We compared VMware vSAN and Dell PowerFlex based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
Overall, VMware vSAN is praised for its simplicity, integration, and scalability, with positive feedback on customer service and ROI. On the other hand, Dell PowerFlex is highly regarded for its flexibility, performance, and reliability, with positive feedback on pricing and customer service. Users note varying deployment times for both products.
Features: VMware vSAN is valued for its simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and seamless integration. On the other hand, Dell PowerFlex is highly regarded for its flexibility, scalability, and reliability. Both offer high performance and user-friendly interfaces.
Pricing and ROI: The setup cost for VMware vSAN was initially deemed expensive by users, but it provided good long-term value. On the other hand, Dell PowerFlex had a reasonable and competitive pricing. Users found its setup cost to be straightforward and hassle-free, resulting in a smooth implementation process., Users report positive ROI for both VMware vSAN and Dell PowerFlex. vSAN offers improved virtualization performance and data protection, while PowerFlex enhances productivity and cost savings.
Room for Improvement: VMware vSAN has room for improvement in performance optimization, scalability for larger environments, configuration ease, and integration with third-party solutions. Dell PowerFlex needs enhancements in specific areas.
Deployment and customer support: The user reviews for VMware vSAN and Dell PowerFlex indicate that the duration required to establish a new tech solution can vary. Some users of VMware vSAN reported spending one week for both deployment and setup, while for Dell PowerFlex, some users mentioned needing a week for deployment and another week for setup. This suggests that the two products may have different timelines for deployment and setup., The customer service provided by VMware vSAN is described as top-notch, with users praising the support team's helpfulness, knowledge, and responsiveness in troubleshooting and providing timely solutions. Dell PowerFlex also offers efficient and helpful assistance, promptly addressing users' questions and concerns with knowledgeable and friendly representatives. Both products prioritize customer satisfaction and provide reliable support.
The summary above is based on 29 interviews we conducted recently with VMware vSAN and Dell PowerFlex users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"The most valuable feature for us is having the ability to configure our local storage using a limited number of disks and using the StarWind VSAN software to keep the cluster nodes in perfect sync."
"The management interface on the software is very simple. It is insanely simple compared to most SANs. The interface is also powerful when used to complete tasks that an IT administrator needs to complete."
"You can build cheap, reliable, replicated virtual machines clusters using simple servers with an all flash disk or SAS\SATA hybrid tiered by performance storage."
"The product gave us a cost-effective way to deploy a highly available server environment."
"It's quite easy to install."
"With an uptime of 384 days, StarWind has improved overall server reliability."
"In the three years that we have been using StarWind, the product has yet to cause us any problems."
"The ability for us to manage all of our nodes from the same console makes systems administration very easy."
"The most valuable feature is high availability."
"The support team responds quickly."
"It is easy to use for management and operations teams because the tools are in one place."
"The support is highly responsive."
"We've had no issues with scaling the solution."
"The most valuable feature is the overall integration and just seeing the three different layers which make up the machine software. Altogether, it's something that I would say is much better than any other solution that I have experienced before."
"The solution was connected to alternate storage. It provides great scalability and reliability."
"Saves us a lot of space in the data center."
"Technical support is very helpful and very good at resolving issues."
"vSAN has just one datastore. so customers do not need to think where to put their VMs, how to design the physical disk RAID, the LUN size, the LUN mapping, etc. when they use NetApp/EMC/HDS or other storage systems."
"The most valuable features are the encryption, deduplication, compression, and the ability to manage all of your storage within your server rack."
"Everyone uses virtualization to more efficiently utilize hardware resources. That's the main point of vSAN and VMware."
"Easy-to-use, and easy-to-scale product."
"The solutions best feature is that it is easy to use."
"We can scale it very easily for a test environment. We were able to segment our DMZ so it wasn't connected to anything, which we really liked."
"The valuable features are its scalability and the standardization - one size fits all. It's also intuitive and easy to use because one size fits all. Obviously, it scales out, but it's the same solution at every physical location I manage."
"For the StarWind VSA vSphere solution, I would like to see a simpler and automated virtual machine installation process in terms of network settings."
"vSAN's free version does not have a graphical user interface."
"Diagnostics information or alerts on the state of systems could also be implemented to give more visibility."
"Scaling the product is fairly easy except for the computing aspect. It would entail another appliance. While not a show stopper, it isn't as easy as dropping in a few extra SSDs."
"I would like an automated installation/configuration despite the fact that their service is very collaborative, a customer should be able to deploy the solution by themselves."
"It would be nice if we could designate pools, or tiers, for storage of different speeds, and then assign rules to new VMs that would automatically place them into the proper pool."
"Ability to to test the virtual storage are network area and storage speed from StarWind Management Console."
"Although minor, some of the documentation could be rewritten to be clearer."
"We're also running Hyper-V virtual machines. But we recently discovered that migration of the Hyper-V virtual machines is a bit challenging. Maybe if Dell EMC can come out with a tool that will make it very easy for us to migrate the Microsoft Hyper-V machine, that may be an improvement."
"Needs some more monitoring tools."
"I think there might be some room for improvement when it comes to pricing, because although I know how to convert customers, at the end of day, it's quite expensive. Sometimes your feature architecture is still coming out much cheaper than hardware costs for your infrastructure."
"The storage capability must be improved."
"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."
"The support of containers needs to be improved. At present, it is limited to VMware. There needs to be direct communication with the hardware rather than through a hypervisor."
"Licensing restrictions can be frustrating."
"The biggest issue with the solution is that it doesn't support Hyper V. It's a big problem."
"It should be easier to use."
"This solution is not great for large file shares/object/rich media repository."
"This is quite an expensive solution."
"Lacks sufficient storage terabytes."
"It could have some automation. We haven't involved ourselves in a lot of automation around the vSAN environment capabilities. We're still running it using a very traditional setup. So, there could be some plugins to automate it using third-party environments, such as Jenkins."
"Dedupe in non flash drives can be improved."
"The solution must provide better customization."
"Pricing is something of a concern."
Dell PowerFlex is ranked 9th in HCI with 19 reviews while VMware vSAN is ranked 2nd in HCI with 226 reviews. Dell PowerFlex is rated 8.2, while VMware vSAN is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Dell PowerFlex writes "Infrastructure management solution that offers rapid provisioning of computer storage but the APIs and enablers for custom automation could be improved". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware vSAN writes "Very stable, easy to set up, and easy to use". Dell PowerFlex is most compared with VxRail, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE SimpliVity, Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series and HPE Alletra dHCI, whereas VMware vSAN is most compared with VxRail, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, HPE SimpliVity, Red Hat Ceph Storage and Pure Storage FlashArray. See our Dell PowerFlex vs. VMware vSAN report.
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