We performed a comparison between Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series 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."vSAN we found was simple to set up, easy to configure and manage and allows us to achieve storage redundancy."
"StarWind vSAN has allowed us to grow rapidly while still providing flexibility and reliability."
"One of the standout features of StarWind.com is its remarkable ability to seamlessly integrate with Dell systems. This integration provides users with an unmatched level of convenience and compatibility, allowing for streamlined operations within a Dell environment. This compatibility factor alone can save significant time and effort for IT professionals, ensuring a smooth integration process and optimized performance."
"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."
"We test live failovers every week, and so far, everything has been running smoothly without anything unexpected."
"It includes every feature that a traditional SAN offers and so much more."
"In addition to the main functions of the software, I want to note the excellent work of technical support."
"Starwind support is excellent. They are very fast and have very good knowledge of Starwind and Hyper-V Cluster software."
"The scalability of the product is quite good overall - as long as you plan correctly from the outset."
"The management from the switches to the hyper-convergence solutions are quite good and well-developed."
"It allows us to authorize our residents to come in using their own personal devices to access any of our clinical applications and ensure that the PHI is secure and protected."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco HyperFlex HX is that it is self-contained."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"It's easy to get the tool started."
"The most valuable feature is that it is something small that can be more easily deployed than a full data center set of servers."
"Being able to log on to the GUI to see specific data and usage statistics, executing clones, starting and stopping VMs, etc., is great."
"The support is the most valuable feature. The support has been amazing. It's around the clock. One of our hard disks accidentally ejected without me knowing or being onsite. They called and told me about it before I had a chance to see it myself."
"Live migration between nodes was quick and simple."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the redundancy and its cost. I used to have a SAN, a Dell EMC EqualLogic. Unfortunately, it was they call an "inverted pyramid of doom." It was two or three hosts, two switches, and one storage array at the very bottom. But the SAN, the storage array at the very bottom, is a single point of failure..."
"The most valuable feature is the high-availability. We have three nodes, and all data will be synched instantly through all the nodes. Even if we had a disaster where two nodes failed, containing dozens of critical machines, almost automatically, all the loads would be run on the remaining node."
"With StarWind's Proactive monitoring we can go about our day helping our customers and not have to worry about our cluster's health."
"Repair efforts have been reduced to nearly nothing."
"The customer service has been the most valuable feature of the product to me."
"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."
"This solution should be more self-sufficient, running without creating domains or failover clusters."
"It would be nice to see a new UI for the windows client, as it is not the easiest to find settings."
"For improvement, I would like to see how the software determines which networks to use for which purpose. It seems like the naming terminology changes a bit from here to there."
"Perhaps the developer should refine the product management through PowerShell."
"Maybe in the future, the replication will be supported in more cloud providers."
"This product could be improved with the inclusion of new health check procedures."
"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."
"In the next release, Cisco should add more integration and management capabilities as well as some tweaks to the dashboard that make it more user-friendly. They could also add support for multiple hypervisors."
"Lacks some integration and documentation could be improved."
"You have to get the same servers with the same storage; they need to be identical. However, in vSAN or in VMware we don't have to do that. We can just add storage and manage it in the same server."
"If we compare it with VMware, the VMware product is basically very open, and it can be easily integrated with any platform. VMware product is also available on the cloud and is not an appliance-based product, whereas Cisco HyperFlex is an appliance-based product. Companies that want to use HCI as a platform or as a service would prefer something without an appliance. A SaaS-based product is better for a customer who is using the cloud and has multiple resources, workflows, and devices on the cloud and wants to go for a hyper-converged solution. This is where improvement is needed. In addition to an appliance-based product, Cisco should provide a SaaS-based product. Its price should be lower. Cisco needs to work on the pricing model for this product. Its price is a big road blocker when competing against Nutanix and VMware, which are its main competitors."
"The additional feature I would like to see included in the next release of this solution is more security. We want to add more data servers to all the hosts all over the world. We have 140 hosts that connect to one data center in Manila."
"The initial setup could be faster, due to the prerequisites."
"The problem is that we always have to keep an eye out for new releases to make sure that the version we're running is up-to-date."
"One of the biggest problems with HyperFlex HX is that if you want to adjust your solution in terms of processing power, memory, or disk capacity, you have to buy completely new hosts. From a financial perspective, it can be very expensive to do so, and from a legal perspective, there are all kinds of compliance issues we would have to sort out before buying any new solution or application."
"I think that the pre-installation questionnaire was a little confusing and ambiguous."
"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."
"It would be nice if it were possible to do the ISCSI setup that you do on Windows directly in the management GUI of StarWind."
"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."
"Although the setup documentation was very complete and succinct, I found StarWind documentation to be a bit sparse."
"The truth is that the operation and support offered is good, but we consider that the product's usability could improve, as well as the data resynchronization time after an unexpected closure."
"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."
"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 →
Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is ranked 8th in HCI with 90 reviews while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is ranked 6th in HCI with 65 reviews. Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is rated 8.0, while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is rated 9.6. The top reviewer of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series writes "A fast and easy deployment that allows secure access to our medical applications ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance writes "Straightforward to use with good remote management and a simple GUI". Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), Dell PowerFlex and HPE SimpliVity, whereas StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, VxRail and StorMagic SvSAN. See our Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report.
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