We performed a comparison between Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series and VxRail 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."StarWind vSAN is easy to deploy and administer."
"You can turn your local disk storage into high-availability iSCSI storage."
"The ability to choose our own hardware and our own vendors for this was hugely beneficial, as we had pre-existing relationships with vendors we wanted to maintain."
"It's quite easy to manage."
"The install itself is easy as pie."
"StarWind Virtual SAN is a highly flexible solution, as it can be deployed on physical servers or on top of virtual machines running on hypervisors such as VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V."
"The access to our data is quicker and cheaper than it used to be in a traditional storage system."
"I've had to open a few support cases over the years due to administrator errors, and the support received was top-notch."
"The VX machines are scalable."
"Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series' deployment is easy. We are a tier-one platinum partner who is into multiple implementations."
"We find the setup quite straightforward and very easy."
"Installation is straightforward because it's a vSAN. It only took one or two days."
"It is truly a hyper-converged infrastructure, so everything is there together."
"One-click upgrade is valuable because upgrading an environment that is considered a traditional one is something that we never do or are never going to complete. It is very time-consuming for my team. With the one-click upgrade, it is much quicker. There are preparation stages, but it takes less time, so we are also saving time in the daily administration."
"The initial setup was not complex."
"I would recommend VxRail, it works for most of the use cases."
"It gives us tons of flexibility. We can create new machines, then destroy them if they don't work out. We test a lot of use cases that may or may not play out. We can build all types of scenarios into virtual machines that we may or may not use. If we don't use them, we just turn them off, no using up resources."
"VxRail has given us a lot of tools in a one-stop-shop environment."
"Dell owns the EMC, EMC owns VMware, and there are many other interconnections throughout the industry which allows a fully integrated solution from a technical perspective."
"The tool's price is competitive and it is easy to use."
"Though I have learned some of the nuances with the upgrading of firmware/windows/etc., it would be nice to have a more efficient method of doing so."
"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."
"While StarWind.com excels in numerous areas, there are a couple of notable functionalities that it currently lacks. One of these is duplication, which could be an invaluable feature for data redundancy and backup purposes. The ability to duplicate data across different storage locations can be crucial for safeguarding against data loss, and its absence is a minor limitation in an otherwise stellar offering."
"Other vendors such as VMware vSAN have a bigger community of users, so it is easier to find more pre-sale or post-sale information from users."
"It would be good to have a little more access to control certain aspects within the UI."
"The documentation is good. However, if compared with competitors, it could be enhanced and made more professional."
"If there was one feature I would like to see it would be a built-in subsystem for managing UPS backups shutdown procedures providing a way to initiate VM shutdown on all host servers, shut down the host servers, then put the fault-tolerant mirroring in standby, and finally shut down the StarWind SANs."
"I'm sure it needs bug fixes..."
"Support could be better."
"The user management could be a bit better. It's something they could improve upon in future releases."
"Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series needs to improve its stability. Its resolution should be faster."
"With the VX machines, the clients often confuse the hardware itself with the services and resources. VMs are configured according to resources - memory, hard disk capacity, and network. These resources, including memory and processor, are actually shared on the VX Series. So, if the server's processor is underpowered or unreliable for the VMs, many of the VMs will encounter issues. Ideally, the physical server configuration should align more closely with the needs of the virtual servers."
"The licensing costs are too expensive. They should work on their pricing model."
"I would like better integration with VCF from VMware, which is the Cloud Foundation tool set, so we can easily provision servers very quickly."
"The update for the graphics integration and the media drivers isn't included in the VxRail update."
"You have to buy a new server if you want to scale up."
"What I find very valuable is VxRail's life cycle management. The life cycle management takes care of everything from firmware to the actual upgrading of the hypervisor and keeps everything up to level."
"If they continue developing their product regarding VMware, it will be one of the best products in the HCI space. In terms of additional features, there is nothing missing because, for data protection, they also have the CDP option for VM. They can protect the VM at any point in time."
"The product has high pricing. This particular area needs improvement."
"We would like to see integrating with Nutanix. Currently, we are working on integrating the two to see if there is any value in doing so."
Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series is ranked 15th in HCI with 4 reviews while VxRail is ranked 1st in HCI with 117 reviews. Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series is rated 8.6, while VxRail is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series writes "simplifies management for clients familiar with VMware, and offers a user-friendly management and configuration experience". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VxRail writes "Offers a hassle-free, complete package, and is energy-efficient". Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series is most compared with Dell vSAN Ready Nodes, Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series, HPE Alletra dHCI, HPE Hyper Converged and HPE SimpliVity, whereas VxRail is most compared with VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, HPE SimpliVity, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure. See our Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series vs. VxRail report.
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