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 198 StarWind Virtual SAN reviews

4,786 Views
3,063 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.

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: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

September 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

7.7

Number of Reviews

198

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

"It is a stable and scalable solution."

"The solution scales extremely well."

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

"The software defines networking, storage, and processing."

"The most valuable feature of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is its performance."

"Cisco technical support is very skilled. From what I've had to access, there were quick responses and the necessary escalation."

"The automation is a valuable feature, it's interesting."

"Our customers have seen ROI in terms of the time they save troubleshooting."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pros

"The best part is the easy way it operates with a very clear GUI without any unnecessary items."

"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."

"Before VSAN, hypervisor configuration changes and updates resulted in VM outages. Now, downtime is dramatically reduced."

"Recovery and maintenance are now less stressful and most importantly, it allows our users to keep working."

"I have found the graphical user interface to be the most useful thing about Virtual SAN."

"As the client had acquired another company some distance away, they were concerned about having a single SAN in one location or the other. StarWind vSAN allowed us to keep a copy of the data local to each site without asking the client to pay for two SANs in addition to the two new servers they needed."

"The failover protection and the ability to expand storage and nodes with no downtime are by far the best physical features we have benefited from."

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

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

Cons

"The initial setup of the Cisco HyperFlex HX platform was medium-level difficult. It's a little bit different from traditional servers. It takes getting used to the learning curve."

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

"The initial setup is very complex because there were some issues. It is not clear to how set up this solution."

"Cisco should combine its features with its prices."

"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"

"Technical support is very good. Not excellent, but good. There's still not enough data available on the web. For example, for the integration to VMware, I had a case recently and I searched for more information but didn't find any."

"I would like to see them expand onto the cloud."

"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."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] cons

"We have, in rare cases, received conflicting guidance between different support folks within StarWind."

"There is no IPv6 support. That is our only issue at this time."

"The documentation could be a little more concise, but, for the most part, it just works."

"An update caused a syncing issue and it took over a month to resolve it"

"Geolocation could be better, for example, for site mirroring for DR purposes."

"The only way I can see this product needing improvement is the consultation level of the StarWind sales and engineers."

"Sometimes documentation on their site can be out of date."

"The gathering of monthly consumption and performance reports for future dissemination to concerned parties is very important. Unfortunately, StarWinds vSAN doesn't offer this functionality."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no additional licensing cost other than the cost for each part."

"The licensing is perpetual and the only thing that you may need to pay for on a monthly basis is if you're going to use their cloud-based management features."

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

"I would like the pricing to be cheaper."

"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."

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

"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."

"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is expensive. It's a standard license, and we pay for it yearly. I think we pay about 700."

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

"I think the cost of this solution is quite fair."

"There are two tiers of support and in my opinion, support is worth the cost."

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

"It's priced fairly. It was definitely cheaper than the competition. The licensing terms are straightforward and reasonable."

"This solution has a great price for the functionality."

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

"The pricing is more than reasonable."

"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."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

16%

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	159
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 Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series?

It's easy to get the tool started.

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?

I had experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing through using the free version of StarWind Virtual SAN for testing purposes, so there was no cost involved during my evaluation. That made i...

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

One area for improvement regarding StarWind Virtual SAN is the lack of a full-feature trial. At the time I tested it, I had access only to the free version, which required using PowerShell scripts ...

See all answers

Comparisons

HPE SimpliVity vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 62% of the time

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

Compared 38% of the time

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Competitors

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 22% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 17% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 13% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 13% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 11% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

September 2025

Download Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

August 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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