Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

Cisco and StarWind are both solutions in the HCI category. Additionally, 89% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...

Read 90 Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] reviews

89% willing to recommend

StarWind Virtual SAN

Read 200 StarWind Virtual SAN reviews

4,684 Views
2,998 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...

StarWind Virtual SAN

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

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

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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

StarWind Virtual SAN

Average Rating

9.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

200

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st), HCI (5th)

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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Vladimir Simion

Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer

Achieving seamless cost-saving implementation with exceptional support

The best features that StarWind Virtual SAN offers include the price because comparing to other virtual SAN solutions, this one is the best, and it also has a great support team behind it. My experience with their support has been positive, as their guides regarding the integration are very useful. They have some awesome guides online that show you exactly how to configure the product, how to do the initial setup, and you can speak with them directly. They will be able to connect and verify your setup, run its parameters and see exactly what's working and what is not, and they really help you with that. StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization and my customer through initial cost saving. They use this product in a dark site, so I'm not able to provide any additional details about this, but they were really glad about it, they're still using it, and they asked for extending the capacity for it and the support. They really want to use it and are enjoying using it.

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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

"This is not the only product we use, so we have other solutions to compare it with. We can compare different products and different vendors and tell our customers which products have which advantages and disadvantages so that they can leverage these products in their own environment. This product helps us to understand the customer's needs and what issues they can run into."

"The management feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."

"Cisco HyperFlex HX has improved the way our organization functions on the storage side by having one big storage space for hosting VMs. We do not have to provision other ones. That's a positive aspect of it."

"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."

"Its most valuable feature is its flexibility."

"The solution is stable."

"The workload can handle anything and has an extended capacity."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pros

"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."

"When we need additional storage but want to keep the size of the SANs manageable, the StarWind Virtual SAN has allowed me to do everything needed."

"Training is also easy as it is just one system to learn."

"The available GUI is excellent for monitoring and operating the system in an easy and direct way."

"The ProActive support gives me peace of mind because I am a one man shop, but with the technical support behind me, I feel like more than just one person. We spent two to three hours, depending on what we have to do, always on the phone, and they do not push to end the call."

"It has a nice, simple control panel. You can clearly see the state and health of storage along with the synchronization."

"Integration with virtualization platforms helped us to resolve many issues we were facing while using the physical storage."

"User friendly interface and straight forward implementation."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

Cons

"The infrastructure team thinks that there are a lot of issues."

"If we could have just a single pane of glass, where everything can be managed through that one app, rather than have multiple apps, it would be great."

"I would like it to be easier to manage the server, create VMs, and manage the VMs on the client."

"In the next release, I would like to see them able to connect to the public cloud."

"The price could be better. I think it's more expensive than VxRail. In the next release, I would like to see a better level of protection and availability with six clients."

"It would have been nice if the product provided some cloud integrations."

"I would like to see more analytics. It could use better infographs in the HyperFlex Connect on how traffic is running in the network. If you were reaching any capacity issues on the Fabric Interconnects, it should be able to cool all of the servers and Fabric Interconnects, then possibly integrate it with, e.g., Nexus Series switches. This should all be available in a single pane of glass."

"Cisco is a bit more challenging in terms of deployment. The admin must be knowledgeable in order to complete the task. Without that knowledge, it will be difficult to complete."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] cons

"I would like them to invest time in reducing the complexity of the startup and shutdown procedure."

"We would like the documentation to be more complete. Most items are covered, but if you don't know something, you may need to contact their support."

"The logs can also become very noisy when there is an issue, which is very infrequent."

"The console is something that I feel could be improved. There is nothing technically wrong with it, but it can be jazzed up and/or made to be a little more intuitive."

"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."

"The documentation can be better for the free tier."

"Server-side snapshots are one thing the Linux appliance can't do yet."

"Scaling the product is fairly easy except for the computing aspect. It would entail another appliance. While not a show stopper, it isn't as easy as dropping in a few extra SSDs."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"Pricing is better if you buy more Cisco products."

"There is a recurring cost for the VMware license and the HyperFlex licenses."

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

"HyperFlex is relatively expensive, but you get good value for money."

"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."

"The price is a bit high. It could be better, but the product is worth the cost."

"We are on an annual subscription and the price is fair."

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

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

"The licensing is a bit weird. If you license the standard version of StarWind, it allows you four terabytes. Then, they have a pro version, but with the pro version, the only difference is it doubles the terabytes to eight."

"This is the best priced solution for an SMB."

"The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective."

"The pricing is more than reasonable."

"When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."

"This is a good, economical solution compared to data storage systems."

"The cost takes into account the number of nodes, so the size of the storage is not important."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

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	162
Midsize Enterprise	54
Large Enterprise	33

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 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) combines flash and disks of the cluster and forms a virtual shared storage “pool” acce...

See all answers

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

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for StarWind Virtual SAN was okay.

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

Currently, StarWind Virtual SAN is working perfectly fine, so there are no changes I would suggest.

See all answers

Comparisons

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

Compared 22% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 20% of the time

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

Compared 20% of the time

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Competitors

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 19% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 16% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 13% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 12% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 10% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

October 2025

Download Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

October 2025

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Also Known As

No data available

StarWind SAN & NAS

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

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.

StarWind

Sample Customers

BluePearl Veterinary Partners, Ready Pac Foods, Bryant University, Bellevue Group, KPIT Technologies, City Harvest

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

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