We performed a comparison between Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series and Dell PowerFlex based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two HCI solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
"The StarWind VSAN is always up and allows us to move VMS to other nodes for maintenance, without interruption to service."
"The top-notch support before, during, and after deployments are better than any other vendor I have come across."
"The solution is also quite flexible. As an example, other vSAN solutions that we looked at had more stringent requirements regarding mixed HDD/SSD storage which wouldn't have worked in our environment."
"The most valuable feature is the reliable storage replication, which enables me to create a robust infrastructure to run our business."
"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 fact that the solution is vendor-agnostic allows it to be used with any virtualization vendor while remaining a powerful abstraction over storage."
"Given the high availability of the server cluster, we were able to reduce separate physical servers onto one hyper-converged cluster - this saved in OPEX and CAPEX costs immediately, along with licensing costs of the Windows Server licenses."
"The biggest benefit was that it allowed us to provide SAN services on a limited hardware budget."
"It is a complete package. For any kind of on-premises hyper-converged solution, we usually have to separate networks, but Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is a complete solution. It has its own network and storage. The storage part is the most valuable feature."
"The solution is stable."
"The scalability of the product is quite good overall - as long as you plan correctly from the outset."
"Stretch cluster allows us to warranty a service for the customer."
"I find the usability very valuable."
"It's very easy to use and quite a mature product."
"Overall, the solution is extremely easy, flexible and secure."
"It is helpful as a backup solution."
"Saves us a lot of space in the data center."
"The catalog of APIs for automation has been most valuable, although they are quite limited."
"It is easy to use for management and operations teams because the tools are in one place."
"We've had no issues with scaling the solution."
"When you will cease your contract with StarWind (for support) your product won't be updated and that is a big selling point, especially for us, as we have loads of products from StarWind."
"I had to buy upgraded support, which was not a problem, but it wasn't a prorated amount, so I paid for the support, the full upgrade, but I only got a couple of months out of it because it was only good until renewal time."
"A mobile app to sync up for overview and status would really be helpful."
"I found that certain browsers are not fully compatible with the administration web access portal."
"Updating the software can be a bit tricky."
"Android app for monitoring and receiving push notifications as alarms or monitoring I/O from any mobile device could be a good feature and nice to have as we are not always on our desk."
"I would like to see options for automated notifications of any changes, including, for example, synchronization issues."
"StarWind Virtual SAN architecture is slightly complex and requires the team to carefully identify and study how the solution integrates with VMware vSphere."
"If we compare it with VMware, the VMware product is basically very open, and it can be easily integrated with any platform. VMware product is also available on the cloud and is not an appliance-based product, whereas Cisco HyperFlex is an appliance-based product. Companies that want to use HCI as a platform or as a service would prefer something without an appliance. A SaaS-based product is better for a customer who is using the cloud and has multiple resources, workflows, and devices on the cloud and wants to go for a hyper-converged solution. This is where improvement is needed. In addition to an appliance-based product, Cisco should provide a SaaS-based product. Its price should be lower. Cisco needs to work on the pricing model for this product. Its price is a big road blocker when competing against Nutanix and VMware, which are its main competitors."
"Lacks some integration and documentation could be improved."
"In the next release, I would like to see them able to connect to the public cloud."
"We need to be able to scale out and not just up. When you want to scale up or scale out, you are quite limited."
"The pricing is pretty expensive."
"Deployment on-prem was quite difficult."
"There should be the opportunity to create more than one div group"
"This solution is lacking in replication and backup abilities that I would like to see in a future release similar to HPE SimpliVity."
"We've had some issues around the licensing."
"It would be great to get earlier access to beta builds because we have to develop providers on our own. The APIs and enablers for custom automation could also be improved."
"Licensing restrictions can be frustrating."
"The installation is complex."
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Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is ranked 8th in HCI with 28 reviews while Dell PowerFlex is ranked 13th in HCI with 4 reviews. Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is rated 7.6, while Dell PowerFlex is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series writes "An all-in-one option that is stable and offers good management". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Dell PowerFlex writes "Stable with good technical support and the capability to scale". Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE SimpliVity and NetApp HCI, whereas Dell PowerFlex is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE SimpliVity and Huawei FusionCube Hyper-Converged Infrastructure. See our Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series vs. Dell PowerFlex report.
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