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Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

Cisco and StarWind are both solutions in the HCI category. Additionally, 89% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.
StarWind Virtual SAN
Read 196 StarWind Virtual SAN reviews
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  • 3,180 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary
We performed a comparison between Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] and StarWind Virtual SAN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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HCI
July 2025
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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
StarWind Virtual SAN
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
196
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st), HCI (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

Nuno Mendes - PeerSpot reviewer
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).
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Vladimir Simion - PeerSpot reviewer
Achieving seamless cost-saving implementation with exceptional support
The best features that StarWind Virtual SAN offers include the price because comparing to other virtual SAN solutions, this one is the best, and it also has a great support team behind it. My experience with their support has been positive, as their guides regarding the integration are very useful. They have some awesome guides online that show you exactly how to configure the product, how to do the initial setup, and you can speak with them directly. They will be able to connect and verify your setup, run its parameters and see exactly what's working and what is not, and they really help you with that. StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization and my customer through initial cost saving. They use this product in a dark site, so I'm not able to provide any additional details about this, but they were really glad about it, they're still using it, and they asked for extending the capacity for it and the support. They really want to use it and are enjoying using it.
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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's easy to get the tool started."
"The initial setup is easy."
"It is a solution that best suits thre needs of our organization."
"There are some slight cost advantages when you need fewer resources to manage it."
"It is very scalable. It is also very secure. Cisco's security portfolio is integrated with it, which makes it secure. It is a platform-based device. Its performance is also fairly good in comparison to any other solution."
"The technical support has been very good for this solution."
"Our customers have seen ROI in terms of the time they save troubleshooting."
"The solution scales extremely well."
More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pros
"The install itself is easy as pie."
"The iSCSI protocol is quite simple to configure."
"Starwind made it easy to deploy fully redundant, highly available storage at a low cost."
"The ROI is great on this product."
"I have found the graphical user interface to be the most useful thing about Virtual SAN."
"The product only requires two VMWare ESXi host servers versus three host servers for VMware's comparable solution."
"The Windows-based StarWind GUI is easy to use and understand and integrates seamlessly with VMware's vSphere portal as well."
"The ability to keep data accessible even in the event of hardware failures is highly valued, as it ensures business continuity."
More StarWind Virtual SAN pros
 

Cons

"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 setup was complex, especially since we usually do all the planning, sizing, and workflows before integration."
"I have been receiving a memory overflow message every day when I use the solution."
"The deployment could be made a little bit easier, as we still seem to struggle with it a little bit for a day or so to get it running."
"The initial setup can be complex."
"The initial setup could be faster, due to the prerequisites."
"A stretch function is really needed. Germans think that because of the high availability and the security that two data centers are better but we want edge all in one cluster. This is a needed feature, the cluster feature, and we'd also like to see a possibility for ROBO offices."
"I would like for them to develop integration with other technologies, like SD Access. It's still lacking an enhancement management player."
More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] cons
"At this moment, I have not seen a return on investment with StarWind Virtual SAN."
"While it is possible to implement disk encryption in StarWind using Windows Bitlocker, such a solution can be a little tricky to manage."
"Initially, when we first started, the sync was horrible."
"I would say that the documentation is mostly great, however, some features could be expanded upon a bit."
"There needs to be more visibility on how long the cloud replication will take as there is no current ETA."
"One point for improvement is to increase the performance capabilities of the Windows-based executable as compared to its Linux Controller Virtual Machine (CVM) equivalent."
"Some of the documentation seems to be a bit older and refers to deprecated items."
"While the tool works well in its current configuration, allowing for greater ease and flexibility in adding new nodes to the cluster without complications would be very beneficial, especially in growing environments."
More StarWind Virtual SAN cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive. Other solutions are cheaper."
"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is expensive. It's a standard license, and we pay for it yearly. I think we pay about 700."
"The price is a bit too high."
"We negotiated with Cisco and we got some price benefit from that."
"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."
"There is a license required to use this solution."
"There is a 30 percent additional premium that all the companies are charging for Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series because of the lack of chips and bottlenecks in the market. The cost of the solution is high right now."
"I would like the pricing to be cheaper."
More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pricing and cost advice
"We evaluated other options and this one was the most cost-effective."
"I would suggest that you download the free version, deploy in your lab, and play with it."
"Their pricing seems pretty good, and their licensing structure is pretty straightforward."
"The licensing is straightforward, with free and trial versions available."
"We are happy with the price."
"I think the cost of this solution is quite fair."
"There are two tiers of support and in my opinion, support is worth the cost."
"StarWind is a low-cost, full-featured alternative to the traditional SAN environment, and their support will guide you every step of the setup."
More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
See all answers
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...
See all answers
What do you like most about Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series?
It's easy to get the tool started.
See all answers
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) combines flash and disks of the cluster and forms a virtual shared storage “pool” acce...
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
I have had no setup costs and no challenges with setup and installation for StarWind Virtual SAN. The costs are acceptable and very competitive compared to other hardware-only HCI solutions.
See all answers
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
There are times when the feedback in the event of an impending issue or an actual failure can be limited. The remediation steps are usually fairly simple to resolve the issue, but the management GU...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

HPE SimpliVity vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Logo
HPE SimpliVity vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]
Compared 47% of the time
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Logo
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]
Compared 30% of the time
VMware vSAN vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Logo
VMware vSAN vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]
Compared 23% of the time
More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Competitors
VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN Logo
VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN
Compared 25% of the time
DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN Logo
DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN
Compared 16% of the time
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN Logo
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN
Compared 15% of the time
StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN Logo
StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN
Compared 14% of the time
Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN Logo
Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN
Compared 10% of the time
More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]
July 2025
Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] reportDownload Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] product report
Buyer's Guide
StarWind Virtual SAN
June 2025
StarWind Virtual SAN reportDownload StarWind Virtual SAN product report
 

Also Known As

No data available
StarWind SAN & NAS
 

Overview

The Cisco HyperFlex HX Data Platform is a purpose-built, high-performance, scale-out file system with a wide array of enterprise-class data management services. The data platform’s innovations redefine distributed storage technology, giving you complete hyper-convergence with enterprise storage features:

  • Enterprise-class data management
  • Continuous data optimization
  • Securely encrypted storage
  • Dynamic data placement
  • Clusterwide parallel data distribution
  • Linear and incremental scaling
  • API-based data platform architecture
  • A simplified approach
Cisco

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.

StarWind
 

Sample Customers

BluePearl Veterinary Partners, Ready Pac Foods, Bryant University, Bellevue Group, KPIT Technologies, City Harvest
Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
Buyer's Guide
HCI
July 2025
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