We performed a comparison between Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series and VxRail 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 have experienced multiple hardware failures at one site and the fault-tolerant volume worked exactly as expected with zero downtime."
"We are able to execute maintenance on one server while the other is still running."
"StarWind vSAN is a great solution to create a redundant two-node-only Hyper-V cluster, both for domain or workgroup scenarios."
"The user interface for this application is amazing."
"The ROI is great on this product."
"The instant failover, with vSAN copying data to the second node, allowed for the continuous availability of our applications."
"The most useful aspect is the hyper-converged SD SAN and the ease to expand it by just adding cheap SSD or NVME disks."
"The fact that I can now count on a true failover solution is what is most appealing."
"The VX machines are scalable."
"Installation is straightforward because it's a vSAN. It only took one or two days."
"We find the setup quite straightforward and very easy."
"Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series' deployment is easy. We are a tier-one platinum partner who is into multiple implementations."
"Being able to perform upgrades and check the system through the VxRail Manager has been very helpful."
"Compared with other products, the IT administrator or IT integrator doesn't take much time to get the tool up and running."
"Its ease of administration is extremely valuable. It allows me to make better use of my time for other tasks instead of maintaining systems through multiple administration consoles."
"I like the new releases that Dell EMC is doing with VMware. They are allowing for flexibility across the hybrid cloud. This allows organizations to use containers and to be able to move into the public cloud, but also not have lock-in. They can come back to the private cloud when they want to, so it's creating a lot of flexibility across the stack."
"It's a good product based on the features. You can upgrade the solution with only one click."
"The technical support is very helpful and answers questions whenever we have issues with the product."
"There are so many features, but if I have to choose, I would go for scale-out upgrades and performance. Scale-out upgrades are very valuable. Typically, when customers engage in virtualization, they're committing themselves to run many virtual machines on a fewer number of hosts. They'll have five or six hosts, and they will run all their virtualization on vSphere. They could be having anywhere from 50 to 100 or even more virtual machines. Once all these go into production, getting downtime or getting planned maintenance windows is extremely difficult. It is something that typically businesses will frown upon. With VxRail, you can just go ahead and add a node without disrupting the existing environment, which works very well. That's why scale-out upgrades are a key feature. Its performance is also valuable. It delivers a very high number of IOPS for a hybrid configuration or an all-flash configuration. The processors that are available in the Xeon family are very powerful. They are multi-core with typically 2 gigahertz, 2.4 gigahertz, or higher frequency, so the performance is very much appreciated."
"It is truly a hyper-converged infrastructure, so everything is there together."
"The documentation could be better."
"The documentation could be clearer in terms of explaining the installation."
"I had issues locating the documentation that applied to my version of StarWind vSAN."
"It would be nice to add the ability to use raw partitions instead of file containers."
"The setup and documentation for the installation with the free version could definitely be improved."
"It should reclaim white spaces after big files are deleted."
"StarWind doesn't really have any performance reporting, especially compared with other vSAN products we've used."
"This solution should be more self-sufficient, running without creating domains or failover clusters."
"With the VX machines, the clients often confuse the hardware itself with the services and resources. VMs are configured according to resources - memory, hard disk capacity, and network. These resources, including memory and processor, are actually shared on the VX Series. So, if the server's processor is underpowered or unreliable for the VMs, many of the VMs will encounter issues. Ideally, the physical server configuration should align more closely with the needs of the virtual servers."
"The user management could be a bit better. It's something they could improve upon in future releases."
"Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series needs to improve its stability. Its resolution should be faster."
"Support could be better."
"There are still some features which aren't built into Cisco, like virtualized networking, that use its applications. However, these can be purchased through another product as an additional licensing cost to us."
"When we have a vulnerability or we need to upgrade VxRail, it takes a long time. It takes eight hours each time we upgrade."
"Sometimes during the upgrade process of VxRail, we experience errors that have nothing to do with reality and I cannot troubleshoot them without calling Dell and bringing in an engineer to figure it out."
"If we could have some out of the box ideas in integration, I think that would be a great feature."
"The licensing is a bit too costly."
"Obtaining support was hindered by the frequent changes to the hotline numbers."
"The update for the graphics integration and the media drivers isn't included in the VxRail update."
"The only issue which is every now and again is that when you log in it will tell you that there's an issue with VxRail when there actually isn't. All that's required is a refresh or reload. The solution itself works but you may get some bad reports every now and again. Probably once every couple of months; there is no effect to the solution's capabilities."
Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series is ranked 15th in HCI with 4 reviews while VxRail is ranked 1st in HCI with 120 reviews. Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series is rated 8.6, while VxRail is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series writes "simplifies management for clients familiar with VMware, and offers a user-friendly management and configuration experience". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VxRail writes "Offers a hassle-free, complete package, and is energy-efficient". Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series is most compared with Dell vSAN Ready Nodes, Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series, HPE Alletra dHCI, HPE Hyper Converged and HPE SimpliVity, whereas VxRail is most compared with VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, HPE SimpliVity, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure. See our Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series vs. VxRail report.
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