We performed a comparison between StarWind HyperConverged Appliance and VxRail based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two HCI solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."StarWind allows us to move virtual machines from one physical host to another, which greatly reduces the downtime required for maintenance."
"StarWind SANs come with outstanding support."
"Updates to server hardware are now painless and done during working hours with zero stress. We had a RAID failure a few months back, and nobody in the building even noticed and there was no after hours time used for repair."
"The most valuable features are high availability and real-time replication between two servers."
"The top-notch support before, during, and after deployments are better than any other vendor I have come across."
"We can lose a site or even two of our three, and we would lose no data and have no outage."
"The product only requires two VMWare ESXi host servers versus three host servers for VMware's comparable solution."
"StarWind is very easy to use, even if you have had no experience using a SAN before."
"In our experience with StarWind, the support has been by far the most valuable feature."
"Servers came pre-configured for our environment and as soon as they were in the rack, Starwind got them up and running."
"Overall, the solution has improved our system's performance. I was concerned about the physical-to-virtual conversion of our database server. It's actually much faster now, as a virtualized host on this Hyper-V cluster."
"This solution came preconfigured. All we needed to do was plug it in and move our VMs."
"The most valuable aspect of StarWind is the all-in-one solution that they provide."
"It improved all services running on the new cluster and took up less space and less energy."
"With proactive support, StarWind deploys and configures the solution for you."
"The redundancy of two identical nodes that can run alone allows us to have truly "no single point of failure" in our computing and primary storage infrastructure."
"We enjoy the ease of management since all of the resources are located on one box — one single point of support."
"The most valuable feature in the VxRail solution is the software that binds the management portal and its ease of use of managing the environment. The guys don't have to worry about getting multiple solutions specialist. You can have one person looking at and managing the whole environment."
"I can roll out the system in thirty minutes and the customer can work with it."
"The solution is stable and reliable. This is one of the main reasons why we purchased this solution."
"The recent technologies and management features that have been implemented."
"The solution is perfect for the lifecycle management of hardware."
"It has a valuable deduplication feature."
"Our clients value being able to upgrade with one click or a few clicks."
"I struggled when bit figuring out how to go about doing the evaluation."
"It should be improved in the way it detects the right filesystem image after a complete shutdown of the system or in the case of disaster recovery."
"I wish they would improve the documentation for the beginner level as it's not very clear on the web page."
"The number of different ways you can set it up can make it a little daunting."
"Perhaps the developer should refine the product management through PowerShell."
"This product could be improved with the inclusion of new health check procedures."
"The management console of StarWind Virtual SAN is pretty complex."
"It runs until it does not - and disaster recovery documentation is sparse and mostly unclear."
"Over the past three years, there were two instances where our cluster had an issue, yet StarWind proactively notified me of those issues and effortlessly guided me through the process of correcting the issue with minimal effort on my part."
"Multi cluster support for their Command Console would be very beneficial. Currently, you can only work with a single cluster at a time. The console is new so I expect much growth in this area in the near future. The other area that could be improved is the tech support locale."
"There is room for improvement in the setup and installation phase. We had massive problems connecting the StarWind appliances to our network infrastructure. That wasn't necessarily a StarWind problem. I don't know if their business partner in the UK wasn't used to having to deal with the supply of the cabling infrastructure, but that's where the problems started."
"The truth is that the operation and support offered is good, but we consider that the product's usability could improve, as well as the data resynchronization time after an unexpected closure."
"The only critique I might have is that the support is overseas in Eastern Europe and, on occasion, there has been a language issue. But in general, they're as good as can be..."
"The only area that surprised me had to do with the fact that each host runs a StarWind virtual machine used to maintain the health of the vSAN, which individually uses 24GB of memory per host. You should keep this in mind when determining the resources you will need when selecting hardware and components for your specific setup. If I knew that, I would have chosen to add more memory per host to make up for the use."
"If I had to pick something to add to the product, it would be nice if you could have more than one user account on their command center VM."
"The only thing that can use improvement is the StarWind Management Console and Command Center."
"The product could support and have more compliance with other vendors."
"The scalability is limited to a single cluster with 64 nodes."
"There are still some features which aren't built into Cisco, like virtualized networking, that use its applications. However, these can be purchased through another product as an additional licensing cost to us."
"When we have a vulnerability or we need to upgrade VxRail, it takes a long time. It takes eight hours each time we upgrade."
"All updates are supposed to be done through VxRail, however, the vCenter actually showed that there was an update it needed. I've just started using the product. I didn't know what I was doing. I actually updated my vCenter and that actually threw the VxRail system offline. We had to spend some time trying to get that working again. If possible, they should make the process a bit more clear so we don't make mistakes like this in the future. There should maybe be some sort of pop-up that can direct you."
"I would like it to tier to the cloud effectively, making sure that cold data can be pushed out to some sort of Bitbucket."
"They're getting better with their one-click upgrade. The success factor is now between 85% to 87% with the latest release. They should just continuously improve on that one-click factor and make it more seamless."
"In the version that I was working with, the integrations are in need of improvement."
More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Pricing and Cost Advice →
StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is ranked 6th in HCI with 65 reviews while VxRail is ranked 1st in HCI with 120 reviews. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is rated 9.6, while VxRail is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance writes "Straightforward to use with good remote management and a simple GUI". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VxRail writes "Offers a hassle-free, complete package, and is energy-efficient". StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, StorMagic SvSAN and Red Hat Ceph Storage, whereas VxRail is most compared with VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, HPE SimpliVity, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and HPE Hyper Converged. See our StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs. VxRail report.
See our list of best HCI vendors.
We monitor all HCI 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.
