We performed a comparison between Dell vSAN Ready Nodes and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance 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.
"When using new (warranty) servers, you can forget about the storage service for several years. The users will not even notice the failure of two servers out of three."
"StarWind is very easy to use, even if you have had no experience using a SAN before."
"The user interface for this application is amazing."
"Starwind made it easy to deploy fully redundant, highly available storage at a low cost."
"I save both physical and virtual space."
"Having the ability to migrate machines live in our environment was made possible by this software."
"The most valuable features are high availability and real-time replication between two servers."
"The StarWind VSAN is always up and allows us to move VMS to other nodes for maintenance, without interruption to service."
"The tool's most valuable feature is high availability."
"I have found the most important features of Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes are the capacity to manage the storage because the storage is built in the servers. The type of profiles you can attribute to the storage is a benefit. You can manage the storage by profiles. Overall the solution is a good speed and performance."
"The product is useful for DR and other things."
"The solution immediately expands storage area when you add nodes."
"No concerns regarding the footprint in the data center."
"The most valuable feature of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is the flexibility of the nodes. Additionally, if there are any critical issues they update us through emails. The issues are taken care of remotely on the system."
"The most valuable feature is the set of user tools that are available."
"If I consider the overall product, I would say that it is an excellent solution that offers very good performance and stability."
"We were able to set it up via the documentation and only needed their support a handful of times."
"In our experience with StarWind, the support has been by far the most valuable feature."
"The pricing and discounts given by Starwind on the hardware were unmatched."
"We no longer need multiple staff members performing small, mundane tasks."
"The setup was easy to deploy, and management is simplified compared with traditional SAN solutions."
"The customer service has been the most valuable feature of the product to me."
"With proactive support, StarWind deploys and configures the solution for you."
"Being able to log on to the GUI to see specific data and usage statistics, executing clones, starting and stopping VMs, etc., is great."
"We don't really have any issues with this product."
"For the StarWind VSA vSphere solution, I would like to see a simpler and automated virtual machine installation process in terms of network settings."
"StarWind Virtual SAN could benefit from better integration with other tools and technologies, such as backup and disaster recovery solutions."
"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."
"The documentation could be a little more concise, but, for the most part, it just works."
"It should reclaim white spaces after big files are deleted."
"New versions of this solution should be tested more thoroughly before the release as we had a few problems with one version due to a bug."
"The system performs as expected, but we're always looking for performance improvements regarding the best utilization of NVMe disks."
"Upgrades are carried out manually."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required. The price of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes could be lowered."
"The deployment is done by doing it one by one and could be simplified."
"Compatibility with other hardware nodes needs to be improved."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"One area for improvement of the solution is that I had to get Windows, which I really didn't want because of the extra maintenance or overhead, as well as viruses, etc. It's going to take time for them to get their Linux to that point. They already have Linux but it's not as mature and they don't really support it on HCAs. They have it for individuals who want to use it on their servers, but not on HCAs."
"Most meetings are done via Zoom, and I'm sure you could switch to a text based conversation if needed as they seem like a very accommodating team. It's not something I would worry about if you are a potential client."
"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."
"We need to be very cautious in following every step when updating the physical host. We must move over each VM and drain roles from the servers to ensure everything goes smoothly without interruptions. If this were a more automated process, this would be less taxing each time an upgrade is needed."
"We struggle a little with capacity management with the StarWind Hyperconverged appliance."
"The response time is usually several hours after the issue occurred."
"We have to pay for support, which is high-end support. That can be expensive, at least for us."
More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Pricing and Cost Advice →
Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is ranked 11th in HCI with 14 reviews while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is ranked 6th in HCI with 65 reviews. Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is rated 8.6, while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is rated 9.6. The top reviewer of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes writes "Offers good performance and is easy to use". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance writes "Straightforward to use with good remote management and a simple GUI". Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series, Dell PowerFlex and Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure, whereas StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, VxRail and StorMagic SvSAN. See our Dell vSAN Ready Nodes vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report.
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