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."You can build cheap, reliable, replicated virtual machines clusters using simple servers with an all flash disk or SAS\SATA hybrid tiered by performance storage."
"This product now allows us to migrate virtual machines between nodes as if we had a dedicated $100,000 SAN in the mix without the additional cost and management of the SAN."
"The top-notch support before, during, and after deployments are better than any other vendor I have come across."
"Starwind made it easy to deploy fully redundant, highly available storage at a low cost."
"I have found the graphical user interface to be the most useful thing about Virtual SAN."
"The fact that we can expand our storage and add on to our compute nodes easily and how amazing the StarWind technical support team is really adding value to our purchase."
"One of the standout features of StarWind.com is its remarkable ability to seamlessly integrate with Dell systems. This integration provides users with an unmatched level of convenience and compatibility, allowing for streamlined operations within a Dell environment. This compatibility factor alone can save significant time and effort for IT professionals, ensuring a smooth integration process and optimized performance."
"The user interface for this application is amazing."
"Its most valuable feature is its flexibility."
"The ROI we have seen from the high performance that has saved us time and money."
"The scalability of the product is quite good overall - as long as you plan correctly from the outset."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco HyperFlex HX is that it is self-contained."
"Cisco technical support is very skilled. From what I've had to access, there were quick responses and the necessary escalation."
"Offers very good data protection and provides system uptime availability effectively."
"It is helpful as a backup solution."
"I like Cisco Intersight."
"The solution is scalable."
"Saves us a lot of space in the data center."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is integration."
"The support is highly responsive."
"The catalog of APIs for automation has been most valuable, although they are quite limited."
"We've had no issues with scaling the solution."
"The most valuable feature is high availability."
"It is easy to use for management and operations teams because the tools are in one place."
"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."
"The logs can also become very noisy when there is an issue, which is very infrequent."
"I struggled when bit figuring out how to go about doing the evaluation."
"It should be improved in the way it detects the right filesystem image after a complete shutdown of the system or in the case of disaster recovery."
"It would be good to have a little more access to control certain aspects within the UI."
"I am expecting to see it more user-friendly in the future."
"Security on the ISCSI protocol could be improved by adding features like OS-type control access, especially for the data center environment."
"I would like to see more advanced free versions."
"Their technical support is very bad. We had an issue where instead of an engineer we got a PDF "doctor" that didn't know anything about our problem which was very frustrating."
"Deployment scripts can be improved since several clans need to be created before the deployment effectively works."
"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."
"The product does not have a cloud version...The product should be made more flexible in terms of integration capabilities."
"Cisco's technical support originally was outstanding, but it has declined over the last 12 months. I've heard they're trying to do better, but I haven't been overly impressed with their support recently for HyperFlex."
"The primary improvements should be made in the cluster storage controller VMs so that they don't break the upgrade process."
"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."
"I would have liked it to be able to back up the system to a cloud, to be able to work from any other place"
"We're also running Hyper-V virtual machines. But we recently discovered that migration of the Hyper-V virtual machines is a bit challenging. Maybe if Dell EMC can come out with a tool that will make it very easy for us to migrate the Microsoft Hyper-V machine, that may be an improvement."
"The support of containers needs to be improved. At present, it is limited to VMware. There needs to be direct communication with the hardware rather than through a hypervisor."
"The storage capability must be improved."
"Including instrumentation would be a helpful improvement."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface."
"The biggest issue with the solution is that it doesn't support Hyper V. It's a big problem."
"The installation is complex."
"Exporting data from the dashboard is not very user-friendly. It's just designed in a way that it's going to cover let's say 90%, 80%, of the end-users needs. If you need more sophisticated reporting it's not easy to have."
Try it today
Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is ranked 8th in HCI with 18 reviews while Dell PowerFlex is ranked 11th in HCI with 7 reviews. Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is rated 8.0, while Dell PowerFlex is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series writes "High performance solution that makes it easy to efficiently manage VM resources". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Dell PowerFlex writes "Infrastructure management solution that offers rapid provisioning of computer storage but the APIs and enablers for custom automation could be improved". Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE SimpliVity and Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure, whereas Dell PowerFlex is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and HPE SimpliVity. See our Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series vs. Dell PowerFlex report.
See our list of best HCI vendors.
We monitor all HCI reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.