Dell PowerFlex vs VMware vSAN comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell PowerFlex 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.
To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerFlex vs. VMware vSAN Report (Updated: March 2023).
685,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It includes every feature that a traditional SAN offers and so much more.""The user interface for this application is amazing.""With an uptime of 384 days, StarWind has improved overall server reliability.""High Availability is the best feature of product.""The biggest benefit was that it allowed us to provide SAN services on a limited hardware budget.""It has been extremely stable for the three years we've been running it.""It's quite easy to manage.""It has great free trials that allow end users to test a large variety of their products before deciding to buy the full product."

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"The catalog of APIs for automation has been most valuable, although they are quite limited.""The integration with AWS is a valuable feature.""It is easy to use for management and operations teams because the tools are in one place.""Saves us a lot of space in the data center.""We've had no issues with scaling the solution."

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"It is very well known in the industry, and there are a lot of technical resources around it. This is a big thing for me because, at the end of the day, when you implement it, you need to support it.""The most valuable feature of VMware vSAN is the ease of management. VMware vSAN it's a part of VMware ESXi and when you do patching for VMware ESXi, VMware vSAN receives the patches too.""The solution is quite stable.""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.""Storage is expandable with no extra cost.""Technical support is very helpful and very good at resolving issues.""The high availability is very good.""The vSAN features we've found most helpful are live application migrations and storage policies. It has storage, policies, application, and DRS policies. Automation is there."

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Cons
"I would like to see improvements in the documentation area.""I found that certain browsers are not fully compatible with the administration web access portal.""It took a bit of knowledge and support to put in place but once installed it works fine. Migration (HyperV) from one server to another sometimes takes longer than expected but there is no data loss even if the host crashes.""The only point they should improve is the amount of documentation available for the user, especially in the first preliminary phase in which we were testing the product on our own.""The only way I can see this product needing improvement is the consultation level of the StarWind sales and engineers.""The documentation could be better.""For someone entering the IT sector with little knowledge of storage, iSCSI, and virtual disks, they might not find the GUI immediately obvious.""The setup and documentation for the installation with the free version could definitely be improved."

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"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.""Licensing restrictions can be frustrating.""The installation is complex.""We've had some issues around the licensing.""Compared to similar solutions, Dell PowerFlex is not cost-effective and has room for improvement."

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"Based on my testing, I would like to expand deduplication to include hybrid deployments and not just for all-flash deployments.""Customers who are using Essentials Plus or even Essentials have to pay for technical support. However, they should not have to pay for support.""I would like to see better integration between the cloud and our VMware virtual environment. We only have one virtual environment, which is VMware vSAN. Right now, there is little interoperability with the cloud solution at the moment.""They can improve the manageability of the solution to make it more simple. It is not that complicated, but it will be good if they can make it more simple.""If the support could be provided more quickly, it would be very helpful.""While I like the replication and compression features, there is a problem with them running too slowly.""As a software-based product, it requires a lot of system resources.""We would like to see even more storage capacity."

More VMware vSAN Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective."
  • "This solution has competitive prices and the implementation is very easy."
  • "StarWind is a low-cost, full-featured alternative to the traditional SAN environment, and their support will guide you every step of the setup."
  • "The support contract is well worth it. The price for it was very reasonable and their team has been very engaged whenever we reach out."
  • "This solution is very accessible and the pro-level for support is well worth the cost."
  • "We found that the pricing was perfect; simple and clear."
  • "For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support."
  • "If you are looking at a traditional SAN for a small cluster, give StarWind vSAN because you will save thousands without any compromise."
  • More StarWind Virtual SAN Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."
  • "The cost of this solution is fair."
  • "The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."
  • More Dell PowerFlex Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The solution requires a license. The payment is on a yearly basis and It is not overly expensive."
  • "Every product is licensed with full support for a certain number of years. The licensing could be cheaper."
  • "It is expensive. It should be cheaper. It has a perpetual license as well as a subscription-based license, but they are moving towards subscription-based licenses."
  • "It is cheap. It is $0.02 a gig."
  • "The licensing cost is high and should be taken into account."
  • "I would like to use more advanced models of the solution but the price needs to be reduced. There are some extra costs for this solution including a license."
  • "Enterprise customers can customize their licenses according to their own needs and budget."
  • "This solution is expensive. Nutanix provides us with Acropolis Operating System (AOS) along with its hardware, while VMware provides vSAN, vCenter, and vSphere which all have separate licenses and costs."
  • More VMware vSAN Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The most valuable features are high availability and real-time replication between two servers.
    Top Answer:The StarWind Management Console is available only for Microsoft Windows/Windows Server, and should also be available for… more »
    Top Answer:VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being… more »
    Top Answer:Saves us a lot of space in the data center.
    Top Answer:I'd like to see better license management with flexibility in terms of license usage.
    Top Answer:While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an… more »
    Top Answer:We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface… more »
    Top Answer:HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex
    vSAN
    Learn More
    Overview

    For SMB, ROBO, Cloud and Hosting providers, who look to cut down virtualization expenses, our solution is StarWind VSAN. It is software that eliminates any need in physical shared storage by basically “mirroring” internal hard disks and flash between hypervisor servers. There is less hardware to buy in general, consequently less money is spent on purchase and maintenance. The existing hardware is used with maximum efficiency, so there is no money wasted at all.

    StarWind Virtual SAN targets those who already have servers, or are bound to a particular vendor list to buy from. In case there is a new virtualization infrastructure to be built from scratch, StarWind offers a much better way – StarWind HyperConverged Appliance. It is a turnkey solution complete with hardware and software, powered by StarWind Virtual SAN. Those who need to build and maintain virtualization infrastructure at little to no expense, may be interested in StarWind Virtual SAN Free.

    VxRack System consists of hyper-converged rack-scale engineered systems, with integrated networking, to achieve the scalability and management requirements of traditional and cloud native workloads. The VxRack series is purposely designed to enable customers to quickly deploy Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and/or Private Cloud architectures. VxRack Systems tightly integrate hardware with software and management layers.

    The result is a fully tested, pre-configured, hyper-converged system with simplified operations at data center and Service Provider scale. VxRack Systems support the deployment of a variety of application workloads, allowing IT to rapidly deliver new services while improving overall agility and efficiency.

    VMware vSAN is a software-defined storage product that is used in collaboration with VMware ESXi hypervisor and that provisions and manages storage based on policies, regardless of the underlying hardware. The solution enables you to prime your business for growth through its seamless evolution (it is integrated with vSphere and requires no new tools), its flexibility, and its multi-cloud capabilities. As an industry-leading software, VMware vSAN provides high levels of performance with minimal impact on CPU and memory.

    VMware vSAN Features

    VMware vSAN has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Storage policy-based management (SPBM): VMware vSAN supports storage policy-based management for automated management of storage profiles.
    • Software-defined data-at-rest encryption: With this VMware vSAN feature, you can prevent unauthorized access of data at rest.
    • Multiple nodes: VMware vSAN provides clusters that can include as few as 2 nodes or as many as 64 nodes.
    • High security and availability: VMware vSAN offers stretched clusters, allowing more than one virtualization host server to be used in the same setup, promoting higher security as well as availability.
    • Deduplication: VMware vSAN’s deduplication compresses data to ensure efficient storage management and security.
    • HCI mesh updates: VMware vSAN clusters can share storage capacity with non-HCI Sphere clusters and can adopt HCI without having to scale computing resources and storage or replace existing servers.
    • Simplified file services: With VMware vSAN’s file services, backup of file shares is simplified. You can use APIs that allow backup and recovery software vendors to integrate with your VMware vSAN file services, which enables backup software to track new data and add scalability enhancements to files.

    VMware vSAN Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing VMware vSAN. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Reduced total cost of ownership (TCO): VMware vSAN helps you reduce upfront costs for businesses because it can be easily deployed on inexpensive x86 servers. In addition, its highly scalable infrastructure and quick deployment also save organizations time and money, making it an efficient storage solution. 
    • Good manageability: VMWare vSAN is easy to set up, manage, and provision, without sacrificing performance. 
    • Scalability: VMware vSAN is agile and allows administrators to scale storage on demand, quickly, and efficiently via policies and rules.
    • Simplicity: VMWare vSAN is simple to configure since it is embedded in the vSphere hypervisor. Installing it using the vSphere Web Client can be done quickly. 
    • Reduced risk: VMWare vSAN reduces the risk associated with digital transformations by utilizing existing tools, skill sets, and solutions.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the VMware vSAN solution.

    PeerSpot user Yves S., CEO, Cloud Evangelist at Comdivision Consulting GmbH, says, “vSAN gives us a lot of advantages when we need to expand resources. We have an overall larger host infrastructure, and we split that up for specific customer test and use cases. In that specific scenario, we can easily add more hosts or reduce the number of hosts in the environment.”

    A reviewer who works in Infrastructure Security explains, “The ease of use is great. The initial setup and upgrade process was pretty straightforward. And, technical support is great.”

    Laurent N., Director at Softlogic, comments, "The feature that I have found most valuable is that it is easy to deploy. It is easy to create and delete virtual servers. It is easy to create the load balancing and the clustering."

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    Learn more about Dell PowerFlex
    Learn more about VMware vSAN
    Sample Customers
    Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
    Canopy, 8x8Inc., Atos, Canadian Pacific, City of Denton, CenturyLink, BNP Paribas, Asyaport, EDF, CSC, Fox Sports, Insight, Hunter, KPIT, Paetec, Rosetta Stone, Sonda, Xerox
    Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Educational Organization9%
    Construction Company9%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Government9%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm29%
    University14%
    Insurance Company14%
    Wellness & Fitness Company14%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Government8%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company12%
    Comms Service Provider12%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Healthcare Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company20%
    Comms Service Provider12%
    Government9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business63%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise15%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise57%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business13%
    Midsize Enterprise31%
    Large Enterprise56%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise69%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise46%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise59%
    Buyer's Guide
    Dell PowerFlex vs. VMware vSAN
    March 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerFlex vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: March 2023.
    685,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Dell PowerFlex is ranked 13th in HCI with 5 reviews while VMware vSAN is ranked 2nd in HCI with 69 reviews. Dell PowerFlex is rated 7.8, while VMware vSAN is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Dell PowerFlex writes "Stable with good technical support and the capability to scale". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware vSAN writes "Gives us a lot of advantages when we need to expand resources". Dell PowerFlex is most compared with VxRail, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series, HPE SimpliVity and Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure, whereas VMware vSAN is most compared with VxRail, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, HPE SimpliVity, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and HPE Nimble Storage. See our Dell PowerFlex vs. VMware vSAN report.

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    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.