Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs DataCore SANsymphony comparison

Cisco and DataCore are both solutions in the HCI category. Additionally, 89% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of DataCore users who would recommend it.

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...

Read 90 Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] reviews

89% willing to recommend

DataCore SANsymphony

Read 58 DataCore SANsymphony reviews

3,727 Views
2,050 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...

DataCore SANsymphony

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] and DataCore SANsymphony based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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

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Buyer's Guide

HCI

October 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

DataCore SANsymphony

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Storage Software (2nd), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (4th), HCI (7th), Storage Performance (2nd)

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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SigfridCecillon

Owner at Arsium

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.

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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 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."

"I love the Cisco design, the visual interface to manage and use the platform."

"Cisco provides the ability to configure BIOS, something that no one else can do, on a remote basis. That's really helpful sometimes. The bus-snooping alteration tool for BIOS is fantastic. That's one of the game-changing features that Cisco alone has at this point."

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

"The most valuable feature was the backup - it was easy to back up. It was also very easy to administrate and manage the system; much easier and faster. Finally, it was easy to extend the disk capacities."

"The most valuable features of this solution are scalability, performance, and reliability. It scales well inside of a large data center."

"The ease of use and the graphical user interface (GUI) are two of the most valuable features of this solution."

"The flexibility is its most valuable feature; the ability to quickly deploy a number of help machines. It is not constrained by what we want to do."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pros

"The features I have found most valuable are the active-active, or so-called grid technology, and the integration into our VMware-vCenter."

"Oracle OLTP benchmark to test how it improves the performance while using flash drive NVMe."

"It allows data to be available from two DataCore servers."

"The interface is user-friendly."

"This flexibility and scalability have helped our organization in practice because it is important for us as it decouples the storage management software from the physical hardware, creating a software layer of intelligence."

"The solution's most valuable feature is its versatility, with there being support for all new hardware technologies and platforms, disc mirroring and very effective auto tiering."

"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."

"During the maintenance periods, on any part of the storage or VMware migration, we have had no downtime."

More DataCore SANsymphony pros

Cons

"The setup was complex, especially since we usually do all the planning, sizing, and workflows before integration."

"Does not support the stretch cluster, and the interface is not good."

"The solution's price could be affordable."

"It needs more detailed documentation."

"I would like a lighter product; something which can be carried by a mere human. The typical size still looks like a stack of data center-sized servers, which is typically fine, but not so good if you want to carry it around."

"Its price could be better."

"You cannot just apply the VSXi updates. You are dependent on Cisco HyperFlex for metric services, analytics, and everything else. I don't like that dependency."

"We would like to have the ability to not have to reboot while doing updates. Being able to work through updates with as minimal amount of impact to users."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] cons

"If it could integrate to a cloud gateway, then we could carry it directly to storage, instead of having middleware in between the storage and the cloud."

"I think an easier way to open a service call, right through the DataCore GUI, would be an improvement, especially when there is an urgent issue."

"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."

"Management could be improved. The management console sometimes reacts very slowly."

"In my opinion, there should be improvements in how to get and filter logs."

"We'd like to manage the raid on the disk directly in SanSymphony."

"SANsymphony is missing some features that vSAN has. For example, vSAN has a special feature called continuous data protection. It provides the ability to go back in time to a given moment. You can see what was on your disk in the past up to two weeks. That's a great feature because ransomware attacks are increasingly common, and that provides you some kind of protection."

"Unified storage (all block, objects, and files) should be in a single storage pool with unified storage concepts, hence providing the user with whatever they want."

More DataCore SANsymphony cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We currently have a perpetual license, which is kind of unlimited, so we don't have the normal licensing cost, yet."

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

"Our licensing costs are large, but it is combined between all of the Cisco products that we have."

"I would like the pricing to be cheaper."

"The product is expensive. Other solutions are cheaper."

"Its price is rather fair when compared with other solutions like VxRail, vSAN, and HPE SimpliVity. We got a fair amount of discount from Cisco for Cisco HyperFlex. It is cost-effective. We have renewed storage till next year, and we have already paid the vendor. When we talk about HyperFlex or any HCI solution, storage is the part where we can reduce a lot of costs. At the current moment, we are already using NetApp storage, which did not allow us to go for a full Cisco HyperFlex setup. We are planning to go to a larger scale next year. Then we will be able to see how cost-effective it really is for us."

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

"The price is a bit too high."

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

"It is relatively expensive, and the additional costs for hardware and storage can make it a significant investment for customers."

"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."

"The pricing and licensing are better with DataCore."

"This solution allows the use of off-the-shelf hardware and charges by the TB of storage."

"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."

"DataCore SANsymphony's pricing is very high and should be much cheaper."

"The cost is at the same level as other storage solutions and it is easy to understand the licensing."

More DataCore SANsymphony pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

10%

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	36
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	21

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore SANsymphony SDS?

Before choosing DataCore SANsymphony, I did not evaluate other options.

See all answers

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).

See all answers

What needs improvement with DataCore SANsymphony?

DataCore SANsymphony can be improved with high availability as it offers synchronous mirroring between physical and separate sites to ensure business continuity and disaster recovery. I do not have...

See all answers

Comparisons

HPE SimpliVity vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 29% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 21% of the time

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

Compared 18% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 17% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 15% of the time

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Competitors

StarWind Virtual SAN vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 12% of the time

VMware vSAN vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 9% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 8% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 7% of the time

NetApp ONTAP vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 6% of the time

More DataCore SANsymphony Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

November 2025

Download Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony

November 2025

Download DataCore SANsymphony product report

Also Known As

No data available

DataCore Virtual SAN

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

Experience peace of mind with DataCore SANsymphony, the ultimate software-defined storage solution alleviating storage management challenges. Say goodbye to the complexities of managing different storage tiers and disruptions with SANsymphony's block-level storage virtualization technology, empowering you to automate capacity provisioning and data placement across diverse storage environments including SAN, DAS, HCI, and JBOD. Break down silos, control data placement, meet business continuity objectives, boost performance, and seamlessly expand or refresh hardware with SANsymphony. Benefit from features like asynchronous replication for disaster recovery, minimizing data loss, accelerating application responsiveness, and integrating new technology non-disruptively. Trusted by industry leaders like NASA, Thorntons, Inc., and TUI Cruises, DataCore SANsymphony guarantees unparalleled flexibility, scalability, and reliability, ensuring uninterrupted data access and application availability while reducing storage costs and inefficiencies.

DataCore

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.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Broadcom, StarWind and others in HCI. Updated: October 2025.

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