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.

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...

Read 90 Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] reviews

89% willing to recommend

StarWind Virtual SAN

Read 198 StarWind Virtual SAN reviews

4,786 Views
3,063 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...

StarWind Virtual SAN

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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.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI.

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Buyer's Guide

HCI

September 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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

StarWind Virtual SAN

Average Rating

9.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

198

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st), HCI (5th)

Featured Reviews

Nuno Mendes

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).

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Vladimir Simion

Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer

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

"Easily facilitates remote work opportunities with storage and compute resources."

"The management from the switches to the hyper-convergence solutions are quite good and well-developed."

"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."

"The management feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."

"The initial setup is very straightforward."

"The most valuable feature of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is the integration with everything in a much smoother, such as in physical and virtual environments. VMware NSX is a simpler solution but, Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is more robust compared to VMware NSX."

"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."

"The implementation process is okay."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pros

"Having the ability to migrate machines live in our environment was made possible by this software."

"In our case, the cost and high availability are the two most important factors which we were looking for in a solution."

"The primary purpose of this software is to create a virtual SAN between local storage on Hyper-V hosts. I find this feature most valuable since it accomplishes this quite well."

"It includes every feature that a traditional SAN offers and so much more."

"It enables us to provide more solution options for our clients, with the reassurance that, when implemented, they will be efficient and stable."

"It provided the much-needed HA on an extremely low budget."

"I've been really impressed with it so far. I think it's pretty great, actually. It does exactly what we need it to do, and it does it well, so I would recommend it. Plus, the support has been very good."

"The installation of StarWind Virtual SAN was pretty easy, and the configuration was done in no time."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

Cons

"Unlike other options, you need to pay a subscription to Cisco yearly instead of paying for the hardware outright, which makes it more expensive in the long run."

"The product needs work in the area of deduplication which currently is inefficient."

"We are working with a lot of different technologies and trying to manage them with one tool. The API could be improved for better integration with other systems."

"Cisco HyperFlex should decrease the amount of memory needed from the Controller VM that controls the physical discs. They control the discs by using the virtual VM over every ESXi host and the VM consumes memory and consumes more hardware resources. They have to improve that by decreasing the amount of required memory and CPUs to control this disc on the server."

"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."

"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."

"With the cache disk fails in Cisco, the whole node fails, and the workload goes down."

"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."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] cons

"Lastly, I think the severity two response time incidents could be improved upon; it's eight hours, and if that could be better, I'd like that."

"I would say that the documentation is mostly great, however, some features could be expanded upon a bit."

"I had issues locating the documentation that applied to my version of StarWind vSAN."

"At this moment, I have not seen a return on investment with StarWind Virtual SAN."

"I want to suggest that the complexity of the startup and shutdown procedure needs to be reduced."

"For the StarWind VSA vSphere solution, I would like to see a simpler and automated virtual machine installation process in terms of network settings."

"For someone entering the IT sector with little knowledge of storage, iSCSI, and virtual disks, they might not find the GUI immediately obvious."

"Management of VSAN itself could be improved. A Web UI for management would be great rather than an application installation. StarWind is testing a command center virtual appliance that I have installed in my environment."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For customers in the private sector, this product can have a very high return on investment."

"The price is a bit too high."

"The price is a bit high. It could be better, but the product is worth the cost."

"It's roughly $30,000 per Hyperflex license, so that would be about $60,000 a year."

"Cisco is quite expensive, but not in the initial first buy."

"I would like the pricing to be cheaper."

"Our licensing is Hybrid. We have all of our applications for billing and outage management through this."

"Comparable solutions with switches, storage, and services are cheaper than HyperFlex. It should be cheaper."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pricing and cost advice

"This solution is very accessible and the pro-level for support is well worth the cost."

"I think the cost of this solution is quite fair."

"Licensing is easy and the whole package is cost-effective."

"I would suggest that you download the free version, deploy in your lab, and play with it."

"It's priced fairly. It was definitely cheaper than the competition. The licensing terms are straightforward and reasonable."

"The cost was ultimately low to implement, which allowed us to be 3-2-1 complaint."

"The pricing is more than reasonable."

"I think that purchasing StarWind Virtual SAN Professional Edition would be optimal for most."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	24
Midsize Enterprise	17
Large Enterprise	57

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	159
Midsize Enterprise	54
Large Enterprise	33

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 had experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing through using the free version of StarWind Virtual SAN for testing purposes, so there was no cost involved during my evaluation. That made i...

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

One area for improvement regarding StarWind Virtual SAN is the lack of a full-feature trial. At the time I tested it, I had access only to the free version, which required using PowerShell scripts ...

See all answers

Comparisons

HPE SimpliVity vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 62% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 38% of the time

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Competitors

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 22% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 17% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 13% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 13% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 11% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

September 2025

Download Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

August 2025

Download 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

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