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Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs DataCore SANsymphony 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
DataCore SANsymphony
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Storage Software (2nd), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (4th), HCI (7th), Storage Performance (2nd)
 

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).
SigfridCecillon - PeerSpot reviewer
High availability and user-friendliness enhance infrastructure health and redundancy
I would rate technical support from DataCore SANsymphony a 10. Each time I contact the technical support, it's when I don't have a choice because it's very difficult for me on site, and each time, I have good people online who are able to help me solve the problem. Usually, the problems are not very technically difficult, but sometimes they are, and the support team is still there to help us resolve them. The majority of the problems are linked to licensing, so when the license has expired or the number is not correct, they are proactive and change things live, which is very good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a solution that best suits thre needs of our organization."
"It saves space for data centers, which is good."
"The product is stable. No one complains about the stability, which is fabulous."
"Cisco offers very good quality."
"Cisco technical support is very skilled. From what I've had to access, there were quick responses and the necessary escalation."
"I love the Cisco design, the visual interface to manage and use the platform."
"It is helpful as a backup solution."
"The solution scales extremely well."
"CDP is an important feature for avoiding data loss in the event of ransomware attacks. You need more storage capacity, however, you get the possibility to return at any time and use the data saved up to that point. The recovery is much faster than with a classic restore."
"Oracle OLTP benchmark to test how it improves the performance while using flash drive NVMe."
"Continuous data protection (CDP), can be used to "protect" again ransomware by recording all write on disk in a log. You can recover your data with incredible time granularity."
"The synchronous mirror allows us to operate a fully redundant storage solution that is distributed across two sites."
"DataCore SANsymphony's stability is okay."
"Good security with this solution."
"The interface is user-friendly."
"DataCore's ability to seamlessly move virtual volume data between storage pools as well as their synchronous mirroring has made maintenance and disaster recovery planning achievable."
 

Cons

"One aspect that really needs to be looked at, is to fix the bugs issue."
"The scalability could use improvement."
"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 architecture separates data, computing, memory, and storage into different parts."
"The solution could improve by having more customization."
"I would rate the installation of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series an eight out of ten. It can be complex."
"The primary improvements should be made in the cluster storage controller VMs so that they don't break the upgrade process."
"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."
"One limitation of this solution is that it's Windows-based, e.g. one requirement to install DataCore SANsymphony SDS is putting it on a Windows server machine. It relies on Windows and that is a limitation because there are some customers who are looking for non Windows systems."
"NVMeoF should be implemented. This protocol will play a major role in storage infrastructure in the future."
"For customers or technicians that don't speak and understand English, it could be great to have other languages support, all the more so given the number of countries in which SanSymphony is used."
"I would like to see reporting added, such as a monthly connectivity report."
"The graphical interface is not always very stable."
"It would be ideal if they were providing archive licensing with the ability to create a second pool on existing storage nodes."
"I would like for it to improve into a more ergonomic management console and a translation into the French language. It should have some process for a shutdown of a VM properly in case of a problem."
"The main problem is there is no DataCore OS."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"HyperFlex is a little pricey."
"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."
"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."
"We currently have a perpetual license, which is kind of unlimited, so we don't have the normal licensing cost, yet."
"I would like the pricing to be cheaper."
"We are on an annual subscription and the price is fair."
"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 high. It could be better, but the product is worth the cost."
"This product has a good ratio between quality and price. In many cases, it's less expensive to work with DataCore than other storage systems."
"The solution is cost effective."
"The cost is at the same level as other storage solutions and it is easy to understand the licensing."
"Make sure you are made aware of the annual subscription cost when purchasing."
"In my case, the licensing per terabytes is very high and it must be licensed for each extra functionality."
"Pricing has improved but it is still expensive."
"We have licensing costs on a yearly basis. They charge per terabyte, so in terms of cost, it can be very costly. They have three different features, and you have to pay extra for those."
"It is relatively expensive, and the additional costs for hardware and storage can make it a significant investment for customers."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Government
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 Business36
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise21
 

Questions from the Community

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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 to invest in. Even if you are working with a limited budget, this platform offer...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore SANsymphony SDS?
Regarding the pricing of the solution, it's better than before. They have made some improvements regarding the pricing, but it's still too expensive. As an integrator, I consider that it's at a goo...
What do you like most about DataCore SANsymphony?
The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are a lot of counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like when a backup is in progress).
What needs improvement with DataCore SANsymphony?
The area of DataCore SANsymphony that has room for improvement is the support. I cannot determine if certain features have been deployed and are available in the new software sold by DataCore.
 

Also Known As

No data available
DataCore Virtual SAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BluePearl Veterinary Partners, Ready Pac Foods, Bryant University, Bellevue Group, KPIT Technologies, City Harvest
Volkswagen , Maimonides Medical Center, NASA, Thorntons, Inc., TUI, ISCO Industries, Pee Dee Electric Cooperative, United Financial Credit Union, Derby Supply Chain Solutions, Mission Community Hospital, Bellarmine College Preparatory, Colby-Sawyer College, Mount Sinai Health System, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Quorn Foods, Bitburger, University of Birmingham, Stadtverwaltung Heidelberg, NetEnt to name a few.
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