Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs VxRail comparison

Cisco and Dell Technologies are both solutions in the HCI category. Additionally, 89% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Dell Technologies users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] and VxRail compete in the hyper-converged infrastructure solutions category. VxRail holds an advantage due to its advanced features and overall customer satisfaction.

Features: Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] is appreciated for its integration capabilities, flexibility in scalable environments, and attractive pricing. VxRail stands out with robust performance, automation, and seamless integration with VMware ecosystems, making management notably easier.

Room for Improvement: Cisco HyperFlex [EOL] requires enhancements in stability, improved documentation, and a simpler deployment process. VxRail needs improvements in networking flexibility, update processes, and better post-sales support due to mixed reviews.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] has a complex deployment impacting setup time, but customer service is efficient and supportive. VxRail offers streamlined installation for quicker deployment, though post-sales support receives mixed feedback.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] is known for competitive pricing but has concerns about ROI due to setup costs. VxRail, while more expensive, is justified by comprehensive features which enhance ROI, making the higher investment worthwhile.

To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: September 2024).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

September 2024

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Categories and Ranking

StarWind Virtual SAN

Q&A Highlights

Netanya Carmi

Content Manager at PeerSpot (formerly IT Central Station)

Oct 26, 2021

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 offers freedom of choice and a number of different options. In contrast, Cisco HyperFlex HX does run on the more expensive side and cannot offer the same level of cost-effective solution. VxRail is able to provide both an ability to upgrade the system with an ever-growing library of resources as well as to provide powerful processors. This is something that I greatly appreciate. Being able to simply add upgrades to the system without necessarily having to worry about the system being bogged down is invaluable. The ability that it provides to apply updates to the system with ease is something worthy of note. If you add this to the fact that VxRail runs on multiple cores at 2 gigahertz or higher, then that means that in terms of ability, the VxRail is difficult to match. In terms of usability, it is hard to argue that VxRail delivers. It is pretty simple and easy to both set up and manage. Once the system is set up, all of the management tools are centrally located to assist in providing ease of use. The Cisco Hyperflex HX Series is both stable as well as reasonably easy to set up. Cisco has a step-by-step program guide that leads you through the process. Once it is set up, it is not prone to glitching or freezing. However, the pricing model that Cisco applies to this product requires users to pay a yearly subscription. This can end up being rather expensive in the long run. Conclusion Both systems offer stable solutions. Ultimately, VxRail is more cost-effective.

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Featured Reviews

Ahmed Hosni

Senior System Engineer at Giza Systems

Feb 24, 2024

Provides a cost-effective way to run an HCI storage platform for almost any hypervisor

You can maintain and update it with little to no fuss, even the free version is incredibly capable whilst it brings the cost of a Highly Available HCI solution down to a very cost-effective point. Having used Starwind Virtual SAN for many years both for clients and for internal systems, it has always done exactly what it set out to do. It provides a cost-effective way to run an HCI storage platform for almost any hypervisor, but it is most effective with Hyper-V. It's simple and easy to use, The software monitoring should be web-based to be reachable from any VLAN workstation.

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Nuno Mendes

IT Manager - Resp.Department at Parvalorem

Dec 1, 2022

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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Sushil MIshra

AG at SIS.

Apr 17, 2024

Trouble-free architecture, we don't have to juggle multiple components like in a traditional three-tier architecture

We mainly use it for virtualization across all our applications. We also have a DC/DR setup based on the VxRail infrastructure It's a trouble-free architecture. We don't have to juggle multiple components like in a traditional three-tier architecture. With VxRail, it's a pre-built solution…

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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

"The ability for us to manage all of our nodes from the same console makes systems administration very easy."

"The main benefit is that StarWind is almost maintenance-free."

"It's quite easy to manage."

"Without the need for any downtime, enterprises can simply grow their storage infrastructure using StarWind Virtual SAN by adding new servers or disks to the current infrastructure."

"It has great free trials that allow end users to test a large variety of their products before deciding to buy the full product."

"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” accessible by all hosts. StarWind cuts down virtualization cost and complexity by eliminating the need for a physical shared storage (SAN). -StarWind offers the Enterprise-level high availability (HA), deployed and easily configured . we get technical support from star wind team when implementation software and after setup if we face any issue."

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

"The most valuable features are high availability and real-time replication between two servers."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

"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."

"The product is stable. No one complains about the stability, which is fabulous."

"It saves space for data centers, which is good."

"Easy to spin up and operate virtual machines without the overhead of managing a storage network."

"The most valuable feature is that it is something small that can be more easily deployed than a full data center set of servers."

"The implementation process is okay."

"The most valuable features are scalability and the easy operation - if it works. You can configure everything from just one window."

"Scalability is easy and simple."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pros

"The low latency and response times and having a virtualized environment within a single computer are valuable. I have no physical elements, and I can optimize or balance my data depending on the sales volume that I have in a specific store."

"The stability of VxRail is good, we have not had any issues."

"My customers use it for VDI. It has been very usable and very fast to use with VDI. On the VxRail side also, it has been very fast."

"I have found that the admin deployment, monitoring off-premises, and the many services important features. Additionally, the solution has good integration."

"Offers zero-day deployment"

"It has a valuable deduplication feature."

"We enjoy the ease of management since all of the resources are located on one box — one single point of support."

"VxRail simplifies IT infrastructure management by providing a single management console for compute, storage, and network. The second advantage is that VxRail offers a continuously validated architecture from the OEM. This means that Dell thoroughly tests all firmware updates before being released or installed on the product, helping to prevent compatibility issues. The third benefit is its ten-year roadmap. Dell consistently announces a roadmap for the product spanning the next decade."

More VxRail pros

Cons

"Initially, when we first started, the sync was horrible."

"It would help if the manufacturer provided clearer and more detailed documentation, with explanations of how the application can be installed in various HA configurations."

"An extended trial period would serve as a way to get clean insights into the technology's adaptability and alignment with their specific needs before committing to long-term integration."

"This product would benefit from having automated alerting functionality."

"If there was a way to automatically put disks in maintenance mode when shutting the host down and exit maintenance mode automatically, that would simplify things."

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

"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."

"There is a general lack of documentation, especially up-to-date documentation to get started."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

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

"This solution is lacking in replication and backup abilities that I would like to see in a future release similar to HPE SimpliVity."

"The infrastructure team thinks that there are a lot of issues."

"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."

"They should have more blade options and more configuration flexibility. Also, the price is expensive. It should be cheaper but it is worth the price."

"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."

"Some of our customers do not want to adopt the Cisco ACI solution. They want to manage Cisco HyperFlex by integrating it with their own management solution."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] cons

"The version upgrade process should be simplified."

"The only issue which is every now and again is that when you log in it will tell you that there's an issue with VxRail when there actually isn't. All that's required is a refresh or reload. The solution itself works but you may get some bad reports every now and again. Probably once every couple of months; there is no effect to the solution's capabilities."

"This solution needs to have the capability where even older versions of hardware can be seamlessly utilized and additional expansion becomes so much easier."

"Lacks integration of licenses so that it's an expensive solution."

"It can be a bit complex for engineers who are new to it. There's a learning curve involved. They have to learn to operate it."

"Supply chain capabilities are certainly hurting us. We're in the process of placing a large order for more VxRail nodes right now."

"if we're looking at costs, Nutanix will win because it allows flexibility in the type of hardware you can use."

"The licensing is a bit too costly."

More VxRail cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost seems a bit steep, and I wish it was less expensive."

"When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."

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

"There are two tiers of support and in my opinion, support is worth the cost."

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

"The licensing is straightforward, with free and trial versions available."

"The cost takes into account the number of nodes, so the size of the storage is not important."

"The license is reusable. We can always rebuild it and apply the license. Then, boom, we get new servers, apply the license, and we're back up and running."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

"We have a yearly license."

"It's much more expensive than rack servers. It was an issue, but when you compare it to the number of people who were administrative assistants before, it's on the positive ROI side. It's much cheaper."

"The pricing is a bit expensive."

"Here in Brazil... it is very expensive. It's very hard for almost all companies to buy even the small version of this solution."

"There is a recurring cost for the VMware license and the HyperFlex licenses."

"If you don't look at the costs of the systems, the scalability is quite good."

"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 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."

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

"The cost was cheaper compared to other virtualization solutions."

"It varies. It could be $100,000 at the smaller end and millions and millions of dollars at the higher end."

"It's a highly expensive solution"

"Since VMware is detached from Dell, the solution's pricing is a bit higher than before."

"Most of hyper-converged solutions require additional licenses for the virtualization layer (like VMware)."

"The price would be in the middle to the expensive range. It is not cheap."

"There is a license required for this solution."

"The pricing is very accurate, and we haven't had any problems with the licensing costs."

More VxRail pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

28%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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) combin...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?

If you are comfortable with the solution and you feel that you don't need support, you can begin with the free licenc...

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What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

Areas for improvement in StarWind Virtual SAN include simplifying the setup process, especially for users with limite...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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What do you like most about Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series?

It's easy to get the tool started.

See all answers

How does HPE Nimble Storage compare to VxRail?

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one, z...

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What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?

While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an e...

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What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?

VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not bein...

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Comparisons

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 28% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 19% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 17% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 13% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 2% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

VMware vSAN vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 32% of the time

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

Compared 15% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 11% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 6% of the time

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

Compared 5% of the time

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Competitors

Dell PowerFlex vs VxRail

Compared 32% of the time

VMware vSAN vs VxRail

Compared 22% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs VxRail

Compared 15% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VxRail

Compared 7% of the time

HPE Hyper Converged vs VxRail

Compared 6% of the time

More VxRail Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

September 2024

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

October 2024

Download Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

VxRail

September 2024

Download VxRail product report

Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS

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VCE VxRail

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StarWind

Cisco

Dell Technologies

Overview

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.

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

VxRail is a hyper-converged appliance based on VMware virtual SAN Software and is jointly engineered and built with VMware, for VMware, to enhance Vmware. VxRail software-defined architecture simplifies compute, storage, virtualization, and management. It will safeguard performance, reliability, and flexibility across your organization with a broad range of workloads and applications from business-critical to next-gen. With VxRail, you are covered.

VxRail is a single turn-key appliance that is a validated, fully integrated, pre-configured, pre-tested solution and offers non-disruptive scaling. Every node includes compute storage and IO. All-flash configurations can contain between 12-28 cores per node. The storage capacity options run from 7.6 TB to 19TB with either 256 GB or 512GB of memory. Hybrid appliances may have 6-20 cores per node, 3.6 TB to 10 TB of storage capacity, and 24GB to 256 GB of memory.

VxRail offers high availability fail-over, an active/active stretch cluster, and VSan Kernal integration. VxRail is a power-edged server with APIs built on automation. There are over 15 million different combinations of hardware available with VxRail. VxRail provides a simple, cost-effective solution that solves a large range of use cases. Additionally, you also get a mixed workloads automated system that is backed with fully automated system updates, and complete end-to-end lifecycle management all in a single two-rack appliance.

VxRail is a value-added suitable solution for distributed small to mid-sized enterprises, remote offices, private clouds, and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). You choose the deployment option that best suits your organizational needs, from appliance to integrated rack offerings, with or without networking, and it will be delivered to you, ready to deploy out-of-box.

If you know VMware, you know VxRail.

VxRail Features and Benefits

Seamlessly accelerate deployment to a hybrid cloud
Fast data center modernization
Create developer-ready Kubernetes platforms

Powerful performance and reliability
Improve and simplify operational efficiency
Excellent integration
Save time
Reduce costs

Reviews from Real Users

VxRail is an all-in-one solution: "You don't have to worry too much about the hardware and you don't have to work on integrating a storage device. We instead have this as an all-in-one solution and everything is available as a box."

VxRail is remarkable: “The cover points feature in VxRail is remarkable. It's unique. It has an intervention failover system as well as an automatic failover system, reaching clusters existing in VxRail…”

VxRail is a powerful performer: “...VxRail delivers a very high number of IOPS for a hybrid configuration or an all-flash configuration. The processors that are available in the Xeon family are very powerful. They are multi-core with typically 2 gigahertz, 2.4 gigahertz, or higher frequency, so the performance is very much appreciated.”

Sample Customers

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

BluePearl Veterinary Partners, Ready Pac Foods, Bryant University, Bellevue Group, KPIT Technologies, City Harvest

World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: September 2024.

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