We performed a comparison between Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] and Dell vSAN Ready Nodes 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 Virtual SAN offers high availability and data resilience features to prevent data loss if hardware fails."
"StarWind allows us to move virtual machines from one physical host to another, which greatly reduces the downtime required for maintenance."
"It allows you to use ANY consumer or enterprise HDDs and SSDs, and that's a really great thing!"
"The install itself is easy as pie."
"Highly available storage is the most valuable feature. The entire rollout is hyper-converged and requires no extra storage further than the hosts in which Hyper-V is running. Another feature that has been great is the support from StarWind in general. We have their proactive support package on the main cluster that employs Starwind Virtual SAN."
"It has allowed me to effectively and confidently manage the maintenance of hosts where I can power off a host and have its VMs migrate to another one."
"The virtual tapes can be uploaded to the object storage of your choice with object locking/governance which gives you an extra layer of protection."
"StarWind Virtual SAN can improve an organization's storage infrastructure by providing high availability, scalability, cost-effectiveness, performance, and ease of use."
"It's very easy to integrate with the ACI network."
"When we use it for VDI solutions, it is very easy to deploy and support."
"Offers very good data protection and provides system uptime availability effectively."
"Most of our users are Cisco customers, so it fits in within the suites we use. Primarily for me, as a solution architect, it's the technology and architecture that is the most valuable. I know from my technical colleagues that it's easy to use and for the customer, the up-time is the most valuable asset. It's running, has low failure, and so on which is why we use it."
"Cisco offers very good quality."
"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is simple to use, user-friendly and has been best for our purposes."
"On the VDI side, because the storage is local to the HyperFlex, it was very easy and convenient. The performance is exceptional."
"The initial setup was straightforward. With our partners and the consultancy that we had, we knew what we wanted to do. Therefore, we didn't have any problems with the installation and parametrization."
"You don't have to spend much time evaluating the hardware. It can be deployed in a short time. The tool is also easy to upgrade."
"The most valuable feature is the set of user tools that are available."
"The tool's most valuable feature is high availability."
"They are heading in the right direction and moving to integrate everything with a hybrid cloud, and moving workloads back and forth."
"Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes is scalable"
"The most valuable feature of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is file sharing."
"It is easy to install."
"If I consider the overall product, I would say that it is an excellent solution that offers very good performance and stability."
"It runs until it does not - and disaster recovery documentation is sparse and mostly unclear."
"They need to invest more in the support documents for real issues happening when integrating the solution with the hypervisor."
"For the StarWind VSA vSphere solution, I would like to see a simpler and automated virtual machine installation process in terms of network settings."
"The only thing that I have any difficulty with is that in order to perform upgrades, it is required that the SANs be detached from the Hosts before that can happen."
"Diagnostics information or alerts on the state of systems could also be implemented to give more visibility."
"StarWind doesn't really have any performance reporting, especially compared with other vSAN products we've used."
"We would like the documentation to be more complete. Most items are covered, but if you don't know something, you may need to contact their support."
"It took a bit of knowledge and support to put in place but once installed it works fine. Migration (HyperV) from one server to another sometimes takes longer than expected but there is no data loss even if the host crashes."
"I would like for them to develop integration with other technologies, like SD Access. It's still lacking an enhancement management player."
"One aspect that really needs to be looked at, is to fix the bugs issue."
"Their technical support is very bad. We had an issue where instead of an engineer we got a PDF "doctor" that didn't know anything about our problem which was very frustrating."
"Cisco has to continue improve the management tools to provide a better command line interface with more functions. That would be better for administration."
"Sometimes when there are multiple technologies involved in a support case, this is when there is a bit of a lag."
"Deployment scripts can be improved since several clans need to be created before the deployment effectively works."
"There are sometimes issues with memory failure."
"The initial setup of the Cisco HyperFlex HX platform was medium-level difficult. It's a little bit different from traditional servers. It takes getting used to the learning curve."
"Scalability is an area that could be improved. We are looking at a maximum of 32 nodes now in a cluster, but going to 64 or 128 would be a major advantage."
"There is room for improvement in the maintenance pricing. Maintenance isn't difficult, but the prices are high and ridiculous. Some customers feel it is better to go with a new solution rather than renew this one."
"The power switch on the hardware is located in a poor location where it can accidentally be pushed. In an update, they should solve this issue so people do not push it accidentally to have their service go down. A possible solution is the switch should be inside."
"Compatibility with other hardware nodes needs to be improved."
"The Dell VxRail solution is based on vSAN Ready Nodes, but the Dell VxRail is fully automated. It would be helpful if this automation feature could be added to the Dell vSAN Ready Nodes. For example, we need to install VMware ESXi, and manually expand the cluster."
"Dell vSAN Ready Nodes' deployment is complex."
"Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes is a great hyper-converged system that is a perfect platform for supporting any kind of workload. The only workload that it's not designed to support is big data."
"The deployment is done by doing it one by one and could be simplified."
More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] doesn't meet the minimum requirements to be ranked in HCI with 90 reviews while Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is ranked 11th in HCI with 14 reviews. Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] is rated 8.0, while Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] writes "A fast and easy deployment that allows secure access to our medical applications ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes writes "Offers good performance and is easy to use". Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), Dell PowerFlex and Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series, whereas Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series, Dell PowerFlex and Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure. See our Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs. Dell vSAN Ready Nodes report.
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