually something we really like, or at least I really like from the technical perspective. That's because it means there is no hassle when we need to upgrade arrays to add capacity. We just interact directly with technical counterparts, and we say, "Hey, we're filling up," and they say, "All right, here's another data pack." They ship it in, and we install it. So, the as-a-service model has worked very well. Given the outstanding data reduction rates, it has improved our profitability because we're selling allocated volumes as part of the cloud service or recovering those costs from our tenants. It is very efficient, but that has offset the premium price. It started out that way, but over time, as we've added capacity, the price per gig has gone down a lot because we have a lot of it."

"I'm good with the licensing. Of course, pricing can always be less... It's actually not a bad pricing model, considering I don't have to rip-and-replace."

"You get what you pay for. It is expensive, but it really works."

More Everpure FlashArray pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"Cost-wise, the Nutanix licenses were cheaper, but in terms of the hardware, there was some contention around it. So, in terms of implementation, the way Nutanix was projecting the implementation on their end was that there were a lot of open-source admin platforms. vSAN is a licensed product in VMware, and Nutanix was proposing a KVM solution, which is open source. That's why their pricing was a bit cheaper, but when we were trying to compare it with an enterprise version of their management platform, it boiled down to the VMware vSAN being most effective in the long run."

"It could be cheaper."

"Clients have to pay for VMware vSAN licensing based on the number of CPUs. The purchases would be lifetime or perpetual, but you need to have support, e.g. the support is negotiated from one, two, three, or four years."

"Users may also start off with the demo version of the tool. After you learn to use the solution, you can buy it if it is beneficial."

"I would rate the licensing model a three out of ten, where one is expensive, and ten is cheap."

"VMware vSAN is a little bit expensive and we pay annually. We have an educational institute where we receive discount prices from VMware. We do receive a reasonable discount but it's still expensive."

"VMware vSAN is an expensive platform. We purchase its yearly license."

"There is a license required for this solution, it is a one-time payment. However, if they want support for the solution, it can be paid annually or for three years."

More VMware vSAN pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Outsourcing Company

No data available

Manufacturing Company

12%

Outsourcing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	74
Midsize Enterprise	38
Large Enterprise	161

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	102
Midsize Enterprise	56
Large Enterprise	137

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...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?

When comparing cost, I find that the cost is either the same or slightly higher, but that is returned by the ease of ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?

The only thing I think could be improved is price. The price is the main concern for our customers.

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?

While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an e...

See all answers

How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?

HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We resea...

See all answers

How does VMware vSAN compare with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

We found VMware’s vSAN was easy to set up, configure, and manage compared to other solutions we considered. It is bes...

See all answers

Comparisons

NetApp AFF vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 10% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 9% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 7% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 6% of the time

INFINIDAT InfiniBox vs Everpure FlashArray

Compared 3% of the time

More Everpure FlashArray Competitors

IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs ScaleIO [EOL]

Compared 31% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs ScaleIO [EOL]

Compared 30% of the time

IBM Spectrum Scale vs ScaleIO [EOL]

Compared 14% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs ScaleIO [EOL]

Compared 13% of the time

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs ScaleIO [EOL]

Compared 5% of the time

More ScaleIO [EOL] Competitors

VxRail vs VMware vSAN

Compared 9% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VMware vSAN

Compared 9% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs VMware vSAN

Compared 4% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs VMware vSAN

Compared 4% of the time

Huawei FusionCube Hyper-Converged Infrastructure vs VMware vSAN

Compared 3% of the time

More VMware vSAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Everpure FlashArray

November 2026

Download Everpure FlashArray product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

November 2026

Download ScaleIO [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware vSAN

October 2026

Download VMware vSAN product report

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray

EMC ScaleIO

vSAN

Overview

The FlashArray family delivers consistent, high-performance data services across block, file, and object workloads. As part of the Everpure Platform, it provides the foundation for a unified data plane, enabling applications to reliably access, protect, and manage data across environments with simplicity and predictability. With built-in capabilities such as inline data reduction, snapshots, replication, and ransomware resilience, FlashArray ensures efficient operations, protected data, and consistent application uptime.

As the foundation of the (unified) data plane, FlashArray enables policy-driven automation, monitoring, and centralized management while integrating across cloud and on-premises environments. Built on an Evergreen architecture, it supports non-disruptive upgrades and continuous performance improvements over time while simplifying operations at scale.

What Key Features Does FlashArray Offer?

Simplicity and Speed: Easy management and rapid performance enhancements.
Data Reduction: Effective deduplication and compression.
Flash Architecture: Seamless upgrades and outstanding resilience.
VMware Integration: Excellent compatibility with virtualization platforms.
Predictive Analytics: Strong insights for proactive management.

What Benefits Should Users Consider?

Reliability: Proactive support with minimal downtime.
Efficiency: Reduced storage footprint and enhanced data management.
Performance: Faster processing speeds and low latency.
User Experience: Simplified management with Evergreen model.

In industries like finance, banking, and healthcare, FlashArray supports high-performance storage needs focusing on virtualization and database environments. Employed for VMware workloads, disaster recovery, and storage provisioning, it ensures application performance in private or hybrid cloud setups while enhancing management of virtualized environments.

Everpure (formerly Pure Storage)

ScaleIO is purposely designed to be an enterprise-grade scale-out software-defined storage solution. It applies the principles of server virtualization to standard x86 server flash and hybrid media, turning them into high performance, sharable, pools of storage. Whether your block storage needs are for traditional, modern or cloud workloads, ScaleIO has you covered.

Dell Technologies

VMware vSAN is renowned for scalability, speed, and management ease. Its performance equals traditional SANs, offering fast speeds with diverse disk types at a reduced cost, ensuring VM access amidst hardware failures, and integrating effortlessly with VMware tools for straightforward setup.

As a leader in virtualization solutions, VMware vSAN offers high-performance storage comparable to traditional SANs, allowing SSD-like speeds with a mix of disk types. It integrates into VMware tools, leading to easy setup and policy-driven management, leveraging diverse storage policies, deduplication, and compression for enhanced efficiency. It's especially valued for its ability to scale storage and applications affordably, supporting growth without heavy initial investments. Despite the advantages, areas for improvement include encryption, UI, hardware compatibility, and affordability for SMBs, with notable resync and performance monitoring challenges. Compatibility issues with non-VMware environments and complex updates and support are critical points highlighting a need for improved management interfaces and troubleshooting to enhance user experience.

What are the key features of VMware vSAN?

Scalability: Allows easy scaling of storage and applications without significant initial investments.
Speed: Rivals traditional SANs, offering SSD-like speeds.
Management: Seamless management through integration with VMware tools and policy-driven frameworks.
Resilience: Ensures VM access during hardware failures.
Efficiency: Offers deduplication and compression to optimize storage use.

What benefits or ROI should organizations consider in reviews?

Cost-Effectiveness: Supports horizontal and vertical growth without heavy costs.
Integration: Enhances cloud infrastructure and VDI with easy integration.
Automation: Provides automation for storage and compute consolidation.
Availability: Ensures high availability for VMs and workloads.
Performance: Known for strong performance suited for diverse workloads.

VMware vSAN is implemented across industries for virtualization and cloud infrastructure enhancements, being a cornerstone for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and the management of VMs. It supports major workloads like ERP and hyperconverged infrastructure, widely respected for its performance, seamless integration into VMware's ecosystem, and cost-efficiency, particularly appealing to small and medium businesses without extensive storage infrastructure investments.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas

Check Point Software Technologies, Blue Central, Deltares, Sentinel Technologies, The Binding Site Group, Swisscom, Itrica

Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

November 2026

Download Free Report

Find out what your peers are saying about StarWind, Nutanix, Red Hat and others in Software Defined Storage (SDS). Updated: November 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.

We monitor all Software Defined Storage (SDS) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.