We performed a comparison between Dell PowerFlex and Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series 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 backup is readily available for use, and the restoration process is easy."
"The solution offers easy one-click PowerShell scripts that are ready to run."
"StarWind allowed us to deploy highly available shared storage within our budget."
"This solution enables us to make better cost-effective use of our existing hardware and leverage the current infrastructure at a higher level than we could before."
"It has reduced our overall maintenance and overhead by having to only maintain physical boxes for one cluster instead of having to manage physical boxes for two clusters."
"StarWind Virtual SAN is a very easy-to-use solution that can be quickly and easily deployed and configured without intimate and specific knowledge in the virtualization sphere."
"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."
"The support has been amazing and quick to reply."
"Dell PowerFlex is a one-stop-shop solution. Storage, compute, network, application monitoring, and support cases are all combined into one solution. It's very easy to administer compared to when you have a reference architecture where you need to design and build everything yourself. You would also then have to work with multiple vendors."
"The program is stable."
"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 support team responds quickly."
"Perfectly suits customers dealing with the combination of future storage needs and, at the same time, keeping up their computing power."
"The resiliency and data protection are the most valuable features."
"We're doing a lot of VMware for IT so this solution is really valuable from a VMH point of view. We're trying to assist our customers mainly with management, because that's what they want. The most important aspects are ease of management, as well as ease of configuration, allowing them to attach additional nodes and resources for the applications."
"The support is highly responsive."
"This solution allowed us to move from using standalone systems to having all our data center management in one place."
"In our implementations, HDS Storage Virtualization has helped in migrating data with the least amount of downtime, compared to other storage technologies."
"The replication technology can move data faster than EMC MirrorView and requires less bandwidth. The Storage Virtualization technology is the most mature in the market, outside of IBM’s Storwize (which has a lot of compatibility issues, and EMC’s very expensive VPLEX solution); and it works."
"The gathering of monthly consumption and performance reports for future dissemination to concerned parties is very important. Unfortunately, StarWinds vSAN doesn't offer this functionality."
"I would like to see more user-friendly dashboards in future versions."
"They need to invest more in the support documents for real issues happening when integrating the solution with the hypervisor."
"I had to buy upgraded support, which was not a problem, but it wasn't a prorated amount, so I paid for the support, the full upgrade, but I only got a couple of months out of it because it was only good until renewal time."
"Pricing is a bit high."
"The only way I can see this product needing improvement is the consultation level of the StarWind sales and engineers."
"It is difficult to control all of the hardware components."
"It would help us if the vendor continues to release software updates for earlier versions of the Windows operating systems."
"There should be more functionality available for routing."
"It would be great to get earlier access to beta builds because we have to develop providers on our own. The APIs and enablers for custom automation could also be improved."
"Compared to similar solutions, Dell PowerFlex is not cost-effective and has room for improvement."
"Including instrumentation would be a helpful improvement."
"They should provide continuous support for data migration."
"They need to work on improving the overhead for protecting the data."
"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."
"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."
"An area for improvement would be technical support. In the next release, I would like to see more features added to make this a more complete solution."
"An update to its technology would be good. The G Series has been around for more than five years and HDS seriously needs to ramp up, since the competition has better performance at a lower cost with better features and functionalities. For example, it needs redirect on write Snapshot, preconfigured storage tiering with better IOPS, built-in deduplication technology on hybrid disk, etc."
"HDS reaches a ceiling depending on model. The G200 cannot transition to G400, the G400 can transition to G600 but cannot transition to G800, which is the top-end model."
Earn 20 points
Dell PowerFlex is ranked 8th in HCI with 20 reviews while Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series is ranked 23rd in HCI. Dell PowerFlex is rated 8.0, while Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series is rated 8.0. 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 Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series writes "Allows for centralized management with great interconnectivity". Dell PowerFlex is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE Alletra dHCI and HPE SimpliVity, whereas Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), VxRail, VMware vSAN and HPE Alletra dHCI. See our Dell PowerFlex vs. Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series report.
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