We compared VMware vSAN and Dell PowerFlex based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
Overall, VMware vSAN is praised for its simplicity, integration, and scalability, with positive feedback on customer service and ROI. On the other hand, Dell PowerFlex is highly regarded for its flexibility, performance, and reliability, with positive feedback on pricing and customer service. Users note varying deployment times for both products.
Features: VMware vSAN is valued for its simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and seamless integration. On the other hand, Dell PowerFlex is highly regarded for its flexibility, scalability, and reliability. Both offer high performance and user-friendly interfaces.
Pricing and ROI: The setup cost for VMware vSAN was initially deemed expensive by users, but it provided good long-term value. On the other hand, Dell PowerFlex had a reasonable and competitive pricing. Users found its setup cost to be straightforward and hassle-free, resulting in a smooth implementation process., Users report positive ROI for both VMware vSAN and Dell PowerFlex. vSAN offers improved virtualization performance and data protection, while PowerFlex enhances productivity and cost savings.
Room for Improvement: VMware vSAN has room for improvement in performance optimization, scalability for larger environments, configuration ease, and integration with third-party solutions. Dell PowerFlex needs enhancements in specific areas.
Deployment and customer support: The user reviews for VMware vSAN and Dell PowerFlex indicate that the duration required to establish a new tech solution can vary. Some users of VMware vSAN reported spending one week for both deployment and setup, while for Dell PowerFlex, some users mentioned needing a week for deployment and another week for setup. This suggests that the two products may have different timelines for deployment and setup., The customer service provided by VMware vSAN is described as top-notch, with users praising the support team's helpfulness, knowledge, and responsiveness in troubleshooting and providing timely solutions. Dell PowerFlex also offers efficient and helpful assistance, promptly addressing users' questions and concerns with knowledgeable and friendly representatives. Both products prioritize customer satisfaction and provide reliable support.
The summary above is based on 29 interviews we conducted recently with VMware vSAN and Dell PowerFlex users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"With an uptime of 384 days, StarWind has improved overall server reliability."
"Starwind made it easy to deploy fully redundant, highly available storage at a low cost."
"A great feature is that I basically set it and forget it, as everything is automatic."
"A typical system administrator with minimal experience in Hyper-V, VMware, or Windows can do VSAN configuration and maintain VSAN operations."
"It has reduced the amount of switching, network connections, etc., because the converged StarWind Virtual SAN allows us to connect high-speed network interfaces between different boxes instead of having to connect SANs via the network, then connect those two clusters together."
"Quick setup, great support, stability is great"
"Using our own choice of HW allowed us to price our service to answer our customers' needs."
"I save both physical and virtual space."
"The solution is quite stable."
"The support is highly responsive."
"The program is stable."
"The integration with AWS is a valuable feature."
"We've had no issues with scaling the solution."
"The solution was connected to alternate storage. It provides great scalability and reliability."
"Saves us a lot of space in the data center."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is integration."
"It's very scalable. I like that. Adding a node is easy. Adding a disk group is easy."
"vSAN is integrated into VMware."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to continue our business needs and have higher visibility. It has definitely increased our business productivity levels."
"The technical support is good. We are always thankful for the technical support from VMware. They are very supportive when we have a technical problem."
"It uncoupled the idea of proprietary technology and component capabilities. It is basically a proprietary technology for a cost-effective infrastructure."
"We don't have to order a storage system, we can just use whatever we have on hand and roll it into our virtualization system."
"Instead of going for SAN storage, customers can use the scale-up and scale-out features of VMware vSAN."
"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."
"The interface of the management console of the StarWind Virtual SAN is complex, and it's difficult for the novice user to interact with the management having less knowledge or training in the product."
"Pricing is a bit high."
"I had issues locating the documentation that applied to my version of StarWind vSAN."
"Regular updates to the software are required, and subtle design changes would be welcome."
"The reconnection of the attached drives upon a reboot could be improved."
"If there was one feature I would like to see it would be a built-in subsystem for managing UPS backups shutdown procedures providing a way to initiate VM shutdown on all host servers, shut down the host servers, then put the fault-tolerant mirroring in standby, and finally shut down the StarWind SANs."
"You have to do a "full" sync on write-back cache disks instead of a quick sync if there is an issue."
"There should be some kind of active monitoring connected to StarWind vSAN, so you will be able to act when needed."
"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."
"They should provide continuous support for data migration."
"The storage capability must be improved."
"There should be more functionality available for routing."
"Compared to similar solutions, Dell PowerFlex is not cost-effective and has room for improvement."
"The biggest issue with the solution is that it doesn't support Hyper V. It's a big problem."
"I think there might be some room for improvement when it comes to pricing, because although I know how to convert customers, at the end of day, it's quite expensive. Sometimes your feature architecture is still coming out much cheaper than hardware costs for your infrastructure."
"Exporting data from the dashboard is not very user-friendly. It's just designed in a way that it's going to cover let's say 90%, 80%, of the end-users needs. If you need more sophisticated reporting it's not easy to have."
"he list of hardware supported should be increased in the future."
"We plan to switch products since the hardware nowadays is a little bit outdated and we need to scale up a bit."
"As a software-based product, it requires a lot of system resources."
"In a future release, they could add micro-segmentation or security level features integrated into vSAN."
"It can be very expensive."
"Virtual machines disk size cannot cap more than a single node. For a VDI user, it may not save enough to hold a file server or exchange server on a single node storage space."
"Perhaps they could provide encryption without having to use an encryption manager."
"Some intelligence can be added to the newest version to provide more flexibility between storage tiers."
Try it today
Dell PowerFlex is ranked 11th in HCI with 19 reviews while VMware vSAN is ranked 3rd in HCI with 219 reviews. Dell PowerFlex is rated 8.2, while VMware vSAN is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Dell PowerFlex writes "Infrastructure management solution that offers rapid provisioning of computer storage but the APIs and enablers for custom automation could be improved". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware vSAN writes "Very stable, easy to set up, and easy to use". Dell PowerFlex is most compared with VxRail, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE SimpliVity, Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series and HPE Alletra dHCI, whereas VMware vSAN is most compared with VxRail, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, HPE SimpliVity, Red Hat Ceph Storage and Pure Storage FlashArray. See our Dell PowerFlex vs. VMware vSAN 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.