We performed a comparison between DataCore SANsymphony and HPE SimpliVity 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."Starwind made it easy to deploy fully redundant, highly available storage at a low cost."
"This was a great implementation for a small to mid-size business."
"It enables us to provide more solution options for our clients, with the reassurance that, when implemented, they will be efficient and stable."
"StarWind SANs come with outstanding support."
"The support team is available to solve any problem efficiently."
"PowerShell library is pretty good feature as I created with APC PowerChute a script to put volumes on maintenance mode then turning off the StarWind nodes together with the VM and Hosts when UPS reaches 15 percent, this way after a blackout or electrical problems when turning servers on again, there is no issues for syncing or data loss due to energy interrupts."
"The fact that the solution is vendor-agnostic allows it to be used with any virtualization vendor while remaining a powerful abstraction over storage."
"The most valuable feature is the reliable storage replication, which enables me to create a robust infrastructure to run our business."
"The most useful feature of SANsymphony is that it's able to manage any brand of block storage."
"I found the solution to be very stable."
"CDP is an important feature for avoiding data loss in the event of ransomware attacks. You need more storage capacity, however, you get the possibility to return at any time and use the data saved up to that point. The recovery is much faster than with a classic restore."
"The most valuable feature of DataCore SANsymphony SDS is its high availability. This solution also exhibits good performance and has high stability."
"The documentation repository is really useful and kept updated."
"The DataCore system has been rock solid since we have been using it - from 2007 on."
"Active-active is the most valuable aspect for us."
"The ability to pool the storage to leverage thin-provisioning is a huge saving in space and costs."
"I like HPE SimpliVity's hard disk compression capabilities. The data is compressed into very little space or volume. I think that the principal value of HP SimpliVity is its capacity to compress the data, and I'm saving a lot of disk space using SimpliVity."
"The solution is scalable."
"The HCI concept by itself is the most valuable feature of the solution. It is a full-fledged HCI. It is the main component. I think this is what makes the project valuable."
"The setup is very easy."
"I like SimpliVity because it can be adapted for small clients or the biggest ones. It's flexible."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"It's much more simple than Nutanix and other hyper-converged solutions, at least from our point of view."
"HPE SimpliVity is a very valuable and effective solution. It's also a scalable solution. As the customer requirements and application requirements increase, it can scale to accommodate them."
"The setup and documentation for the installation with the free version could definitely be improved."
"It would be helpful if StarWind provided more precise and detailed documentation explaining how to configure the solution in various scenarios, including the advantages and disadvantages of each."
"There is one issue as far as licensing goes and that is a lack of documentation online for users when transitioning from the free version to the paid version, or vice versa."
"This is a great product."
"It would help if the manufacturer provided clearer and more detailed documentation, with explanations of how the application can be installed in various HA configurations."
"I would like to see more user-friendly dashboards in future versions."
"For me, the product could be improved by it being made cheaper."
"vSAN's free version does not have a graphical user interface."
"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."
"If it could integrate to a cloud gateway, then we could carry it directly to storage, instead of having middleware in between the storage and the cloud."
"NVMeoF should be implemented. This protocol will play a major role in storage infrastructure in the future."
"The cloud reporting interface is quite poor compared to other vendors."
"There is room for improvement in the graphical interface."
"Datacore is developing a new WebUI with new dashboards. It is a good idea as the classic GUI is lacking dashboards."
"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."
"The setup was complex, as it has multiple integrations with multiple orients."
"There is room for improvement in the operations area because the support for that server space is minimal."
"They can bring more awareness about this product. In this part of the world or this region, people normally don't know about SimpliVity and its capabilities. The company we have it sold to hasn't been able to fully utilize all the features or understand the features. So, product awareness should be improved."
"The fact that it is tied to a certain hardware platform would probably be the bigger negative versus just being able to buy something off the shelf."
"Our customers are always looking or a discount on the product."
"It could integrate better with other platforms. It's a proprietary solution of HPE, so you are stuck. Before I was running SimpliVity as an independent solution. it wasn't a card and software, so you could put in whatever server, IBM, Dell, etc."
"In the next release of the solution, they should make updating the solution easier. Currently, we have HPE doing it for us but I would like to be able to do it."
"SimpliVity has no file server services. That's one of the solution's biggest shortcomings."
Try it today
DataCore SANsymphony is ranked 7th in HCI with 14 reviews while HPE SimpliVity is ranked 5th in HCI with 48 reviews. DataCore SANsymphony is rated 9.4, while HPE SimpliVity is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of DataCore SANsymphony writes "Provides HA virtualized storage independent of storage type or vendor". On the other hand, the top reviewer of HPE SimpliVity writes "Phenomenal deduplication and compression, good support, and works on its own". DataCore SANsymphony is most compared with VMware vSAN, Pure Storage FlashArray, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, StorMagic SvSAN and VxRail, whereas HPE SimpliVity is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and HPE Nimble Storage dHCI. See our DataCore SANsymphony vs. HPE SimpliVity 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.