We performed a comparison between NetApp HCI [EOL] and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI."The ability to keep data accessible even in the event of hardware failures is highly valued, as it ensures business continuity."
"The most useful aspect is the hyper-converged SD SAN and the ease to expand it by just adding cheap SSD or NVME disks."
"Being hardware agnostic is a must and definitely scored points for us."
"VSAN works great; it's very easy to install, configure, and manage."
"A great feature is that I basically set it and forget it, as everything is automatic."
"Active-active work mode leads to true redundancy of storage and allows us to distribute the load between multiple nodes."
"StarWind vSAN has allowed us to grow rapidly while still providing flexibility and reliability."
"It is extremely stable."
"It is highly scalable. Their support is also extremely good."
"Simple setup and having the storage and compute right on one deployment is the most valuable aspect of this solution. They're able to get set up and ready to go and start having their DevOp team deploy to that environment."
"It is scalable, and NetApp Deployment Engine (NDE) makes its deployment easier."
"We like SnapMirror and we've been using it for many years. We also like the object storage tools, as well as cloud sync for customers wanting to integrate between the cloud and local."
"Our goal with NetApp HCI is to have no single point of failure."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the SolidFire interface."
"HCI has helped with storage persistence across private and hybrid clouds for the last year. It's faster and more reliable with minimal downtime, as it doesn't require any maintenance."
"In terms of helping us with storage persistence across private and hybrid clouds, we do store data internally and in Azure. It has allowed us to consolidate a number of workloads, across our old NetApp and a number of our older storage arrays, into a single unit and have that unit also working with Azure."
"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 software is great. It's very easy to understand. I've not delved into any of the command-line stuff, but there's no real need to script it. Since it went in, pretty much the only thing that I have needed to do is increase device image sizes and that process is very straightforward."
"The sales process is easy."
"We opted for 24-hour monitoring and support, which has already paid for itself."
"Their support team is extremely helpful, and they are pretty friendly and knowledgeable."
"In our experience with StarWind, the support has been by far the most valuable feature."
"Having this all backed up by pro-active support gives us good peace of mind."
"We run probably 16 virtual machines, and all of them are now highly available, and highly redundant."
"It would be great if the Linux version of the management console offered the same features as Windows."
"vSAN's free version does not have a graphical user interface."
"Some configuration options still demand service restarting."
"The interface of the management console of the StarWind Virtual SAN is complex, and it's difficult for the novice user to interact with the management having less knowledge or training in the product."
"This is a great product."
"High availability for direct attached hardware drives could be useful for increasing the performance of a storage appliance."
"Perhaps more reporting features on the utilization, usage, and performance of the configured high-availability images and underlying physical disks would be helpful."
"It is difficult to control all of the hardware components."
"I would like to have the ability to replicate to multiple sites."
"The networking needs improvement."
"It would be nice to have better access to tutorials and a test environment for simulations."
"Its stability is very bad. It has been crashing continuously. In one year, we got three crashes, which is unbelievable for an appliance that is guaranteed for 10 years without any crash."
"I would like for them to fall a little closer to like the VMware release model. The new features and new solutions tend to come from the VMware side. I would like for NetApp to follow along closely with VMware's release schedule."
"I would like to see the implementation process improved."
"If you want to have a really dense data center then it's hard to have a big chunk of cabling going through everything."
"The deployment process has room for improvement. I would like for it to be a cookie-cutter deployment."
"The StarWind Command Center web portal could use some work."
"CSVs require the storage to be configured through iSCSI, even though the storage is local."
"The monitoring and report software is a bit hit and miss."
"The overall product documentation and knowledgebase articles could use some rewriting and clarification."
"Shipping options should be explained in detail and offer more white glove delivery options even if it comes at an additional cost for some SMBs without docks."
"We have to pay for support, which is high-end support. That can be expensive, at least for us."
"A possible thing is perhaps a customer portal to schedule a time with support online via a calendar."
"If I had to pick something to add to the product, it would be nice if you could have more than one user account on their command center VM."
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NetApp HCI [EOL] doesn't meet the minimum requirements to be ranked in HCI with 32 reviews while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is ranked 7th in HCI with 65 reviews. NetApp HCI [EOL] is rated 8.0, while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is rated 9.6. The top reviewer of NetApp HCI [EOL] writes "Ease of provisioning has allowed us to implement large installations in a very short time frame". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance writes "Straightforward to use with good remote management and a simple GUI". NetApp HCI [EOL] is most compared with , whereas StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), Dell PowerFlex, VMware vSAN, StorMagic SvSAN and VxRail.
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