Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs HPE Hyper Converged comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

StarWind Virtual SAN
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.6
Number of Reviews
183
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st), HCI (4th)
Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE Hyper Converged
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
HCI (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2024, in the HCI category, the mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.3%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] is 3.0%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Hyper Converged is 3.4%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
Unique Categories:
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
11.2%
No other categories found
No other categories found
 

Featured Reviews

DH
Apr 14, 2021
Helpful and proactive support, offers full redundancy, and is cost-effective
StarWind Virtual SAN has been a welcomed addition to my network Overall, StarWinds vSAN is a cost-saving storage option with top-notch support. The vSAN provides full redundancy for storage while reclaiming some rack space. I can focus on other IT needs now, rather than having to worry about…
RR
Dec 21, 2020
Quite scalable, stable, and offers good technical support
My role in the company is pre-sales. We offer this solution to our clients. As a partner, we don't use Cisco HyperFlex, but we propose HyperFlex for the customer. For the deployment, we can deploy for the DC and DRC side, for the synchronous replication, and also for the stress cluster, we can also deploy for the X location as the HyperFlex has a HyperFex extraction for the X location. I'm in Indonesia, and in this particular country/region, this solution isn't really used very widely. Nutanix is more famous in Indonesia, as it can be used by the SMB customer or small customers up to enterprises. Most hyper-converged solutions that are used in Indonesia are Nutanix. I would recommend the solution to other organizations, however, only if it made sense and fit their company's needs. Overall, I would rate the product eight out of ten.
Tomas Sajauka - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 30, 2024
Easy to setup and manage and offers good scalability
Scaling and ease of management are good features.  In my country, the biggest issue is probably pricing. I have been working with HPE for the past ten years.  In my experience, some business cases existed in the past. From my own country's perspective, currently, we haven't seen new customers…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The ability for us to manage all of our nodes from the same console makes systems administration very easy."
"StarWind allows us to move virtual machines from one physical host to another, which greatly reduces the downtime required for maintenance."
"It allows me to configure High Availability and failover clustering with some fault tolerance, at a cost point that doesn’t break the bank for a small business budget."
"The install itself is easy as pie."
"In our case, the cost and high availability are the two most important factors which we were looking for in a solution."
"This solution has a very good user interface, with simple administration/management."
"It has reduced our overall maintenance and overhead by having to only maintain physical boxes for one cluster instead of having to manage physical boxes for two clusters."
"I like the asynchronous replication and failover features. They are what I'm primarily using it for. The asynchronous replication is helpful because our servers are backed up continuously throughout the day. If anything goes wrong we just fail over immediately. That is a very nice feature to have."
"I love the Cisco design, the visual interface to manage and use the platform."
"The most important benefits that we've seen from this solution is that it reduces the cost of management and it has easy monitoring systems."
"Easy to spin up and operate virtual machines without the overhead of managing a storage network."
"There are some slight cost advantages when you need fewer resources to manage it."
"It consumes a smaller footprint when I compare it with other competitors."
"The speed, storage, and management are the most valuable features."
"It has reduced the time it takes to put the servers in production by half the time."
"It is very scalable. It is also easy to scan."
"The scalability of this tool is very good. You can basically add more storage and seamlessly expand the current storage that you have."
"The HA, which means I have a copy of the VMs always available, and the moment a VM is down, the system tries to power it on again."
"Hyper-convergence is the most valuable aspect of the solution. We can avoid downtime when there's maintenance or updates needed. Also, we have homogenous hardware, so we have a lot of trust in the solution's reliability."
"The most valuable features of this solution are fast deployment, security, and it is easy to upgrade."
"Our storage and IT are now at an enterprise level with all the necessary controls and restrictions being enacted."
"Ease of management, as I come from a software background, and I'm responsible for IT overall. I can get in there and turn some nuts and bolts and make things happen without any trouble."
"Hyper Converge is easier to manage and performs better than traditional infrastructure."
"What I really like about this program, is that it needs little space and it works really fast, so it saves us time."
 

Cons

"The management console of StarWind Virtual SAN is pretty complex."
"We just need more integration with Veeam."
"Being able to run StarWind vSAN on top of any free UNIX operating system to build a resilient iSCSI/FTP/SMB storage system would be useful."
"Some of the documentation seems to be a bit older and refers to deprecated items."
"vSAN's free version does not have a graphical user interface."
"Updating the software can be a bit tricky."
"It would be great if it provided thin provisioned virtual disks."
"I wish there was online support because email return takes a long time and a faster solution should be found."
"I would like it to be easier to manage the server, create VMs, and manage the VMs on the client."
"In the next release, I would like to see them able to connect to the public cloud."
"Cisco should combine its features with its prices."
"The utilization needs to be better. It needs more options."
"HyperFlex could be improved by reducing the minimum number of nodes supported from three to two."
"They should give us a little more information about how to use the CLI and offer more commands."
"Their technical support is very bad. We had an issue where instead of an engineer we got a PDF "doctor" that didn't know anything about our problem which was very frustrating."
"This solution is lacking in replication and backup abilities that I would like to see in a future release similar to HPE SimpliVity."
"Data protection and optimization: It is really weak. They do not offer deduplication or compression."
"I would like to see more deduplication."
"If the solution could further compress the data, it would use less storage."
"Scalability requires using additional nodes."
"The product must provide more storage capability."
"We have faced some challenges when upgrading. With Hyper Converged, you have to fully upgrade because there are no incremental upgrades available in this solution. For example, let's say we have two nodes. If we want to upgrade storage, we also need to upgrade computing. That means a full upgrade EME."
"Could be more secure and more economical."
"We've had to do a power cycle to bring it all the way down, bring it back up for power outages, A/C shut-downs of our DC office, but it hasn't presented a problem."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"This solution has competitive prices and the implementation is very easy."
"The cost was ultimately low to implement, which allowed us to be 3-2-1 complaint."
"I think that purchasing StarWind Virtual SAN Professional Edition would be optimal for most."
"The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great."
"I think the bang for the buck is much better with StarWind Virtual SAN."
"The support contract is well worth it. The price for it was very reasonable and their team has been very engaged whenever we reach out."
"The cost takes into account the number of nodes, so the size of the storage is not important."
"The price is a bit high. It could be better, but the product is worth the cost."
"I would like a clearer licensing model. It should explain a bit more what you receive if you buy the more expensive license rather than the standard one."
"They are not the cheapest on the market. But there's an old saying I like to quote: "If you know that you are getting what you pay for, it's fine if it's expensive.""
"Its price is high. Cisco needs to work on the pricing model for this product. Nutanix or VMware are cheaper products, and they provide almost the same functionality. Its price is a big road blocker when we are working with an end customer, and Nutanix and VMware are in competition. If they can reduce its price, it is actually a better choice for customers."
"Its price is rather fair when compared with other solutions like VxRail, vSAN, and HPE SimpliVity. We got a fair amount of discount from Cisco for Cisco HyperFlex. It is cost-effective. We have renewed storage till next year, and we have already paid the vendor. When we talk about HyperFlex or any HCI solution, storage is the part where we can reduce a lot of costs. At the current moment, we are already using NetApp storage, which did not allow us to go for a full Cisco HyperFlex setup. We are planning to go to a larger scale next year. Then we will be able to see how cost-effective it really is for us."
"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"There is no additional licensing cost other than the cost for each part."
"The price is a bit too high."
"Pricing with Dell EMC is double the price which I paid for HPE. However, in the end, Dell EMC is double in performance. This is not an apple to apple comparison though, as I have a four node from Dell EMC and a three node."
"It could be cheaper, everything could be cheaper."
"The solution is too expensive for our customers. The pricing should be lower."
"If I'm comparing with Dell, HPE Hyper Converged is definitely cheaper in my experience."
"The solutions cost us a lot."
"The price per value compared to other solutions, like Nutanix and SimpliVity. (We made the deal before approval of HPE SimpliVity deal)."
"The product's pricing is very competitive because HPE provides a buyback policy to users...Users can make either monthly or yearly payments towards the licensing cause of the solution."
"HPE Hyper Converged is an affordable solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
25%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about StarWind Virtual SAN?
It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combin...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
Make the most of your 30-day trial license, and if needed, you should contact the sales department of StarWind to ext...
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
The StarWind vSAN solution is versatile and offers broad support for different hypervisors and deployment formats. Du...
How do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?
Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from ...
How does VxRail compare with Cisco HyperFlex HX Series?
VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company ...
What do you like most about HPE Hyper Converged?
The solution's most valuable features are scalability, easy migration, easy recovery, and flexible backup possibilities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Hyper Converged?
On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten.
What needs improvement with HPE Hyper Converged?
The solution's pricing for the hardware and support could be reduced.
 

Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS
No data available
HPE Hyper Converged 380, HPE Hyper Converged 250, HPE Hyper Converged 250 for Microsoft CPS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
BluePearl Veterinary Partners, Ready Pac Foods, Bryant University, Bellevue Group, KPIT Technologies, City Harvest
North Lindsey College, FireWhat?, HudsonAlpha
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