HPE SimpliVity vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between HPE SimpliVity 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.
To learn more, read our detailed HPE SimpliVity vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It has been extremely stable for the three years we've been running it.""It has allowed us to save a lot of time and money by letting us create a vSAN within a Windows VM on the environment it controls.""Having the ability to migrate machines live in our environment was made possible by this software.""In addition to the main functions of the software, I want to note the excellent work of technical support.""StarWind vSAN has allowed us to leverage our server infrastructure more completely without the need to add more hardware.""The ability for us to manage all of our nodes from the same console makes systems administration very easy.""You can turn your local disk storage into high-availability iSCSI storage.""The product gave us a cost-effective way to deploy a highly available server environment."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Pros →

"​Stability is pretty good. We have no complaints as it has been running seamlessly with no downtime.​""The backup feature is valuable, and replication is also valuable. It is very quick and easy to use.""The most valuable feature is the quick restore.""​My impression is that it is a very nice solution. Very simple to use.""HPE SimpliVity is a very valuable and effective solution. It's also a scalable solution. As the customer requirements and application requirements increase, it can scale to accommodate them.""The feature that I have found most valuable is the backup recovery.""It has reduced my data center activities.""The HyperGuarantee is unique and the accelerator card is the primary IP with the product."

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"The most valuable aspect of StarWind is the all-in-one solution that they provide.""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.""We were able to set it up via the documentation and only needed their support a handful of times.""Live migration between nodes was quick and simple.""The option to deploy a hyper-converged system without an expensive storage switch was a benefit.""The initial setup is straightforward once you know what you're doing.""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.""Reliability and overall uptime are key as we're also hosting client environments in addition to our own."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Pros →

Cons
"We just need more integration with Veeam.""Initially, when we first started, the sync was horrible.""The only way I can see this product needing improvement is the consultation level of the StarWind sales and engineers.""A great feature would be a wizard and to include a new disk in the SAN. At the moment, including a new disk requires several steps - some that must be done at the OS level and others in each node.""Currently, the StarWind management console is a bit clunky to navigate and isn't the most user-intuitive interface.""I see no need for major improvements but there could be some improvements in the form of notifications and the simplifying of maintenance mode.""You have to do a "full" sync on write-back cache disks instead of a quick sync if there is an issue.""The documentation could be better."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Cons →

"SimpliVity needs to add support for Hyper-V and KVM.""The setup was complex, as it has multiple integrations with multiple orients.""Increased storage capacity for big data, something that we have not had.""One thing that I would like to see improved is the flexibility of the node expansion.""We had one call with technical support which was not completely answered to our satisfaction. We did not receive the right answer.""​I do not see the product really working in productivity at the moment with real loads.​""The stability and scalability of the product are areas of concern where improvements are required.""Upgrading can be complicated."

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"Most meetings are done via Zoom, and I'm sure you could switch to a text based conversation if needed as they seem like a very accommodating team. It's not something I would worry about if you are a potential client.""Not much can be improved, to be honest.""At times there has been a language barrier when communicating issues.""A desired feature or service is the ability to have a hardware subscription plan that ensures routine hardware updates in conjunction with the hyper-converged software.""The only critique I might have is that the support is overseas in Eastern Europe and, on occasion, there has been a language issue. But in general, they're as good as can be...""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.""The only issue we have had was the issue of performance, however, that is only due to the fact that we purchased a mix of SSD and regular spindle drives, and restoring databases was slow as it was trying to restore the database using the spindle drives.""A possible thing is perhaps a customer portal to schedule a time with support online via a calendar."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great."
  • "We are happy with the price."
  • "The license is reusable. We can always rebuild it and apply the license. Then, boom, we get new servers, apply the license, and we're back up and running."
  • "The pricing is fine for the work that it does."
  • "When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."
  • "The scalability limitation for us is its licensing. At some point in the fairly near future, we will probably have to upgrade our license so we can store eight terabytes instead of four. We are currently at four terabytes, but we're starting to knock on the door of that capacity."
  • "The pricing is excellent. It will run on anything. You don't have to buy a $100,000 server, with hardware you don't need. You just pay for the license and you're good to go."
  • "The licensing is a bit weird. If you license the standard version of StarWind, it allows you four terabytes. Then, they have a pro version, but with the pro version, the only difference is it doubles the terabytes to eight."
  • More StarWind Virtual SAN Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "This solution, while costly as all these solutions are, was in fact less expensive than upgrading my old SAN."
  • "The price should be cheaper."
  • "ESXi licensing is a big part of initial investment if you do not already have that covered."
  • "All-in license, simple and fair."
  • "Other vendors fall short on price compared to HPE on this product."
  • "​Cost is a factor. It is quite expensive."
  • "It seemed like it was expensive at first. Now that I have had it installed for a period of time, I think I got a great deal."
  • "For most use cases, look to see if you can use all-flash as the price point, as it has come down significantly."
  • More HPE SimpliVity Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "A desired feature or service would be the ability to have a hardware subscription plan that ensures routine hardware updates in conjunction with hyper-converged software."
  • "Its cost was reasonable."
  • "This was all completed at an affordable price point for an SMB, which was also a key element for an NPO."
  • "When I researched they came the most cost-effective."
  • "The other solutions we were looking at were priced much higher than this and they didn't necessarily have full redundancy... Nutanix and VxRail were in the final running... but it came down to our price point."
  • "I honestly feel that there's no one else in the market doing what they're doing for the price point that they're doing it at. That's why I asked them about investing in their company. I think that the options they're providing and the software that they have is sort of revolutionary for the price point... The total cost was $24,400."
  • "The Nutanix piece was about $45,000, getting close to $50,000 with all the licensing involved, whereas the StarWind was less than half of that, after Microsoft licensing and such."
  • "We looked at Nutanix and found it did almost the same thing but for more money. In fact, StarWind was nearly one-third of the price; it cost us £36,000. That includes five years of monitoring... The Nutanix was near enough £110,000 for relatively the same amount of performance and storage."
  • More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combines… more »
    Top Answer:I would highly advise new users to consult the StarWind technical team beforehand. Also, consider the paid version if… more »
    Top Answer:You can maintain and update it with little to no fuss, even the free version is incredibly capable whilst it brings the… more »
    Top Answer:HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We… more »
    Top Answer:What I appreciate most about HPE SimpliVity is its seamless integration of hardware.
    Top Answer:HPE SimpliVity offers competitive pricing, generally lower than some alternatives. However, I believe there is room for… more »
    Top Answer:StarWind's proactive support is my favorite feature.
    Top Answer:Keep in mind that StarWind VMs for the vSAN will take up 24GB of memory per host. If you do decide to go with StarWind… more »
    Top Answer:I honestly don't have anything to complain about. Nothing is perfect, though, over the past three years, there were two… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    StarWind SAN & NAS
    SimpliVity, HPE HCI
    Learn More
    Overview

    StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments without the need for dedicated SAN hardware. It allows for real-time replication between servers, shared storage for Hyper-V clusters, and enables vMotion and High Availability features for VMware vSphere. The solution reduces costs and leverages existing hardware while providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure. Valuable features include ease of use, scalability, top-tier support, hardware agnosticism, and the ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space. StarWind VSAN has helped organizations improve performance, data availability, and data security while reducing downtime and providing cost-saving storage options.

    HPE SimpliVity is an HCI software solution that provides powerful data protection, reducing data loss along with lowering the risk of ransomware attacks on your enterprise.

    HPE SimpliVity Features

    HPE SimpliVity has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Flexible, compact architecture
    • Centralized management
    • AI-driven intelligence
    • Built-in data protection and disaster recovery
    • VM-centric management and mobility
    • Simple to deploy, manage, and scale

    HPE SimpliVity Benefits

    There are several benefits to implementing HPE SimpliVity. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Efficient: HPE SimpliVity helps reduce the number of devices in your data center while also decreasing the total cost of ownership.
    • Cloud benefits with enterprise capabilities: When your enterprise deploys HPE SimpliVity, you gain the agility, elasticity, and affordability offered by cloud computing.
    • Affordable and flexible: The solution provides IT teams with the performance, reliability, and resiliency of on-premises infrastructure. HPE SimpliVity allows them to start virtualizing their enterprise while also keeping sensitive data safe.
    • Reduced risk of data loss: Because HPE SimpliVity is a powerful solution with built-in resiliency, backup, and disaster recovery, it is able to provide advanced data protection that reduces your organization’s risk of data loss and also lowers the risk of ransomware attacks.
    • Speed: HPE SimpliVity gives you the ability to deploy blocks and manage VM environments quickly and easily by using the VMware interface. In addition, the solution allows you to quickly view all data centers and remote offices within a single interface.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by HPE SimpliVity users.

    Jeff S., Information Technology Manager at Troyer Foods, Inc. says the solution has “Phenomenal deduplication and compression, good support, and works on its own. SimpliVity is integrated with the hypervisor, and you have a single pane of glass. It is really hands-off. Once you set your backup schedules, you're done.

    A Senior Datacenter Consultant at a computer software company mentions, “The most valuable feature is the ease of use and the storage virtualization layer, together with the built-in backups. That's what makes SimpliVity really useful, and how you can replicate data between different sites without paying an extra license for that feature. All the features are built into the product.”

    PeerSpot user Doug C., IT Engineer at a government, comments, “Backups and restores occur very quickly. All SimpliVity management is done through vCenter, providing a single-pane of glass for all management and configuration functions. The advanced deduplication and compression greatly reduce the storage requirements, reducing the amount of expensive flash storage required.The 10G interfaces between the SimpliVity nodes greatly speeds up VM migrations between nodes. SimpliVity enables "stretched-cluster" operation with mirrored storage between the nodes, enabling automated failover. If a node or site goes down for any reason, the VMs on that node are automatically restarted on the other node.”

    German I., Solutions Architect Data Center Servers and Storage at Tecnologia informatica, explains, “The integration possibilities regarding the administration console are one of the best configurations and one of the best features that differentiates this product from others in the market. Also, you can add extra coverage protection that includes everything inside of the hard drives — similar products don't do this. You can use it directly from the hypervisor, which is great.”

    For SMB, ROBO and Enterprises, who look to bring in quick deployment and operation simplicity to virtualization workloads and reduce related expenses, our solution is StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA). It unifies commodity servers, disks and flash, hypervisor of choice, StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN and associated software into a single manageable layer. The HCA supports scale-up by adding disks and flash, and scale-out by adding extra nodes.

    StarWind HyperConverged Appliance consists of StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN “Ready Nodes”, targeting those, who are building their virtualization infrastructure from scratch. In case there is an existing set of servers, we offer a “software only version”, which is essentially our years proven StarWind Virtual SAN. Basically, it’s the fuel powering StarWind HCA. 

    Sample Customers
    Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
    Red Bull Racing, Mandarin Oriental, Brigham Young University, UCLA, Merlin Entertainments, Sasa Cosmetics, Travelport, St. John’s Riverside Hospital, Princess House
    Sears Home and Franchise Business
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Construction Company8%
    Educational Organization8%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Computer Software Company8%
    Construction Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization50%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Government5%
    Manufacturing Company5%
    REVIEWERS
    Construction Company12%
    Computer Software Company10%
    Transportation Company8%
    Real Estate/Law Firm7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company20%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Educational Organization7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business65%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise58%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business34%
    Midsize Enterprise26%
    Large Enterprise40%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise59%
    Large Enterprise27%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business65%
    Midsize Enterprise27%
    Large Enterprise8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business37%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise49%
    Buyer's Guide
    HPE SimpliVity vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about HPE SimpliVity vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    768,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    HPE SimpliVity is ranked 5th in HCI with 149 reviews while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is ranked 6th in HCI with 65 reviews. HPE SimpliVity is rated 8.6, while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is rated 9.6. The top reviewer of HPE SimpliVity writes "Provides a unified management interface that allows administrators to manage all aspects of the infrastructure". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance writes "Straightforward to use with good remote management and a simple GUI". HPE SimpliVity is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE Alletra dHCI and Rubrik, whereas StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex and VxRail. See our HPE SimpliVity vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report.

    See our list of best HCI vendors.

    We monitor all HCI reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.