Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
HCI (10th)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2133501 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant VP, Information Technology at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Effective deduplication feature, but lacks a unified architecture
Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series could be improved by reducing the number of nodes. Currently, the architecture separates data, computing, memory, and storage into different parts. For example, if I need around 200 servers with a requirement of TB of storage, I would need 200 clusters, which can be quite cumbersome. Other solutions like Dell and Nutanix have a single combined unit that includes computing, memory, and storage, which can reduce the number of nodes required and also reduce licensing and power consumption. Therefore, I suggest improving the architecture of the Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series by combining computing, memory, and storage into a single unit, making it more efficient and easier to manage. It will also reduce the number of nodes required and licensing costs and help to reduce power consumption. I would like to see improved internal integration capabilities in the next release. Currently, it is constrained only to VMware only. So, there is no integration part of the RAC or IEL or anything, and it isn't easy to manage it. If I want to hold another partner, then that part will not be possible. So, you have to manage that particular integration. Another feature could be in terms of memory usage.
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 most valuable features of this solution are scalability, performance, and reliability. It scales well inside of a large data center."
"The solution is stable."
"The integration between the storage and the server applications is the most valuable feature of this solution. It cuts down on the necessity to buy a secondary storage system.. It saves money in the long-run."
"Our customers have seen ROI in terms of the time they save troubleshooting."
"Easy to spin up and operate virtual machines without the overhead of managing a storage network."
"This is not the only product we use, so we have other solutions to compare it with. We can compare different products and different vendors and tell our customers which products have which advantages and disadvantages so that they can leverage these products in their own environment. This product helps us to understand the customer's needs and what issues they can run into."
"The most valuable feature is that you can manage the whole cluster from the traffic interconnect."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the connectivity, consistency, and that we now have fewer vulnerabilities on the network."
"Dell's technical support is generally very good."
"The tool's most valuable features are compression and its usage in Kubernetes."
"The best feature about any type of storage related to the Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is its ease of scaling, and with a converged infrastructure platform, you can easily add a storage node or a compute node to the stack and grow in smaller increments compared to getting a whole new array or upgrading controllers."
"The most valuable feature is the set of user tools that are available."
"Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes is scalable"
"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."
"The tool's most valuable feature is high availability."
"The product is useful for DR and other things."
 

Cons

"The primary improvements should be made in the cluster storage controller VMs so that they don't break the upgrade process."
"Stability is really poor, especially the storage stability. We lost data. There were disruptions of clusters and that's one big pain point of the solution. It's not stable enough, the documentation is not good, there's not much documentation available. For every call we need a tech engineer."
"The product does not have a cloud version...The product should be made more flexible in terms of integration capabilities."
"Its price could be better."
"If we could have just a single pane of glass, where everything can be managed through that one app, rather than have multiple apps, it would be great."
"I would like it to be easier to manage the server, create VMs, and manage the VMs on the client."
"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."
"We had a bit of complexity to think about how to migrate our legacy infrastructure into Cisco HyperFlex."
"The solution doesn't scale."
"The Dell VxRail solution is based on vSAN Ready Nodes, but the Dell VxRail is fully automated. It would be helpful if this automation feature could be added to the Dell vSAN Ready Nodes. For example, we need to install VMware ESXi, and manually expand the cluster."
"The power switch on the hardware is located in a poor location where it can accidentally be pushed. In an update, they should solve this issue so people do not push it accidentally to have their service go down. A possible solution is the switch should be inside."
"This product is not sufficiently scalable."
"There is room for improvement in the maintenance pricing. Maintenance isn't difficult, but the prices are high and ridiculous. Some customers feel it is better to go with a new solution rather than renew this one."
"Upgrades are carried out manually."
"The solution should provide daily task alerts for data recovery maintenance, usage, and other instructions to ensure the systems are in a good status."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It's roughly $30,000 per Hyperflex license, so that would be about $60,000 a year."
"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."
"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."
"We currently have a perpetual license, which is kind of unlimited, so we don't have the normal licensing cost, yet."
"We negotiated with Cisco and we got some price benefit from that."
"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."
"The tool's pricing is competitive compared to others. The tool's licensing is based on annual subscriptions."
"Comparing the price of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes to other solutions it is not expensive."
"We have a four-year contract to use Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes."
"The solution is more expensive than a traditional array. The prices are skyrocketing."
"There is a problem, which is the lack of an integrated price structure."
"The price of the solution was reasonable."
"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.
880,315 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
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 Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise11
 

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 do you like most about Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
If I consider the overall product, I would say that it is an excellent solution that offers very good performance and stability.
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...
 

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, StarWind and others in HCI. Updated: December 2025.
880,315 professionals have used our research since 2012.