Dell PowerFlex vs VxRail comparison

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StarWind Virtual SAN
Read 185 StarWind Virtual SAN reviews
  • 4,997 Views
  • 1,675 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
Dell PowerFlex
Read 23 Dell PowerFlex reviews
  • 12,688 Views
  • 7,892 Comparison Views
95% willing to recommend
VxRail
Read 126 VxRail reviews
  • 33,511 Views
  • 20,468 Comparison Views
93% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 6, 2024

We compared Dell PowerFlex and VxRail based on our user's reviews in several parameters.

In summary, Dell PowerFlex is praised for its flexibility, scalability, and reliability, while VxRail is appreciated for its excellent performance and seamless integration. Dell PowerFlex offers strong customer service, pricing, and return on investment, while VxRail is commended for its support and pricing structure. Dell Powerflex users emphasize the ease of use and efficient operations, while VxRail users highlight the scalability and flexibility. Dell PowerFlex could benefit from enhancements, while VxRail users suggest improvements in scalability, compatibility, setup process, monitoring, customer support, and documentation. Overall, both products have positive user feedback with some areas for enhancement.

Features: The valuable features of Dell PowerFlex include its flexibility, scalability, and reliability. Users also praise its performance and user-friendly interface. On the other hand, VxRail is highly appreciated for its excellent performance, seamless integration, and highly scalable infrastructure solution.

Pricing and ROI: The setup cost for Dell PowerFlex was reported as straightforward and hassle-free, making the implementation process smooth. Users found the pricing of Dell PowerFlex to be reasonable and competitive. On the other hand, VxRail also offers a favorable pricing structure with reasonable setup costs and flexible licensing options., Dell PowerFlex product delivers enhanced productivity, improved efficiency, and cost savings. VxRail offers increased efficiency, improved performance, scalability, ease of use, and reliability. Both products have positive ROI.

Room for Improvement: The Dell PowerFlex could benefit from enhancements in certain areas, while suggestions for improving the VxRail include scalability, flexibility, compatibility, setup process, monitoring capabilities, customer support, and troubleshooting documentation.

Deployment and customer support: Based on user feedback, the duration required to establish a new tech solution varies for both Dell PowerFlex and VxRail. However, while Dell PowerFlex users reported separate timeframes for deployment and setup, VxRail users had varying experiences with some indicating that both terms may refer to the same period., The customer service for Dell PowerFlex is highly praised by users. They appreciate the efficient and helpful assistance provided by Dell's support team. Customers report that their questions and concerns are promptly addressed and resolved. Dell's commitment to a smooth experience and timely solutions is lauded. On the other hand, customers express satisfaction with the level of support received for VxRail. They appreciate the helpfulness and responsiveness of the customer service team. Users also value the knowledgeable and friendly staff during installation and troubleshooting. Overall, the customer service and support of VxRail are well-regarded.

The summary above is based on 32 interviews we conducted recently with Dell PowerFlex and VxRail users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.

DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE REPORT
To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerFlex vs. VxRail Report (Updated: July 2024).
Buyer's Guide
Dell PowerFlex vs. VxRail
July 2024
Download the complete report
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Categories and Ranking

StarWind Virtual SAN
Sponsored
Ranking in HCI
4th
Average Rating
9.6
Number of Reviews
185
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)
Dell PowerFlex
Ranking in HCI
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VxRail
Ranking in HCI
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
126
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the HCI category, the mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.1%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerFlex is 14.1%, up from 7.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VxRail is 21.5%, down from 22.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
Unique Categories:
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
9.2%
No other categories found
No other categories found
 

Q&A Highlights

NC
Nov 16, 2022
What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?
VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if the user is working with a limited budget the platform offers freedom of choice and a number of different options. In contrast, Dell EMC PowerFlex does run on the more expensive side and cannot offer the same level of cost-effective solution. VxRail is able to provide both an ability to upgrade the system with an ever-growing library of resources as well as provide powerful processors.This is something that I greatly appreciate. Being able to simply add upgrades to the system without necessarily having to worry about the system being bogged down makes it invaluable. The ability that it provides to apply updates to the system with ease is something worthy of note. If you add this to the fact that VxRail runs on multiple cores at 2 gigahertz or higher then that means that in terms of ability, the VxRail is difficult to match. In terms of usability, it is hard to argue that VxRail delivers. It is pretty simple and easy to both set up and manage the VxRail system. Once the system is set up, all of the management tools are centrally located to assist in providing ease of use. The Dell EMC PowerFlex combines reliability and ease of management. Its connection to alternate storage locations makes it both reliable and an excellent choice. Management teams can use it with ease, because all of the tools are located in one location. Conclusion Both systems offer stable solutions, an ability to upgrade the system, and ease of use for management teams. In terms of cost VxRail is more cost effective and is also more intuitive to use than the Dell EMC PowerFlex.
See all answers
 

Featured Reviews

SE
May 24, 2024
Feature-rich and versatile with broad support for different hypervisors
The StarWind vSAN solution is versatile and offers broad support for different hypervisors and deployment formats. During our evaluation of our on-premises setup, we did not find any significant flaws. One point for improvement is to increase the performance capabilities of the Windows-based executable as compared to its Linux Controller Virtual Machine (CVM) equivalent. Another point for improvement would be to incorporate a more granular Role-based access control system (RBAC) natively inside the software to allow for more granular administration. Yet another point would be to achieve tighter integration and automation with cloud-based platforms, such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Read full review
MV
May 20, 2024
Runs without issues and provides a return on investment
Dell PowerFlex is our primary private cloud.  The combination of reliability and scalability is perfect for us. When we need extra storage we have six nodes so we simply purchase new licenses and hard drives. Although it is possible to use the nodes just for storage, we use them for CPU and RAM as…
Read full review
MB
Feb 4, 2024
Provides scalability, one-click upgrades, and simplified management
We have issues at times with the one-click upgrade, which is bugging us. At times, the one-click upgrade does not work or does not work well. It does not work well or it stops, and we do not always understand why. In one such instance, Dell support took over. We reach the end of the upgrade, but it is not smooth. It should be improved. It could be related to my infrastructure. Maybe I have too many nodes, but I do not know. Even though we do it and we go to the very end, we end up sweating sometimes. It is a little bit ironic because the one-click upgrade was what made me sway and choose this technology, and it is still something that can be improved.
Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"User friendly interface and straight forward implementation."
"The ability to keep data accessible even in the event of hardware failures is highly valued, as it ensures business continuity."
"The ability to run a two-node cluster without a dedicated witness has made this an excellent product for small deployments, which is right on target for our needs in regional offices."
"The product has improved the ability to mimic physical SAN environments to demo scenarios and troubleshoot problems."
"The performance of the solution is accurate and concise."
"Before VSAN, hypervisor configuration changes and updates resulted in VM outages. Now, downtime is dramatically reduced."
"It also provides a seamless and efficient solution for personal storage requirements, showcasing the versatility and scalability of my Virtual SAN configuration."
"The most useful aspect is the hyper-converged SD SAN and the ease to expand it by just adding cheap SSD or NVME disks."
More StarWind Virtual SAN pros
"The setup was very straightforward."
"We've had no issues with scaling the solution."
"We're doing a lot of VMware for IT so this solution is really valuable from a VMH point of view. We're trying to assist our customers mainly with management, because that's what they want. The most important aspects are ease of management, as well as ease of configuration, allowing them to attach additional nodes and resources for the applications."
"Dell PowerFlex improves our latency which allowed us to reduce a lot of our Microsoft Enterprise SQL licenses."
"Perfectly suits customers dealing with the combination of future storage needs and, at the same time, keeping up their computing power."
"The integration with AWS is a valuable feature."
"The resiliency and data protection are the most valuable features."
"Saves us a lot of space in the data center."
More Dell PowerFlex pros
"VxRail is easy to deploy and easy to scale up."
"Depending on your architecture type, it's simple to manage and implement VxRail compared to other solutions. That's why most of our customers use it."
"Cost-effective and easy to install."
"VxRail has improved out organization because we are trying to be a little more proactive and elastic. We are trying to change our conventional approach to development."
"When we have a resource contention, we can easily increase the capacity."
"The manageability for controlling the console is the most valuable feature."
"My customers use it for VDI. It has been very usable and very fast to use with VDI. On the VxRail side also, it has been very fast."
"VxRail has improved our organization by providing our admin team with an easy-to-use interface."
More VxRail pros
 

Cons

"Sometimes documentation on their site can be out of date."
"Performance when in storage-separate configuration needs to be improved."
"It would help if the manufacturer provided clearer and more detailed documentation, with explanations of how the application can be installed in various HA configurations."
"Feature-wise we are only waiting for the release of a "planned disaster" feature that would allow us to patch a hypervisor node without having to take the full storage offline."
"Initially, when we first started, the sync was horrible."
"Security on the ISCSI protocol could be improved by adding features like OS-type control access, especially for the data center environment."
"The documentation could be clearer in terms of explaining the installation."
"Besides not being able to use any filesystem, I do not have any additional cons."
More StarWind Virtual SAN cons
"There should be more functionality available for routing."
"I am not really impressed by the technical support of this solution."
"The storage capability must be improved."
"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."
"The installation is complex."
"The solution must be more flexible."
"We've had some issues around the licensing."
More Dell PowerFlex cons
"The fact that is based on vSAN is the main issue of this solution."
"If we could have some out of the box ideas in integration, I think that would be a great feature."
"When it comes to maintenance, it takes 16 hours to upgrade a 12 node VxRail plus. This could be improved in the system."
"It might offer better integration with other products."
"What I did not like so much was the amount of VMware that you have to put in your system related to the VxRail."
"The agility of the support team to provide you with better solutions should be improved. VxRail also has to be improved in terms of simplicity. Adding a simple node seemed like quite a project."
"The update for the graphics integration and the media drivers isn't included in the VxRail update."
"The licensing needs to be improved upon."
More VxRail cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution has a great price for the functionality."
"We are happy with the price."
"This is the best priced solution for an SMB."
"Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs."
"The pricing is excellent. It will run on anything. You don't have to buy a $100,000 server, with hardware you don't need. You just pay for the license and you're good to go."
"Their pricing seems pretty good, and their licensing structure is pretty straightforward."
"The cost seems a bit steep, and I wish it was less expensive."
"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."
More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice
"The price could be improved."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The solution's price is medium."
"The pricing for this solution is good."
"The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."
"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."
"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
"VxRail is not cheap, but it's not expensive either."
"The price point needs improvement, certainly for smaller SMBs. The cost of it is still quite painful. I think all vendors should do a product which is capped either by terabytes, IOPs, or VM instances. It should be an SMB solution that's going to make hyper-converged solutions easier for SMBs to get hold of. It's fine for those big guys that have billions of dollars of budget, but not for customers who have barely a 100,000 dollars or pounds in budget."
"The price is good."
"The price of VxRail highly depends on your design and your configuration. For example, if I connect Pure Storage directly to ESXi hosts and bypass Fiber Channel switches and I will save on money. However, it reduces my redundancy and makes it not as robust of deployment and easy to manage. An HCI environment, it's more cost-effective than utilizing a traditional SAN. With storage and computing altogether, you don't necessarily have to involve the networking team as much. I don't necessarily need somebody that understands Brocade's or Cisco Fiber Channel Switches, because I have it all right there."
"VxRail is still more expensive than its competitor solutions."
"Most of hyper-converged solutions require additional licenses for the virtualization layer (like VMware)."
"We were expecting Dell EMC to bring us something that would work very quickly and easily, but also be at a reasonable price point, and they did."
"More cost-effective than Nutanix."
More VxRail pricing and cost advice
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Answers from the Community

NC
Nov 16, 2022
Nov 16, 2022
What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?
VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if the user is working with a limited budget the platform offers freedom of choice and a number of different options. In contrast, Dell EMC PowerFlex does run on the more expensive side and cannot offer the same level of cost-effec...
See 2 answers
DG
Oct 14, 2021
VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if the user is working with a limited budget the platform offers freedom of choice and a number of different options. In contrast, Dell EMC PowerFlex does run on the more expensive side and cannot offer the same level of cost-effective solution. VxRail is able to provide both an ability to upgrade the system with an ever-growing library of resources as well as provide powerful processors.This is something that I greatly appreciate. Being able to simply add upgrades to the system without necessarily having to worry about the system being bogged down makes it invaluable. The ability that it provides to apply updates to the system with ease is something worthy of note. If you add this to the fact that VxRail runs on multiple cores at 2 gigahertz or higher then that means that in terms of ability, the VxRail is difficult to match. In terms of usability, it is hard to argue that VxRail delivers. It is pretty simple and easy to both set up and manage the VxRail system. Once the system is set up, all of the management tools are centrally located to assist in providing ease of use. The Dell EMC PowerFlex combines reliability and ease of management. Its connection to alternate storage locations makes it both reliable and an excellent choice. Management teams can use it with ease, because all of the tools are located in one location. Conclusion Both systems offer stable solutions, an ability to upgrade the system, and ease of use for management teams. In terms of cost VxRail is more cost effective and is also more intuitive to use than the Dell EMC PowerFlex.
Read full answer
Emmanuel Alex - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 16, 2022
VxRail is a hyper converged infrastructure. While PowerFlex appliance is a flexible solution with a small starting point and massive scale potential.
Read full answer
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about StarWind Virtual SAN?
It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combin...
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
Make the most of your 30-day trial license, and if needed, you should contact the sales department of StarWind to ext...
See all answers
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
The dashboard is functional, but it could benefit from a more modern and visually appealing design. A facelift would ...
See all answers
What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?
VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not bein...
See all answers
What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerFlex?
The support is highly responsive.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerFlex?
I have good partners who prepared the price for us. I told them what we needed and everything worked out perfectly. W...
See all answers
How does HPE Nimble Storage compare to VxRail?
HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one, z...
See all answers
What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?
While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an e...
See all answers
How does VxRail compare with Cisco HyperFlex HX Series?
VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company ...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN Logo
VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN
Compared 32% of the time
StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN Logo
StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN
Compared 17% of the time
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN Logo
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN
Compared 16% of the time
Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN Logo
Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN
Compared 14% of the time
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs StarWind Virtual SAN Logo
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs StarWind Virtual SAN
Compared 2% of the time
More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors
VMware vSAN vs Dell PowerFlex Logo
VMware vSAN vs Dell PowerFlex
Compared 17% of the time
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell PowerFlex Logo
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell PowerFlex
Compared 10% of the time
HPE Alletra dHCI vs Dell PowerFlex Logo
HPE Alletra dHCI vs Dell PowerFlex
Compared 4% of the time
Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Dell PowerFlex Logo
Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Dell PowerFlex
Compared 4% of the time
HPE SimpliVity vs Dell PowerFlex Logo
HPE SimpliVity vs Dell PowerFlex
Compared 4% of the time
More Dell PowerFlex Competitors
VMware vSAN vs VxRail Logo
VMware vSAN vs VxRail
Compared 23% of the time
HPE SimpliVity vs VxRail Logo
HPE SimpliVity vs VxRail
Compared 17% of the time
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VxRail Logo
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VxRail
Compared 7% of the time
HPE Hyper Converged vs VxRail Logo
HPE Hyper Converged vs VxRail
Compared 6% of the time
More VxRail Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
StarWind Virtual SAN
June 2024
StarWind Virtual SAN reportDownload StarWind Virtual SAN product report
Buyer's Guide
Dell PowerFlex
July 2024
Dell PowerFlex reportDownload Dell PowerFlex product report
Buyer's Guide
VxRail
June 2024
VxRail reportDownload VxRail product report
 

Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS
VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex
VCE VxRail
 

Learn More

StarWind
Dell Technologies
Dell Technologies
 

Overview

StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments without the need for dedicated SAN hardware. It allows for real-time replication between servers, shared storage for Hyper-V clusters, and enables vMotion and High Availability features for VMware vSphere. The solution reduces costs and leverages existing hardware while providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure. Valuable features include ease of use, scalability, top-tier support, hardware agnosticism, and the ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space. StarWind VSAN has helped organizations improve performance, data availability, and data security while reducing downtime and providing cost-saving storage options.

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.

VxRail is a hyper-converged appliance based on VMware virtual SAN Software and is jointly engineered and built with VMware, for VMware, to enhance Vmware. VxRail software-defined architecture simplifies compute, storage, virtualization, and management. It will safeguard performance, reliability, and flexibility across your organization with a broad range of workloads and applications from business-critical to next-gen. With VxRail, you are covered.

VxRail is a single turn-key appliance that is a validated, fully integrated, pre-configured,  pre-tested solution and offers non-disruptive scaling. Every node includes compute storage and IO. All-flash configurations can contain between 12-28 cores per node. The storage capacity options run from 7.6 TB to 19TB with either 256 GB or 512GB of memory. Hybrid appliances may have 6-20 cores per node, 3.6 TB to 10 TB of storage capacity, and 24GB to 256 GB of memory. 

VxRail offers high availability fail-over, an active/active stretch cluster, and VSan Kernal integration. VxRail is a power-edged server with APIs built on automation. There are over 15 million different combinations of hardware available with VxRail. VxRail provides a simple, cost-effective solution that solves a large range of use cases. Additionally, you also get a mixed workloads automated system that is backed with fully automated system updates, and complete end-to-end lifecycle management all in a single two-rack appliance. 

VxRail is a value-added suitable solution for distributed small to mid-sized enterprises, remote offices, private clouds, and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). You choose the deployment option that best suits your organizational needs, from appliance to integrated rack offerings, with or without networking, and it will be delivered to you, ready to deploy out-of-box. 

If you know VMware, you know VxRail.

VxRail Features and Benefits

  • Seamlessly accelerate deployment to a hybrid cloud 
  • Fast data center modernization
  • Create developer-ready Kubernetes platforms
  • Powerful performance and reliability
  • Improve and simplify operational efficiency
  • Excellent integration 
  • Save time
  • Reduce costs

Reviews from Real Users

VxRail is an all-in-one solution: "You don't have to worry too much about the hardware and you don't have to work on integrating a storage device. We instead have this as an all-in-one solution and everything is available as a box."

VxRail is remarkable: “The cover points feature in VxRail is remarkable. It's unique. It has an intervention failover system as well as an automatic failover system, reaching clusters existing in VxRail…”

VxRail is a powerful performer: “...VxRail delivers a very high number of IOPS for a hybrid configuration or an all-flash configuration. The processors that are available in the Xeon family are very powerful. They are multi-core with typically 2 gigahertz, 2.4 gigahertz, or higher frequency, so the performance is very much appreciated.” 

 

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
World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox
Buyer's Guide
Dell PowerFlex vs. VxRail
July 2024
Free Report: Dell PowerFlex vs. VxRail
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerFlex vs. VxRail and other solutions. Updated: July 2024.
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