2025-26 Top 5 Enterprise SDS Block Storage Solutions

Wendt This market report was written on October 10, 2024 by Jerome M. Wendt, president and founder, Data Center Intelligence Group LLC (DCIG).

DCIG announced the availability of its 2025-26 TOP 5 Enterprise SDS Block Storage Solutions Report. It provides enterprises with guidance on the best SDS block storage solution for deploying in business- and mission-critical IT environments.

SDS Block Storage Solutions Ready for Enyerprise Deployments
SDS block storage solutions have come of age. Sometimes viewed in the past as too hard, too risky, or unproven, those days are over. Rather, any enterprises that still view SDS block storage solutions through this lens do themselves a disservice.

SDS block storage solution providers have made significant strides to mitigate the risk and perceived stigma associated with deploying their solutions into enterprise environments.

For instance, these providers now:

Certify their SDS block storage solution with multiple leading application, database, hypervisor, and operating system providers.
Configure and ship SDS block storage solutions directly from one or more hardware providers as preconfigured, ready-to-use hardware storage appliances.
Make their SDS block storage software available on hardware from multiple providers.
Offer ample evidence and proof points to demonstrate their SDS block storage solution performs as well or better than comparable storage appliances from hardware providers.
Offer enterprise levels of upfront and ongoing technical support and customer training to ease deployments and ensure successful ongoing operations.

These and other factors should give enterprises the assurance they need to confidently move forward with deploying SDS block storage solutions. They also help explain why researchers forecast the market for SDS storage solutions will grow significantly. Two research firms forecast an increase in the SDS market from about $50+ billion in 2024 to as high as $260+ billion by 2029.

Its SDS block storage’s other features that should contribute to its accelerated growth and adoption in the coming years. For instance, depending on the SDS block storage solution, enterprises obtain new flexibility to virtualize multiple types of storage. Storage choices may range from storage arrays to disk drives available in x86 server hardware to cloud block storage.

SDS block storage solutions also help simplify the tasks associated with managing environments with block storage networking protocols. This simplification can range from migrating data between systems to centralizing the volume management of the virtualized storage. It may also alleviate complex zoning, LUN masking, and other storage networking tasks commonly associated with managing block storage environments.

Drivers for enterprise SDS block storage solution adoption
DCIG identified over 20 different enterprise SDS block storage solutions that enterprises could deploy in various ways. Deployment options could include software for deployment on-premises, in the cloud, a preconfigured hardware appliance, or a combination of these.

Some providers also partner with hardware OEMs so that enterprises may order appliances from their preferred OEM. A few providers even make IaaS available as an option. If electing to use IaaS, the provider manages the software after an enterprise deploys it.

Enterprises increasingly encounter new use cases that demand the use of storage solutions other than traditional storage hardware appliances. While edge locations may be the first that come to mind, enterprise IT environments possess additional business drivers for adopting SDS block storage solutions:

Common storage management experience
Deploying SDS block storage solutions in the cloud immediately emerges as a common enterprise use case. Enterprises may want to have the same block storage management experience both on-premises and in the cloud.

Many of the SDS block storage solutions meet many if not all enterprise requirements. In some cases, the provider bases its SDS block storage software on the same software that runs on the provider’s enterprise storage systems. This software may offer features such as replication, snapshots, data reduction, and data migration.

Additionally, some enterprises seek a more robust hybrid cloud experience. Some SDS block storage solutions give them the flexibility to host the same workloads both on-premises and in the cloud. In some cases, they can even move the workloads back and forth between on-premises and the cloud.

Identifying VMware vSAN alternative
Broadcom has further incentivized enterprises to explore alternative SDS block storage options. In December 2023, Broadcom announced that vSAN had become part of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF). As a result, enterprises may no longer acquire vSAN as a standalone solution. This may prompt existing vSAN enterprise clients to identify a new SDS block storage solution.

Cybersecurity and ransomware concerns
Enterprises have increased concerns about cybersecurity attacks in general and ransomware attacks specifically. To address these concerns, DCIG evaluated the various cybersecurity capabilities of each SDS block storage solution.

It used the National Institute of Science and Technology’s (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework to focus its research in this area. Using these guidelines, it evaluated how well each SDS block-based storage solution delivered on the NIST’s 5 cybersecurity categories: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover.

Top 5 enterprise SDS block solutions
In preparing this report, it formally evaluated over 20 different SDS block storage solutions based on multiple different features and capabilities.

It awarded the following enterprise SDS block storage solutions a DCIG Top 5 ranking: