Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs Dell PowerFlex comparison

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

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

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

Buyer's Guide

HCI

July 2024

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Categories and Ranking

StarWind Virtual SAN

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the HCI category, the mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.1%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] is 1.9%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerFlex is 14.1%, up from 7.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI

Unique Categories:

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

9.2%

No other categories found

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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Lennis Garrido

Engineering Manager at OCP TECH

Apr 13, 2023

Works faster and is flexible to use

We use the solution to combine and migrate regular servers to a hyper-converged infrastructure The solution works faster and is easy to use than any regular system. Also, its fabric interconnect provides flexibility for the system to scale up. The solution's most valuable feature is the high…

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reviewer2125335

Student at a university with 501-1,000 employees

Mar 13, 2023

Good integration, stable, and increased performance

The solution is a private cloud hyper-converged infrastructure that is scalable, with highly available computer workloads The solution has helped reduce our costs and increase our performance. The integration with AWS is a valuable feature. Compared to similar solutions, Dell PowerFlex is not…

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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

"Updates to server hardware are now painless and done during working hours with zero stress. We had a RAID failure a few months back, and nobody in the building even noticed and there was no after hours time used for repair."

"StarWind has provided us with a top-notch, well-supported, robust vSAN offering when other vendors have moved to hyper-converged solutions that are outside of our average clients' reach from a financial and resource perspective."

"It's quite easy to manage."

"We like their high availability. It reduces the downtime for our entire organization's environment."

"StarWind Virtual SAN offers high availability and data resilience features to prevent data loss if hardware fails."

"The best feature is its ease of installation and integration within a current infrastructure."

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

"The ease of reaching the support team and their promptness for support is great."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

"The product is easy to manage and flexible for upgrading without major changes."

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

"Cisco offers very good quality."

"Cisco HyperFlex HX has improved the way our organization functions in the way that the time to deliver a VM takes me five minutes. In comparison, my cloud team's response is a couple of days based on all their overhead policies, procedures, and ticket requests. This is substantial."

"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 most valuable feature is full integration with Cisco API and UCS, which means you can have complete networking and storage from Cisco."

"I like Cisco Intersight."

"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is simple to use, user-friendly and has been best for our purposes."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pros

"The support team responds quickly."

"The solution is scalable."

"The support is highly responsive."

"The solution was connected to alternate storage. It provides great scalability and reliability."

"Dell PowerFlex is a complete hyperconverge that makes automation easy to manage and extremely stable."

"The most valuable feature is high availability."

"We've had no issues with scaling the solution."

"Dell PowerFlex improves our latency which allowed us to reduce a lot of our Microsoft Enterprise SQL licenses."

More Dell PowerFlex pros

Cons

"Feature-wise we are only waiting for the release of a "planned disaster" feature that would allow us to patch a hypervisor node without having to take the full storage offline."

"I would like to see more advanced free versions."

"StarWind currently has a Windows native application that it uses for management. There is not a web-based GUI at this time."

"They require more media visibility."

"I'd love to see more clarification for us folks who are smart enough to do some damage yet not smart enough to use CLI."

"I would definitely like to see quite a bit more on the monitoring side of things."

"The only thing that I have any difficulty with is that in order to perform upgrades, it is required that the SANs be detached from the Hosts before that can happen."

"The reconnection of the attached drives upon a reboot could be improved."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

"Deployment on-prem was quite difficult."

"We are moving further out with more cloud solutions, so we need HyperFlex to be more cloud-connected. They should develop more connection to Amazon Web Services and Google cloud because our customers use their services and are moving in that direction."

"I would rate the installation of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series an eight out of ten. It can be complex."

"When it comes to customer needs, the licensing price could be better."

"We'd like the product to offer better integration with other products."

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

"It is quite new solution, so it is not very stable."

"Lacks easy integration with other vendors."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] cons

"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."

"The biggest issue with the solution is that it doesn't support Hyper V. It's a big problem."

"The storage capability must be improved."

"They need to work on improving the overhead for protecting the data."

"I am not really impressed by the technical support of this solution."

"The tool needs to improve its storage. It should also make migration to the cloud easier."

"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface."

"The solution must be more flexible."

More Dell PowerFlex cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost, including OPEX, is lower compared to other solutions."

"Cost is affordable and licensing is smooth."

"The support contract is well worth it. The price for it was very reasonable and their team has been very engaged whenever we reach out."

"The free version is great to use for labs or test environments."

"I think the bang for the buck is much better with StarWind Virtual SAN."

"The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great."

"StarWind is a low-cost, full-featured alternative to the traditional SAN environment, and their support will guide you every step of the setup."

"The premium support from StarWinds is a must have. The ability to have access to a storage engineer 24/7 is a must for a production environment."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

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

"Initially HyperFlex was a little costly, it was higher, but Cisco wanted to get into our company, so they gave us a fair discount."

"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."

"Its price is high. Cisco needs to work on the pricing model for this product. Nutanix or VMware are cheaper products, and they provide almost the same functionality. Its price is a big road blocker when we are working with an end customer, and Nutanix and VMware are in competition. If they can reduce its price, it is actually a better choice for customers."

"The product could be cheaper."

"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."

"There is a license required to use this solution."

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

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

"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."

"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."

"The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."

"The price could be improved."

"The cost of this solution is fair."

"The solution's price is medium."

"The pricing for this solution is good."

"The product is expensive."

More Dell PowerFlex pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

19%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

26%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

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...

See all answers

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

Make the most of your 30-day trial license, and if needed, you should contact the sales department of StarWind to ext...

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What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

The dashboard is functional, but it could benefit from a more modern and visually appealing design. A facelift would ...

See all answers

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 ...

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 ...

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 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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerFlex?

The support is highly responsive.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerFlex?

I have good partners who prepared the price for us. I told them what we needed and everything worked out perfectly. W...

See all answers

Comparisons

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 32% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 17% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 16% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 14% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 5% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

VMware vSAN vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 30% of the time

VxRail vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 27% of the time

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

Compared 16% 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

VxRail vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 50% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 17% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 10% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 4% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 4% of the time

More Dell PowerFlex Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

June 2024

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

July 2024

Download Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerFlex

July 2024

Download Dell PowerFlex product report

Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS

No data available

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex

Learn More

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

VxRack System consists of hyper-converged rack-scale engineered systems, with integrated networking, to achieve the scalability and management requirements of traditional and cloud native workloads. The VxRack series is purposely designed to enable customers to quickly deploy Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and/or Private Cloud architectures. VxRack Systems tightly integrate hardware with software and management layers.

The result is a fully tested, pre-configured, hyper-converged system with simplified operations at data center and Service Provider scale. VxRack Systems support the deployment of a variety of application workloads, allowing IT to rapidly deliver new services while improving overall agility and efficiency.

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

Canopy, 8x8Inc., Atos, Canadian Pacific, City of Denton, CenturyLink, BNP Paribas, Asyaport, EDF, CSC, Fox Sports, Insight, Hunter, KPIT, Paetec, Rosetta Stone, Sonda, Xerox

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

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