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.
"The instant failover, with vSAN copying data to the second node, allowed for the continuous availability of our applications."
"StarWind Virtual SAN is essentially hardware agnostic, allowing us to build out a specific hardware layer based upon the customer's unique requirements."
"The product creates opportunities with hybrid on-premise solutions."
"It allows you to use ANY consumer or enterprise HDDs and SSDs, and that's a really great thing!"
"We have experienced multiple hardware failures at one site and the fault-tolerant volume worked exactly as expected with zero downtime."
"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 install itself is easy as pie."
"The customer support provided by StarWind is excellent."
"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."
"We find the initial implementation process simple and straightforward."
"The solution immediately expands storage area when you add nodes."
"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."
"It is easy to install."
"They are heading in the right direction and moving to integrate everything with a hybrid cloud, and moving workloads back and forth."
"If I consider the overall product, I would say that it is an excellent solution that offers very good performance and stability."
"No concerns regarding the footprint in the data center."
"The most valuable aspect of StarWind is the all-in-one solution that they provide."
"In our experience with StarWind, the support has been by far the most valuable feature."
"The high-quality hardware options, directly affecting performance, have significantly improved the user experience and are well worth the cost."
"Their service is top-notch and if a node goes down they immediately are following up with us to make sure that everything is working smoothly."
"The full suite of redundancy gives a nice sense of security for the whole environment."
"However, StarWind HCA won us over in two areas: price and support. We were actually able to install an all-flash StarWind HCA for less than other vendors' spinning rust solutions! We were able to roll five years of warranty and support into the purchase price and still save thousands of dollars upfront."
"The sales process is easy."
"The StarWind array has greatly improved our workflow internally as it is quite easy to use and provides robust features that allow us to provide anything our clients need quickly and efficiently."
"It should reclaim white spaces after big files are deleted."
"I found that certain browsers are not fully compatible with the administration web access portal."
"The documentation can be better for the free tier."
"You have to do a "full" sync on write-back cache disks instead of a quick sync if there is an issue."
"The system performs as expected, but we're always looking for performance improvements regarding the best utilization of NVMe disks."
"It would help if the manufacturer provided clearer and more detailed documentation, with explanations of how the application can be installed in various HA configurations."
"Management of VSAN itself could be improved. A Web UI for management would be great rather than an application installation. StarWind is testing a command center virtual appliance that I have installed in my environment."
"A great feature would be a wizard and to include a new disk in the SAN. At the moment, including a new disk requires several steps - some that must be done at the OS level and others in each node."
"Dell vSAN Ready Nodes' deployment is complex."
"Dell vSAN Ready Nodes must be flexible since it is complex in designing concepts. It needs to improve stability. The product should integrate with the public cloud."
"Compatibility with other hardware nodes needs to be improved."
"The deployment is done by doing it one by one and could be simplified."
"This product is not sufficiently scalable."
"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."
"Upgrades are carried out manually."
"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 setup and installation phase. We had massive problems connecting the StarWind appliances to our network infrastructure. That wasn't necessarily a StarWind problem. I don't know if their business partner in the UK wasn't used to having to deal with the supply of the cabling infrastructure, but that's where the problems started."
"We'd like an easier setup for Windows updates on the Hyper-V servers so you don't have to use a script to ensure auto-updating is done."
"We have to pay for support, which is high-end support. That can be expensive, at least for us."
"In the future, it would be nice to be able to migrate from the Windows vSAN to the Linux vSAN without having to do a full restore from backups."
"The StarWind Command Center web portal could use some work."
"I honestly cannot think of anything else to be improved, as I rarely have to interact with the Starwind product."
"We struggle a little with capacity management with the StarWind Hyperconverged appliance."
"Over the past three years, there were two instances where our cluster had an issue, yet StarWind proactively notified me of those issues and effortlessly guided me through the process of correcting the issue with minimal effort on my part."
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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