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.
"Speed and high availability have been the most valuable for us."
"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."
"The instant failover, with vSAN copying data to the second node, allowed for the continuous availability of our applications."
"You can turn your local disk storage into high-availability iSCSI storage."
"The most valuable feature is the fact that the nodes are Active/Active, and allow us to do upgrades on any node without any downtime."
"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."
"In the three years that we have been using StarWind, the product has yet to cause us any problems."
"One of the most valuable features is the way it sets up the virtual SAN, because we don't have to buy a separate appliance for storage. It uses the existing storage on the servers, which is definitely a cost savings for us."
"This is a very flexible solution that you are able to run however you want."
"Performing a Nutanix software upgrade is a very simple and non-disruptive process."
"In general, being able to patch and not having to pay for SanDisk is the best thing about hyper-converged."
"The dashboard of Nutanix Acropolis AOS allows for simple management. The dashboard has all the information online about what's going on at any given time."
"We are suggesting Nutanix to the management because of scalability and time efficiency."
"One of the most valuable features is that it can be applied at any scale."
"It has a user-friendly dashboard and interface."
"The initial setup was quite straightforward."
"Live migration between nodes was quick and simple."
"The product runs wonderfully and has already gone through several failure tests."
"The low cost of this solution has also made a big difference in our budget, which has been very helpful."
"It improved all services running on the new cluster and took up less space and less energy."
"High-availability is what I bought it for."
"The hardware footprint is perfect. It fits in our rack perfectly, and we were able to condense a lot of physical servers we had. It has greatly eliminated the excess stuff in our server rack..."
"UI Options are simple and easy to find."
"Customer service has been excellent. Any questions we have had have been answered quickly."
"The product can include a more simple way of synchronization after a forced shutdown as the current process has a few more steps to check that hosts have synchronized and this can be automated."
"The only thing that I have any difficulty with is that in order to perform upgrades, it is required that the SANs be detached from the Hosts before that can happen."
"It would help us if the vendor continues to release software updates for earlier versions of the Windows operating systems."
"It would be great if it provided thin provisioned virtual disks."
"StarWind doesn't really have any performance reporting, especially compared with other vSAN products we've used."
"I would definitely like to see quite a bit more on the monitoring side of things."
"The documentation is good yet is still lacking in a few areas."
"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."
"I would like them to update their licensing to provide more features with their basic license."
"There is a need is to be able to consume Nutanix storage from outside the cluster for other, non-Nutanix workloads."
"Compatible with third party hardware, but it's still very limited."
"The storage and back-up facilities could be improved. We need day-to-day encrypting of the database."
"The pricing model for software and hardware subscription renewals can be improved."
"The scalability of Nutanix Acropolis AOS needs improvement."
"I would enjoy an advanced mode where experienced users can leverage their knowledge to do advanced things currently only allowed using the command line tools on the CVM."
"It was not a great fit for really large databases that required high-end or lots of compute. They might already have addressed this concern around very high-end databases that require high-end compute. In the past, it wasn't a great fit for them."
"I honestly cannot think of anything else to be improved, as I rarely have to interact with the Starwind product."
"At the moment, the initial configuration is very technical and error-prone. That is the reason Starwind does it for you as a service, which is a great thing. But it would be nice if we could change or rearrange storage assignments ourselves."
"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."
"The overall product documentation and knowledgebase articles could use some rewriting and clarification."
"What would have to be done urgently is the adaptation of the hardware to the configuration."
"It would be nice if the software told you a new version was available and prompted you to do the upgrade to keep everything up to date."
"I think that the pre-installation questionnaire was a little confusing and ambiguous."
"We ran into some issues with going from Hyper-V 2012 R2 to Hyper-V 2019."
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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, VMware vSphere, HPE SimpliVity and Dell PowerFlex, whereas StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, VxRail, StorMagic SvSAN and HPE SimpliVity. 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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