We performed a comparison between DataCore SANsymphony 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."It enables us to provide more solution options for our clients, with the reassurance that, when implemented, they will be efficient and stable."
"It integrates (fully) with VMware and Veeam, my hypervisor, and backup vendors, so for me, all the puzzle pieces simply fit and work smoothly."
"It's very easy to resize disks and they show up in VMware almost instantly."
"StarWind vSAN has allowed us to grow rapidly while still providing flexibility and reliability."
"It includes every feature that a traditional SAN offers and so much more."
"Immediately we noticed huge performance gains, even on older hardware and once we implemented a 10GB link between both servers, the sync was near-instant after the initial sync was complete."
"The top-notch support before, during, and after deployments are better than any other vendor I have come across."
"The instant failover, with vSAN copying data to the second node, allowed for the continuous availability of our applications."
"I am very happy with this product's ability to adapt, increase, and modify existing infrastructures."
"SANsymphony is flexible, with many potential options for implementation. SANsymphony's can be used with VMware, Hyper-V, or even with a hypervisor agnostic approach. It can also be used for strictly physical non-virtualized solutions."
"The documentation repository is really useful and kept updated."
"The most valuable feature of DataCore SANsymphony SDS is its high availability. This solution also exhibits good performance and has high stability."
"DataCore SANsymphony's stability is okay."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its versatility, with there being support for all new hardware technologies and platforms, disc mirroring and very effective auto tiering."
"Storage is always available."
"Active-active is the most valuable aspect for us."
"Saves us a lot of space in the data center."
"The solution is scalable."
"The catalog of APIs for automation has been most valuable, although they are quite limited."
"Dell PowerFlex is a one-stop-shop solution. Storage, compute, network, application monitoring, and support cases are all combined into one solution. It's very easy to administer compared to when you have a reference architecture where you need to design and build everything yourself. You would also then have to work with multiple vendors."
"The integration with AWS is a valuable feature."
"The support team responds quickly."
"We've had no issues with scaling the solution."
"Security on the ISCSI protocol could be improved by adding features like OS-type control access, especially for the data center environment."
"If it's possible to make a driver/solution that does not make use of the iSCSI targets of Windows, that would be great. I don't know if that's possible, however, it could make the configuration a little easier."
"The documentation can be better for the free tier."
"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."
"A better overall view of the different deployments could be beneficial, although this is difficult due to how flexible the solution is."
"We just need more integration with Veeam."
"Perhaps more reporting features on the utilization, usage, and performance of the configured high-availability images and underlying physical disks would be helpful."
"I wish the sync after a failure, such as hardware failure or power-related issues, for example, was faster."
"Its interface could be better."
"DataCore SANsymphony should integrate file servers at a good price into the solution."
"The solution could be better packaged and marketed."
"It would be ideal if they were providing archive licensing with the ability to create a second pool on existing storage nodes."
"One limitation of this solution is that it's Windows-based, e.g. one requirement to install DataCore SANsymphony SDS is putting it on a Windows server machine. It relies on Windows and that is a limitation because there are some customers who are looking for non Windows systems."
"We'd like to manage the raid on the disk directly in SanSymphony."
"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."
"NVMeoF should be implemented. This protocol will play a major role in storage infrastructure in the future."
"They should provide continuous support for data migration."
"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."
"We've had some issues around the licensing."
"Licensing restrictions can be frustrating."
"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."
"Compared to similar solutions, Dell PowerFlex is not cost-effective and has room for improvement."
"The storage capability must be improved."
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DataCore SANsymphony is ranked 8th in HCI with 14 reviews while Dell PowerFlex is ranked 10th in HCI with 7 reviews. DataCore SANsymphony is rated 9.2, while Dell PowerFlex is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of DataCore SANsymphony writes "Easily scalable with great technical support and very good snapshot capabilities". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Dell PowerFlex writes "Stable with good technical support and the capability to scale". DataCore SANsymphony is most compared with VMware vSAN, HPE SimpliVity, Pure Storage FlashArray, Red Hat Ceph Storage and VxRail, whereas Dell PowerFlex is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE SimpliVity and Scale Computing HC3. See our DataCore SANsymphony vs. Dell PowerFlex report.
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