No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs Dell vSAN Ready Nodes comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell vSAN Ready Nodes
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
HCI (10th)
 

Featured Reviews

Nuno Mendes - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager - Resp.Department at Parvalorem
High performance solution that makes it easy to efficiently manage VM resources
In our case as a credit recovery company working with the state, our infrastructure is fixed and stable as we don't have the same need for growth as other types of companies. That said, 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. Since we as a company will only be operating for perhaps the next ten years, when our HyperFlex solution comes to its end-of-life in 2024 our next step will likely not be with HyperFlex or any other solution from Cisco. Instead, from a financial point of view, we will likely turn toward a cloud solution because, that way, we won't have to spend so much money on physical infrastructure. We are, after all, only a small company and HyperFlex can be very expensive for other companies of our size, whether in Portugal or elsewhere like the United States. One other area for improvement is in regard to HyperFlex's integration with VMware. HyperFlex integrates with a specific version of VMware in such a way that HyperFlex doesn't always resolve security issues with VMware at the same pace as what you see in native implementations of VMware. This has happened in one or two situations in the past. On the other hand, the integration is otherwise adequate, especially in terms of availability and virtualization features (such as being able to split up each of our four hosts within VMware).
KuldeepSingh4 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Solution Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Experience improved efficiency and customer satisfaction with enhanced integration and management capabilities
Scalability involves two types of environments: VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and non-VCF environment where we use VMware Validated Foundation. With VCF we have significant automation built-in within the VCF console within SDDC manager as the primary management console. For non-VCF environments, it depends on customer choice. For small environments, we do manual scalability and sometimes use Terraform scripts to keep the host ready and add in the cluster automatically. For large environments with frequent scalability actions, we propose the Terraform solution that builds ESXi, does necessary configuration, and automatically starts up for associating with the existing environment. If scaling is infrequent, with one or two hosts per month, it is a manual job. From a challenge perspective, it seems easier, with just a few pre-checks regarding make and model compatibility, disks, and server health on the hardware level.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The possibility to share the workload is one of its most valuable features. We have many applications which have need of workloads only a few times in a month, so we share HyperFlex with them."
"Go ahead and do it."
"Its most valuable feature is its flexibility."
"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is simple to use, user-friendly and has been best for our purposes."
"It is pretty easy to set up."
"We have been using this product for a while, we wanted to use our current equipment and have been very excited with the results of our projects."
"The most valuable feature is full integration with Cisco API and UCS, which means you can have complete networking and storage from Cisco."
"The technical support has been very good for this solution."
"The benefit of using vSAN is that it's easy to manage on vCenter, you can see if there are issues, get recommendations, and overall, it's highly fault-free which is beneficial because we want to minimize downtime."
"I rate vSAN ReadyNodes as a nine out of ten."
"Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes is a great hyper-converged system that is a perfect platform for supporting any kind of workload."
"The most valuable feature of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is file sharing."
"The cost is higher compared to non-Dell vSAN Ready Nodes, but when compared with external storage solutions, there are significant benefits."
"The solution immediately expands storage area when you add nodes."
"The most valuable feature is the set of user tools that are available."
"You don't have to spend much time evaluating the hardware. It can be deployed in a short time. The tool is also easy to upgrade."
 

Cons

"I would like a lighter product; something which can be carried by a mere human. The typical size still looks like a stack of data center-sized servers, which is typically fine, but not so good if you want to carry it around."
"There could be an increase in performance to improve the solution."
"The architecture separates data, computing, memory, and storage into different parts."
"The initial setup can be complex."
"HyperFlex could be improved by reducing the minimum number of nodes supported from three to two."
"Deployment scripts can be improved since several clans need to be created before the deployment effectively works."
"There are sometimes issues with memory failure."
"The additional feature I would like to see included in the next release of this solution is more security."
"The deployment is done by doing it one by one and could be simplified."
"I would want VMware to ensure that when there's a hardware failure on a host, it should gracefully migrate the VMs to another host available in the cluster without restarting, which would be a great improvement."
"Although vSAN ReadyNodes work well, a faster firmware lifecycle with the release of validated firmware catalogs more quickly would be a desired improvement."
"Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes is a great hyper-converged system that is a perfect platform for supporting any kind of workload. The only workload that it's not designed to support is big data."
"Upgrades are carried out manually."
"Scalability is an area that could be improved. We are looking at a maximum of 32 nodes now in a cluster, but going to 64 or 128 would be a major advantage."
"Dell vSAN Ready Nodes must be flexible since it is complex in designing concepts. It needs to improve stability. The product should integrate with the public cloud."
"Dell vSAN Ready Nodes doesn't perform as well as IBM. There are significant limitations, especially with scalability and flexibility over time. For example, adding drives can be problematic if the specific drives aren't available with older nodes that are four or five years old. Unlike IBM, Dell vSAN Ready Nodes isn't as flexible and doesn't scale easily. Additionally, while present, features like deduplication and compression don't perform as efficiently as they do on IBM. Our experience shows that the tool isn't as robust or flexible as advertised."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product could be cheaper."
"We would not have invested if we didn't feel the return was there for our customers."
"Initially HyperFlex was a little costly, it was higher, but Cisco wanted to get into our company, so they gave us a fair discount."
"One of the challenges we have with HyperFlex is that they have a subscription fee for the operating system that runs on it, and if I remember correctly, it costs approximately $15,000 USD per month."
"The cost is expensive, but there is a chance to save money in the future."
"We negotiated with Cisco and we got some price benefit from that."
"When we negotiated with Cisco for the HyperFlex solution, they gave us a good price because they wanted to break into the market in Portugal for the first time. However, in general, I think it's a very expensive solution. It's a huge amount of money to acquire this kind of infrastructure."
"The product is expensive. Other solutions are cheaper."
"The price of the solution was reasonable."
"Comparing the price of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes to other solutions it is not expensive."
"The solution is more expensive than a traditional array. The prices are skyrocketing."
"We have a four-year contract to use Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes."
"There is a problem, which is the lack of an integrated price structure."
"The tool's pricing is competitive compared to others. The tool's licensing is based on annual subscriptions."
"My company makes yearly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the solution. The solution is expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which HCI solutions are best for your needs.
894,830 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Marketing Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise57
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

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 core to edge and multi-cloud environments. It helps IT and OT teams deploy hyper...
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 to invest in. Even if you are working with a limited budget, this platform offer...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
There is no specific licensing model for vSAN ReadyNodes as it is linked with Broadcom VMware's solutions rather than Dell's. As a group under Comcast, we receive very good pricing from Dell due to...
What needs improvement with Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
I would want VMware to ensure that when there's a hardware failure on a host, it should gracefully migrate the VMs to another host available in the cluster without restarting, which would be a grea...
What is your primary use case for Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
I am familiar with VMware Workstation, but we don't actually use a workstation. We only use ESXi because we're running a big organization. We have people that are responsible for a Citrix farm that...
 

Also Known As

No data available
vSAN Ready Nodes
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BluePearl Veterinary Partners, Ready Pac Foods, Bryant University, Bellevue Group, KPIT Technologies, City Harvest
Rackspace
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Broadcom, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: May 2026.
894,830 professionals have used our research since 2012.