We performed a comparison between DataCore SANsymphony and VxRail 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."This solution enables us to make better cost-effective use of our existing hardware and leverage the current infrastructure at a higher level than we could before."
"StarWind SANs come with outstanding support."
"The ability for us to manage all of our nodes from the same console makes systems administration very easy."
"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 Windows-based StarWind GUI is easy to use and understand and integrates seamlessly with VMware's vSphere portal as well."
"vSAN we found was simple to set up, easy to configure and manage and allows us to achieve storage redundancy."
"The fact that I can now count on a true failover solution is what is most appealing."
"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 most valuable feature of DataCore SANsymphony SDS is its high availability. This solution also exhibits good performance and has high stability."
"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 documentation repository is really useful and kept updated."
"Storage is always available."
"Active-active is the most valuable aspect for us."
"The DataCore system has been rock solid since we have been using it - from 2007 on."
"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."
"It has a valuable deduplication feature."
"We deploy VxRail systems to provide our customers with a distributed information solution. The customer was impressed because we delivered a serious data reduction. For example, we showed them that 10 terabytes on their traditional storage solution could be reduced to 1.5 terabytes in the VxRail systems. That's why the customers also like it so much,"
"The compute is good and we have not had any issues with the vSAN."
"The stability is very nice. We haven't had any issues with the cluster. The cluster is very stable. No problems with slowness. Everything has been stable. It was well-architectured."
"VxRail is a simple, efficient solution. It's easy to upgrade and scale the solution. If we increase our user base, we can easily scale it out. We have several thousand using it now."
"The most valuable feature for me in this latest release has been the ability to add a compute or storage node. In the previous release, if I wanted to add only the compute mode, I need to buy a full node, including both compute and storage. That is no longer the case; I can upgrade whatever I want one based on my demand."
"The scalability of VxRail is very good."
"It improved from an operations standpoint as we have reduced failures compared to a previous vendor. The hardware that we previously used had a lot of issues with components failing regularly."
"StarWind Virtual SAN architecture is slightly complex and requires the team to carefully identify and study how the solution integrates with VMware vSphere."
"The main thing I would like to see improved is the level of documentation."
"If there was a way to automatically put disks in maintenance mode when shutting the host down and exit maintenance mode automatically, that would simplify things."
"If there was one thing we could request, it would be the ability to shrink volumes. For example, we want to be able to decrease in the size of the volume."
"I would like to see more user-friendly dashboards in future versions."
"I see no need for major improvements but there could be some improvements in the form of notifications and the simplifying of maintenance mode."
"The gathering of monthly consumption and performance reports for future dissemination to concerned parties is very important. Unfortunately, StarWinds vSAN doesn't offer this functionality."
"The only way I can see this product needing improvement is the consultation level of the StarWind sales and engineers."
"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."
"Datacore is developing a new WebUI with new dashboards. It is a good idea as the classic GUI is lacking dashboards."
"The cloud reporting interface is quite poor compared to other vendors."
"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."
"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."
"Having an enterprise "Storage Dashboard" that can show capacity, usage, performance, and any issues would be very beneficial."
"The solution could be better packaged and marketed."
"The way that the VxRail is licensed could be improved."
"I would like to see VxRail add duplication features to its hybrid solution."
"There could be better documentation and they should allow everyone to access the simulator."
"The implementation of a VxRail, it's straightforward, but the ongoing utilization, and integration, are where it can start to become difficult if you're not used to doing it."
"We have some issues, but they are possibly out-of-the-box issues. There was a host that was dead on arrival, and there were some file issues on other hosts. We're currently working actively with Dell to resolve all these issues. Once they are resolved, the product should be stable."
"VxRail should try to improve the pricing."
"It would be an improvement if VxRail could be integrated with some other hypervisors and not just with VMware."
"We'd like to see more automation capabilities in the future."
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DataCore SANsymphony is ranked 7th in HCI with 13 reviews while VxRail is ranked 3rd in HCI with 72 reviews. DataCore SANsymphony is rated 9.4, while VxRail is rated 8.6. 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 VxRail writes "Good automation makes this solution practical". DataCore SANsymphony is most compared with VMware vSAN, HPE SimpliVity, Pure Storage FlashArray, StorMagic SvSAN and Red Hat Ceph Storage, whereas VxRail is most compared with VMware vSAN, HPE SimpliVity, Dell PowerFlex, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series. See our DataCore SANsymphony vs. VxRail report.
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