We performed a comparison between Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
"When we need additional storage but want to keep the size of the SANs manageable, the StarWind Virtual SAN has allowed me to do everything needed."
"I've been really impressed with it so far. I think it's pretty great, actually. It does exactly what we need it to do, and it does it well, so I would recommend it. Plus, the support has been very good."
"Integration with Microsoft clustering has been perfect, allowing us to leverage our investment in MS server licensing to the fullest."
"Speed and high availability have been the most valuable for us."
"It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combines flash and disks of the cluster and forms a virtual shared storage “pool” accessible by all hosts. StarWind cuts down virtualization cost and complexity by eliminating the need for a physical shared storage (SAN). -StarWind offers the Enterprise-level high availability (HA), deployed and easily configured . we get technical support from star wind team when implementation software and after setup if we face any issue."
"The installation of StarWind Virtual SAN was pretty easy, and the configuration was done in no time."
"The StarWind Virtual SAN provides a clever and unique solution to the Computing Split Brain problem."
"The fact that I can now count on a true failover solution is what is most appealing."
"Simplified management: It provides us more time to work on other tasks."
"The most valuable features of Nutanix Acropolis AOS are storage and hyper-converged. The solution is easy to use and the administration is very good."
"It is all-in-one. The compute processing, storage, and network altogether make it convenient. We don't have to have different modules for expansion."
"The fact that there is only one interface to deploy a complete solution for maximum storage is fantastic."
"To receive a performance enhancement by merely clicking the one button upgrade is the true value of the platform and what I look forward to the most."
"Acropolis AOS is scalable to nodes and the cloud."
"You need to send commands through the command-line interface(CLI). This could be improved. The commands are done better in VMware."
"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's most valuable features are all the cloud facilities or benefits it provides for my data center."
"The presence of built-in storage saved the company from having to purchase a separate storage array and related network equipment."
"We also substantially reduced network complexity by eliminating that standalone SAN. That reduced complexity has allowed us to concentrate on improving other areas of our network."
"It is a safe, fast, and cost-effective storage system that improved our systems to have zero downtime."
"It did not hurt that the price for the hardware and three years of support cost less than the disparate hardware the cluster used to run on."
"The easy way everything can be configured and ready to run in less than a day is great."
"The sales process is easy."
"The initial setup seems to be very straightforward."
"The setup was easy to deploy, and management is simplified compared with traditional SAN solutions."
"It should be improved in the way it detects the right filesystem image after a complete shutdown of the system or in the case of disaster recovery."
"Regular updates to the software are required, and subtle design changes would be welcome."
"They need to improve the speed of the interfaces, thus allowing for better traffic on the network."
"I would like additional documentation regarding possible networking configurations with 10GbE switching."
"StarWind currently has a Windows native application that it uses for management. There is not a web-based GUI at this time."
"They need to invest more in the support documents for real issues happening when integrating the solution with the hypervisor."
"It would be helpful to have a little more insight into what kind of performance the VSAN cluster is utilizing; something that would be more proactive on our side, versus their ProActive Support."
"If there was a way to automatically put disks in maintenance mode when shutting the host down and exit maintenance mode automatically, that would simplify things."
"The productivity and work efficiency of Nutanix Acropolis AOS could improve."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with external storage using the fiber channel"
"There are other services that Nutanix has that could be improved, but I'm not very familiar with the other services of Nutanix, such as Era and Flow. However, they seem a bit hard for us to implement and integrate with the Nutanix Acropolis AOS and other Nutanix tools. We would not dare to implement those other Nutanix solutions into Nutanix Acropolis AOS right now. The implementation of that tool could be the problem, I am a bit hesitant to implement the other tools into Nutanix Acropolis AOS."
"I'm not very technical, so I don't know if there are any features that are really lacking. Our customers seem pleased with it, and I haven't heard of any downsides."
"I would like better integration of XenServer into the AOS and Prism Central."
"Usually, there are separate administration teams that take care of servers, but in our organization, servers are usually looked after by the application owner. However, the application owners cannot reinstall the software, OS, and other things. That only aligns with the role of the HCI administrator. If these rights can be provided, it will be very easy."
"I would have liked it if Nutanix were a hardware as well as a software platform."
"There is a feature that exists used for disaster recovery, but it requires an extra license. It should be included with the regular normal standard license."
"We struggle a little with capacity management with the StarWind Hyperconverged appliance."
"The only real flaw that I have seen so far is this hard drive that was accidentally ejected because when it was received and added back into the RAID. There was an error there. It was not added back into the RAID correctly, so I have an outstanding hard disk. Apparently, a guy just knocked it with his hand as he was in my office, so it was just a small eject. He said that he didn't crash into anything. That is the only thing that has reared its head."
"This product is not one hundred percent enterprise-ready, so it is more suitable for SMB."
"I would request that the terms and conditions be reviewed and made more acceptable to corporate security so that we could finally turn on the proactive support feature, as it is included with our support agreement."
"Product shipments did have a few bumps along the way, but that's to be expected when using any shipping company."
"Possible new features could be CSV-level snapshot capability, Veeam integration, and maybe a more straightforward setup. Granted, you don't have to worry about setups with the HCA, but if you want to implement StarWind vSAN in a lab to test it is a tedious setup process."
"Updates need improvement."
"Multi cluster support for their Command Console would be very beneficial. Currently, you can only work with a single cluster at a time. The console is new so I expect much growth in this area in the near future. The other area that could be improved is the tech support locale."
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Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is ranked 2nd in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 194 reviews while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is ranked 5th in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 65 reviews. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is rated 8.6, while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is rated 9.6. The top reviewer of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) writes "A powerful solution with easy deployment, upgrades, and management". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance writes "Straightforward to use with good remote management and a simple GUI". Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail, HPE SimpliVity, VMware vSphere and Dell PowerFlex, whereas StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, VxRail, StorMagic SvSAN and Red Hat Ceph Storage. See our Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report.
See our list of best Software Defined Storage (SDS) vendors and best HCI vendors.
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