We performed a comparison between DataCore SANsymphony 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."The solution offers easy one-click PowerShell scripts that are ready to run."
"This product now allows us to migrate virtual machines between nodes as if we had a dedicated $100,000 SAN in the mix without the additional cost and management of the SAN."
"The solution is also quite flexible. As an example, other vSAN solutions that we looked at had more stringent requirements regarding mixed HDD/SSD storage which wouldn't have worked in our environment."
"The configuration is so much simpler than that of a traditional SAN with fewer points of failure to worry about."
"The product gave us a cost-effective way to deploy a highly available server environment."
"The Windows-based StarWind GUI is easy to use and understand and integrates seamlessly with VMware's vSphere portal as well."
"vSAN we found was simple to set up, easy to configure and manage and allows us to achieve storage redundancy."
"The control panel is nice. It gives you a lot of good feedback as to the status and health of the VSAN."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its versatility, with there being support for all new hardware technologies and platforms, disc mirroring and very effective auto tiering."
"I am very happy with this product's ability to adapt, increase, and modify existing infrastructures."
"Good security with this solution."
"It's a software storage solution that can scale as we like. There is also has a parallel feature that enhances the performance of the storage solution. We can separate storage and computing, and we can scale these two parts of the platform to meet business needs efficiently."
"The synchronous mirror allows us to operate a fully redundant storage solution that is distributed across two sites."
"The most valuable feature for us is that we can adjust the size of the storage very easily, without stopping production."
"Storage is always available."
"Mirroring is the most valuable feature because I can provide a high-level of service and optimize the use of obsolete storage."
"VxRail does not require fiber switches or external storage. It's easy to replace and manage. It's centralized management through VxRail Manager."
"The technical support is very helpful and answers questions whenever we have issues with the product."
"VxRail can be used for application modernization."
"Being able to perform upgrades and check the system through the VxRail Manager has been very helpful."
"Homogeneity is most valuable. The truth is that having everything in a single cluster helps a lot."
"It gives us tons of flexibility. We can create new machines, then destroy them if they don't work out. We test a lot of use cases that may or may not play out. We can build all types of scenarios into virtual machines that we may or may not use. If we don't use them, we just turn them off, no using up resources."
"VxRail can manage the whole cluster at the same time, so it's easy to expand. VxRail has more features vSAN ReadyNodes that make it easier to implement from scratch."
"We were able to speed up our gaming software, which was a big plus."
"Security on the ISCSI protocol could be improved by adding features like OS-type control access, especially for the data center environment."
"If there are domain controllers inside the cluster, there needs to be some sort of logic allowing them to boot independently so all the rest of the domain clients can gain the authority they need to come online."
"I would like to see improvements in the documentation area."
"StarWind currently has a Windows native application that it uses for management. There is not a web-based GUI at this time."
"While we had little to no issues in setting up StarWind and received excellent support from the StarWind technicians, we would have appreciated a clearer guideline for a setup with the free version of StarWind Management Console or, in other words - for the setup with the PowerShell."
"Other vendors such as VMware vSAN have a bigger community of users, so it is easier to find more pre-sale or post-sale information from users."
"Having more support plan options would be nice."
"If there was one feature I would like to see it would be a built-in subsystem for managing UPS backups shutdown procedures providing a way to initiate VM shutdown on all host servers, shut down the host servers, then put the fault-tolerant mirroring in standby, and finally shut down the StarWind SANs."
"DataCore needs a more efficient and better way to keep track of metrics and counters so that we can do baseline analysis to measure performance."
"We are waiting for container support (on the roadmap), as well as a user-friendly full web-administration capability, and an improved API."
"The main problem is there is no DataCore OS."
"The solution could be better packaged and marketed."
"I still see room for improvement with DataCore SANsymphony in the area of alarm and task management."
"We'd like to manage the raid on the disk directly in SanSymphony."
"I'd like to see the company make the renewal of the software cheaper."
"One limitation of this solution is that it's Windows-based, e.g. one requirement to install DataCore SANsymphony SDS is putting it on a Windows server machine. It relies on Windows and that is a limitation because there are some customers who are looking for non Windows systems."
"This solution needs to have the capability where even older versions of hardware can be seamlessly utilized and additional expansion becomes so much easier."
"If they continue developing their product regarding VMware, it will be one of the best products in the HCI space. In terms of additional features, there is nothing missing because, for data protection, they also have the CDP option for VM. They can protect the VM at any point in time."
"The solution should facilitate the separate expansion of computing and storage."
"The full solution is not completely included as a bundle, such as we see with SimpliVity."
"What I did not like so much was the amount of VMware that you have to put in your system related to the VxRail."
"The product could support and have more compliance with other vendors."
"The search feature isn't good."
"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."
DataCore SANsymphony is ranked 7th in HCI with 54 reviews while VxRail is ranked 1st in HCI with 120 reviews. DataCore SANsymphony is rated 9.2, while VxRail is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of DataCore SANsymphony writes "Robust with good replication and access protection ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VxRail writes "Offers a hassle-free, complete package, and is energy-efficient". DataCore SANsymphony is most compared with VMware vSAN, HPE SimpliVity, Red Hat Ceph Storage, StorMagic SvSAN and Dell vSAN Ready Nodes, whereas VxRail is most compared with VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, HPE SimpliVity, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and HPE Hyper Converged. See our DataCore SANsymphony vs. VxRail report.
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