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DataCore SANsymphony vs NetApp HCI [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Storage Software (2nd), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (5th), HCI (8th), Storage Performance (1st)
NetApp HCI [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

SigfridCecillon - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at Arsium
High availability and user-friendliness enhance infrastructure health and redundancy
I would rate technical support from DataCore SANsymphony a 10. Each time I contact the technical support, it's when I don't have a choice because it's very difficult for me on site, and each time, I have good people online who are able to help me solve the problem. Usually, the problems are not very technically difficult, but sometimes they are, and the support team is still there to help us resolve them. The majority of the problems are linked to licensing, so when the license has expired or the number is not correct, they are proactive and change things live, which is very good.
MB
Chief Information Officer at Lucart S.p.A.
Crashed continuously, complex to deploy, and bad after-sales support - NETAPP FIXED the problems in 2022
Their after-sales support, SLA, and third-parties availability should be improved. NetApp's support is very difficult to engage. We have an SLA of onsite support within 24 hours. but they don't respect the SLA. Its stability was very bad. It has been crashing continuously. In one year, we got three crashes, which is unbelievable for an appliance that is guaranteed for 10 years without any crashes. In 2022, NetApp Italy, driven by the country manager Davide Marini, fixed all our issues and added additional computation power for free. This is a great example of customer care. They could have done it right the first time of course, but admitting the errors and putting in place such a remediation plan has been a very professional behavior.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The features I have found most valuable are the active-active, or so-called grid technology, and the integration into our VMware-vCenter."
"DataCore SANsymphony's stability is okay."
"Supporting of Automated-Storage-Tiering (AST) is a good feature that saves money."
"The interface is user-friendly."
"Active-active is the most valuable aspect for us."
"The most valuable feature for us is that we can adjust the size of the storage very easily, without stopping production."
"Our system is designed to be scalable and flexible, so it can grow and adapt to meet the changing needs of our clients."
"During the maintenance periods, on any part of the storage or VMware migration, we have had no downtime."
"The multi-vertical aspect is what is most valuable for us. The main reason we wanted a multi protocol was because Amazon was not able to provide us with access to the same data as we could get from Linux and Windows lengths. That was our value proposition for this solution."
"In terms of helping us with storage persistence across private and hybrid clouds, we do store data internally and in Azure. It has allowed us to consolidate a number of workloads, across our old NetApp and a number of our older storage arrays, into a single unit and have that unit also working with Azure."
"HCI has helped with storage persistence across private and hybrid clouds for the last year. It's faster and more reliable with minimal downtime, as it doesn't require any maintenance."
"We like SnapMirror and we've been using it for many years. We also like the object storage tools, as well as cloud sync for customers wanting to integrate between the cloud and local."
"It has automated a lot of workloads. It has automated us from ticketing a large number to a very small number."
"The ability to size the available space in a way that matches our company's needs is most valuable. For instance, you can decide if you want 80/20, 70/30, or 60/40 space. Redundancy depends on your needs without changing the appliance. You just add space and decide the percentage of space that you need free and the percentage of space that you need for backup. It is all automatic, and you don't have to do anything. You just add space, and the system automatically configures itself with the chosen option."
"Stability is one of the things we absolutely have to have, because if the HCI is down, our assembly lines are down, and that could potentially lead to our customer being down. If our customer is down, that's $10,000 a minute; and any time the assembly line is down, that could potentially lead to overtime. We don't get to charge one and a half times for something we billed just because you happened to build it on overtime. Any technology we bring in, has to be built for what I call "three in the morning." It can't be built for whenever everybody's in the plant, everybody can watch it, and everybody can babysit. It has to be built for three a.m. when you've got a skeletal staff there, and you just have to know that it's just running. As I stand here, right now, I don't have to check my phone, I don't have to check my email. I know it's running. Period"
"It has reduced our hypervisor footprint by around 20%."
 

Cons

"NVMeoF should be implemented. This protocol will play a major role in storage infrastructure in the future."
"Its interface could be better."
"DataCore SANsymphony should integrate file servers at a good price into the solution."
"Having an enterprise "Storage Dashboard" that can show capacity, usage, performance, and any issues would be very beneficial."
"My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that in many cases it is expensive, but we can find a solution every time to have a discount for selling it."
"For customers or technicians who don't speak and understand English, it would be great to have other language support, all the more so given the number of countries in which SanSymphony is used."
"If you're dealing with big databases or transactional databases, it might not be the best-suited solution. The design of DataCore's solution isn't oriented towards this type of data."
"I would like for it to improve into a more ergonomic management console and a translation into the French language. It should have some process for a shutdown of a VM properly in case of a problem."
"HCI has not enabled us to consolidate workloads or break down silos and has not increased application performance. It has also not resulted in more efficient use of compute resources."
"The networking needs improvement."
"It is easy to install now, but could potentially be even simpler."
"If you want to have a really dense data center then it's hard to have a big chunk of cabling going through everything."
"Because I like block mode, I'd like to see SAN connectivity. I would like to be able to easily put it into my current environment."
"In the next version I would like to see bigger GPU types and insurance for including transparency."
"It would be nice to have better access to tutorials and a test environment for simulations."
"It is difficult to get acclimated to all the new features quickly. The onboard process could be improved to bring clients up to speed faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It is relatively expensive, and the additional costs for hardware and storage can make it a significant investment for customers."
"Pricing has improved but it is still expensive."
"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."
"DataCore SANsymphony's pricing is very high and should be much cheaper."
"This solution allows the use of off-the-shelf hardware and charges by the TB of storage."
"In my case, the licensing per terabytes is very high and it must be licensed for each extra functionality."
"Make sure you are made aware of the annual subscription cost when purchasing."
"Its price is comparable to the competitors in the market."
"Its pricing is lower than our previous solution."
"There are the overall infrastructure costs. Even though the initial costing was higher, we calculated for year-to-year for five years. That brought us into a position where we decided, we have to go for HCI rather than having distributor systems."
"Licenses run on a yearly basis, and there aren't any additional fees other than the standard licensing fee."
"All the licenses are included when you buy the program."
"The price of the solution is okay but could improve."
"Its price is aligned with the market. In addition to the standard licensing fees, there is an integrator cost."
"You still have to pay for the licensing for VMware and Red Hat licenses separately. It's not all inclusive at this point."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Government
6%
Marketing Services Firm
14%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise19
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore SANsymphony SDS?
I am saying that the pricing is reasonable. It's not that expensive, and the product is also pretty stable. It's a good solution and the price is okay regarding the other products.
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?
It's difficult to know how DataCore SANsymphony can be improved. I think DataCore SANsymphony could be deployed on Linux environments, which could be a great thing for clients. I would like to see ...
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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.
American Showa, Children's Mercy, Coca-Cola, Consultel Cloud, Evangelische Landeskirche in Wurttemberg, Imperva, Surface Mount Technology
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