We performed a comparison between Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] and HPE Hyper Converged 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."We are able to do maintenance by bringing down one node at a time, rather than having to schedule a complete shutdown."
"Starwind made it easy to deploy fully redundant, highly available storage at a low cost."
"The price was right."
"It has allowed us to save a lot of time and money by letting us create a vSAN within a Windows VM on the environment it controls."
"We test live failovers every week, and so far, everything has been running smoothly without anything unexpected."
"Given the high availability of the server cluster, we were able to reduce separate physical servers onto one hyper-converged cluster - this saved in OPEX and CAPEX costs immediately, along with licensing costs of the Windows Server licenses."
"It has reduced the amount of switching, network connections, etc., because the converged StarWind Virtual SAN allows us to connect high-speed network interfaces between different boxes instead of having to connect SANs via the network, then connect those two clusters together."
"It provides shared storage to multiple hypervisor hosts. Times had changed, however. StarWind Virtual SAN is the “software replaces hardware” for SAN. We have access control and CCTV systems up and running using Microsoft clustering and shared storage"
"The most valuable features of this solution are the connectivity, consistency, and that we now have fewer vulnerabilities on the network."
"The price of the solution is good, especially when it comes to complex network solutions, such as UCS and Connect."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco HyperFlex HX is that it is self-contained."
"When we use it for VDI solutions, it is very easy to deploy and support."
"The most valuable feature was the backup - it was easy to back up. It was also very easy to administrate and manage the system; much easier and faster. Finally, it was easy to extend the disk capacities."
"Performance-wise, everything is good. So far, we haven't had any issues. There has been no downtime at all."
"It increases efficiency, decreases the cost, and manages the network in one single way. That's the most important thing."
"Reasonably priced and easy to manage for small to medium size companies that don't have an IT department."
"One of the solution's strong points is the deduplication capabilities of SimpliVity."
"It is a stable solution...Those who want flexibility, ease of use, and a simple support system can opt for HPE."
"Our storage and IT are now at an enterprise level with all the necessary controls and restrictions being enacted."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The most valuable feature is the in-built backup system. The backup speed is also excellent."
"Hyper-convergence is the most valuable aspect of the solution. We can avoid downtime when there's maintenance or updates needed. Also, we have homogenous hardware, so we have a lot of trust in the solution's reliability."
"HPE Hyper Converged is stable."
"I am expecting to see it more user-friendly in the future."
"A web management interface would be good, especially for those coming from other solutions that have one."
"It is not very clear within the StarWind Management Console or the StarWind support documentation how to perform maintenance on a single node in a two-node HA cluster."
"Although minor, some of the documentation could be rewritten to be clearer."
"I would like to see some additional, and possibly clearer, implementation videos with some slower and possibly more detailed descriptions of what the various steps of implementation are for someone who is unfamiliar with high availability and failover clustering in Windows."
"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."
"While it is possible to implement disk encryption in StarWind using Windows Bitlocker, such a solution can be a little tricky to manage."
"The console is something that I feel could be improved. There is nothing technically wrong with it, but it can be jazzed up and/or made to be a little more intuitive."
"Some of our customers do not want to adopt the Cisco ACI solution. They want to manage Cisco HyperFlex by integrating it with their own management solution."
"I would like to see more analytics. It could use better infographs in the HyperFlex Connect on how traffic is running in the network. If you were reaching any capacity issues on the Fabric Interconnects, it should be able to cool all of the servers and Fabric Interconnects, then possibly integrate it with, e.g., Nexus Series switches. This should all be available in a single pane of glass."
"The product does not have a cloud version...The product should be made more flexible in terms of integration capabilities."
"There is a VMware plugin for HyperFlex, which sometimes it hangs up in our environment, and doesn't function well."
"I would like it to be easier to manage the server, create VMs, and manage the VMs on the client."
"In the next release, Cisco should add more integration and management capabilities as well as some tweaks to the dashboard that make it more user-friendly. They could also add support for multiple hypervisors."
"I have been receiving a memory overflow message every day when I use the solution."
"I would like for them to develop integration with other technologies, like SD Access. It's still lacking an enhancement management player."
"The storage efficiency is weak and needs to be improved."
"We have faced some challenges when upgrading. With Hyper Converged, you have to fully upgrade because there are no incremental upgrades available in this solution. For example, let's say we have two nodes. If we want to upgrade storage, we also need to upgrade computing. That means a full upgrade EME."
"We've had to do a power cycle to bring it all the way down, bring it back up for power outages, A/C shut-downs of our DC office, but it hasn't presented a problem."
"In my country, the biggest issue is probably pricing."
"The solution's pricing for the hardware and support could be reduced."
"This solution is very costly."
"The solution is not very stable."
"In the Hyper Converged environment, some of the brands only support the OS VMware and not Hyper-V from Microsoft or even Red Hat or KVM."
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 HPE Hyper Converged is ranked 10th in HCI with 34 reviews. Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] is rated 8.0, while HPE Hyper Converged is rated 8.2. 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 HPE Hyper Converged writes " Ensures end-to-end data security with redundancy measures and provides visibility into the system but node expansion challenges". Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), Dell PowerFlex and FlexPod XCS, whereas HPE Hyper Converged is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, HPE SimpliVity, Dell PowerFlex and HPE Alletra dHCI. See our Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs. HPE Hyper Converged 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.
