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DataCore SANsymphony vs Sunlight comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

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

DataCore SANsymphony
Ranking in HCI
7th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Storage Software (2nd), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (4th), Storage Performance (1st)
Sunlight
Ranking in HCI
30th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of DataCore SANsymphony is 2.2%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sunlight is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

OliverPalz - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides efficient synchronous mirroring capability and dynamic data management functionality
The initial setup is relatively easy but requires a certified DataCore implementation engineer to deploy the solution in a production environment. The deployment following the qualified procedure, typically takes about a week, depending on the amount of storage and the specific environment. With my experience, I can set up the system within two to four hours; however, the qualification process, which includes detailed planning and testing, adds additional time. It involves gathering the customer's requirements, preparing comprehensive documentation for validation, and conducting tests in collaboration with the customer. This documentation includes a site planning checklist, a pre-installation checklist, and a functional test plan to ensure everything is in order before deployment. Overall, I rate the process an eight.
RajeshKANUMURY - PeerSpot reviewer
Performs well, effective, and has responsive remote technical support
Sunlight is a scalable solution. It supports on-premises and distributed deployments, as well as public deployments. It has a single pane of management so I can manage all of my VM installations in a distributed manner. It also has a footprint, that allows me to operate on Edge. If for example, you have a retail shop with 2,000 locations and they use a networked point of sale system, or if you are Chipotle and they have so many locations and they have to use a backend system at each location. At the moment, these are all standalone systems that operate with very little connection to the central. We could, however, connect and create a network using Sunlight. We can virtualize and run with Edge thanks to Sunlight. This allows us to operate and obtain high-end computing on Edge for retail. Sunlight is a startup. I am not sure how many users they have, but we have been using it constantly and using the technology to bring in customers.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I'd have to say that the biggest improvement gained by using SANsymphony has to be the performance of the product."
"DataCore's ability to seamlessly move virtual volume data between storage pools as well as their synchronous mirroring has made maintenance and disaster recovery planning achievable."
"The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are many counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like when a backup is in progress)."
"I am very happy with this product's ability to adapt, increase, and modify existing infrastructures."
"The documentation repository is really useful and kept updated."
"An advantage of SANsymphony is its ease of use, especially when installing or upgrading the system."
"The DataCore system has been rock solid since we have been using it - from 2007 on."
"The most useful feature of SANsymphony is that it's able to manage any brand of block storage."
"It supports the latest technology of NVMe SSD, which is PCIe-based SSD. It has a very good IOPS performance as compared to vSAN. For the same system, I get 1,000 IOPS with vSAN, and with Sunlight, I am able to get almost 10,000 IOPS. In terms of features, it has almost all the features, such as HA and centralized dashboards. It can be managed centrally, and the visibility of the system is very good. They also have very good technical support and customer or partner training."
"The performance and small footprint of this solution are its most valuable features. I am able to obtain and use more than 90 percent of the physical hardware capacity."
 

Cons

"SANsymphony is missing some features that vSAN has. For example, vSAN has a special feature called continuous data protection. It provides the ability to go back in time to a given moment. You can see what was on your disk in the past up to two weeks. That's a great feature because ransomware attacks are increasingly common, and that provides you some kind of protection."
"There is no way of quickly matching the exact size of a vDisk to a disk pool."
"Having an enterprise "Storage Dashboard" that can show capacity, usage, performance, and any issues would be very beneficial."
"The graphical interface is not always very stable."
"Datacore is developing a new WebUI with new dashboards. It is a good idea as the classic GUI is lacking dashboards."
"Management could be improved. The management console sometimes reacts very slowly."
"DataCore should integrate its own file server into SANsymphony."
"I would like to see SMPA (Shared Multi-Port Array) technology developed with the aim of allowing a configuration identical to other storage arrays."
"Its reporting and dashboards need to be improved. It currently has very basic reporting options. It should also be made easier to deploy on Unix operating systems. It is easy to deploy on Windows and Linux, but it is currently not easy to deploy on Unix."
"My recommendation would be to add this technology to Azure, Microsoft Azure so that we can bring it to the market, or deploy it on public clouds such as Microsoft Azure and Google. It is currently only available on Amazon's public cloud."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is relatively expensive, and the additional costs for hardware and storage can make it a significant investment for customers."
"This solution allows the use of off-the-shelf hardware and charges by the TB of storage."
"This product has a good ratio between quality and price. In many cases, it's less expensive to work with DataCore than other storage systems."
"The cost is at the same level as other storage solutions and it is easy to understand the licensing."
"We have licensing costs on a yearly basis. They charge per terabyte, so in terms of cost, it can be very costly. They have three different features, and you have to pay extra for those."
"Make sure you are made aware of the annual subscription cost when purchasing."
"The pricing and licensing are better with DataCore."
"DataCore SANsymphony's pricing is very high and should be much cheaper."
"There is an operating cost for the VDIs, which is an additional cost. However, the licensing fee is half that of VMware or Nutanix."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore SANsymphony SDS?
The cost changed from a perpetual license to a subscription model, and it seems reasonable. I am technical personnel and not deeply involved in sales, but the pricing appears fine.
What do you like most about DataCore SANsymphony?
The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are a lot of counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like when a backup is in progress).
What needs improvement with DataCore SANsymphony?
In my opinion, there should be improvements in how to get and filter logs. However, this is not a frequent need because they have great support that offers quick and knowledgeable assistance. Other...
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Also Known As

DataCore Virtual SAN
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Volkswagen , Maimonides Medical Center, NASA, Thorntons, Inc., TUI, ISCO Industries, Pee Dee Electric Cooperative, United Financial Credit Union, Derby Supply Chain Solutions, Mission Community Hospital, Bellarmine College Preparatory, Colby-Sawyer College, Mount Sinai Health System, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Quorn Foods, Bitburger, University of Birmingham, Stadtverwaltung Heidelberg, NetEnt to name a few.
Lavazza, Infraspace
Find out what your peers are saying about DataCore SANsymphony vs. Sunlight and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,803 professionals have used our research since 2012.