We performed a comparison between DataCore SANsymphony and VMware vSAN 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.
"VSAN works great; it's very easy to install, configure, and manage."
"The install itself is easy as pie."
"The ROI is great on this product."
"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."
"It enables us to provide more solution options for our clients, with the reassurance that, when implemented, they will be efficient and stable."
"Virtual SAN runs on iSCSI, which is free and easy to configure. It's easy to manage from StarWind's GUI console, and it only required a few extra switch ports."
"The most useful aspect is the hyper-converged SD SAN and the ease to expand it by just adding cheap SSD or NVME disks."
"Starwind support is excellent. They are very fast and have very good knowledge of Starwind and Hyper-V Cluster software."
"It's a software storage solution that can scale as we like. There is also has a parallel feature that enhances the performance of the storage solution. We can separate storage and computing, and we can scale these two parts of the platform to meet business needs efficiently."
"The DataCore system has been rock solid since we have been using it - from 2007 on."
"The ability to pool the storage to leverage thin-provisioning is a huge saving in space and costs."
"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."
"Continuous data protection (CDP), can be used to "protect" again ransomware by recording all write on disk in a log. You can recover your data with incredible time granularity."
"Active-active is the most valuable aspect for us."
"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 useful feature of SANsymphony is that it's able to manage any brand of block storage."
"The installation is very easy."
"The solution is simple to use compared to other solutions, such as Hyperflex, VxRail, and Nutanix"
"VMware has been around for a long time are are doing a decent job at catching up with the latest technologies i.e. bringing in kubernetes and containerization. Overall, this is a great tool for virtualization."
"In my opinion, vSAN is the most natural way to migrate to a fully hyperconverged solution. If a customer needs a more scalable solution with consolidated management, vSAN is excellent."
"It easily integrates with all types of storage."
"The most valuable thing about vSAN is that all of its features have been working well for us for the past two years. We haven't had an issue with them."
"The most valuable feature for our customers is vMotion. It allows them to shut down virtual machines and migrate them to others servers."
"Allows us to implement more quickly, and to ease the maintenance."
"We just need more integration with Veeam."
"Android app for monitoring and receiving push notifications as alarms or monitoring I/O from any mobile device could be a good feature and nice to have as we are not always on our desk."
"I see no need for major improvements but there could be some improvements in the form of notifications and the simplifying of maintenance mode."
"A better overall view of the different deployments could be beneficial, although this is difficult due to how flexible the solution is."
"Security on the ISCSI protocol could be improved by adding features like OS-type control access, especially for the data center environment."
"It would be nice to see a new UI for the windows client, as it is not the easiest to find settings."
"There needs to be more visibility on how long the cloud replication will take as there is no current ETA."
"Currently, the StarWind management console is a bit clunky to navigate and isn't the most user-intuitive interface."
"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."
"Having an enterprise "Storage Dashboard" that can show capacity, usage, performance, and any issues would be very beneficial."
"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."
"The graphical interface is not always very stable."
"The cloud reporting interface is quite poor compared to other vendors."
"Right now, the version used is run on Microsoft Windows Server. Having a Linux version or even an appliance would be better as it would eliminate the use of additional licensing for another piece of hardware."
"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."
"Integration could be better."
"The updating process could be easier."
"Ease of administration is one area where vSAN could be improved."
"This solution could be improved by having more than one controller for the environment. VMware depends on one controller for the whole environment, whereas Nutanix has one controller for each node. Because there is only one controller with VMware, if there was any drop, then the whole environment would stop working. In Nutanix, I have five nodes—there is one controller for each node and it depends on a virtual controller—so if the controller of any node is down, the whole environment will still work."
"If we have some complicated issues, you have to use the command lines interface. Not everything is possible to be fixed in the GUI. This is a drawback, that some things have to be fixed via command-line interface and should be able to be done in the GUI."
"On the DevOps side, if there could be more automation it would be more helpful."
"This is quite an expensive solution."
"Pricing is something of a concern."
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DataCore SANsymphony is ranked 7th in HCI with 12 reviews while VMware vSAN is ranked 2nd in HCI with 87 reviews. DataCore SANsymphony is rated 9.4, while VMware vSAN 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 VMware vSAN writes "Gives us a lot of advantages when we need to expand resources". DataCore SANsymphony is most compared with HPE SimpliVity, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), Pure Storage FlashArray and StorMagic SvSAN, whereas VMware vSAN is most compared with VxRail, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, HPE SimpliVity and HPE Hyper Converged. See our DataCore SANsymphony vs. VMware vSAN report.
See our list of best HCI vendors and best Cloud Software Defined Storage 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.
