We performed a comparison between Dell vSAN Ready Nodes and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance 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."It has improved our organization in terms of its uptime as our main cluster has never been offline due to a SAN failure."
"The iSCSI protocol is quite simple to configure."
"Without the need for any downtime, enterprises can simply grow their storage infrastructure using StarWind Virtual SAN by adding new servers or disks to the current infrastructure."
"The customer support provided by StarWind is excellent."
"This solution made it possible to deploy a new infrastructure in the shortest amount of time, at a low cost without purchasing expensive hardware storage, and use unused servers."
"The fact that the solution is vendor-agnostic allows it to be used with any virtualization vendor while remaining a powerful abstraction over storage."
"The management interface on the software is very simple. It is insanely simple compared to most SANs. The interface is also powerful when used to complete tasks that an IT administrator needs to complete."
"The fact that we can expand our storage and add on to our compute nodes easily and how amazing the StarWind technical support team is really adding value to our purchase."
"I have found the most important features of Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes are the capacity to manage the storage because the storage is built in the servers. The type of profiles you can attribute to the storage is a benefit. You can manage the storage by profiles. Overall the solution is a good speed and performance."
"We find the initial implementation process simple and straightforward."
"Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes is scalable"
"If I consider the overall product, I would say that it is an excellent solution that offers very good performance and stability."
"The solution immediately expands storage area when you add nodes."
"It is easy to install."
"The tool's most valuable feature is high availability."
"You don't have to spend much time evaluating the hardware. It can be deployed in a short time. The tool is also easy to upgrade."
"I do like that I can manage StarWind with a console running on my local desktop."
"The solution has provided our company with a fully redundant virtual environment at half the cost of a traditional SAN implementation."
"We have the ProActive Premium Support and it has reduced our monitoring efforts. It has been very useful. They have been able to detect things such as when there's an issue with the cluster or they're getting some kind of weird reading that I have no idea about. They're really quick to let me know about it and even set up a schedule to address it. I've been very happy with their level of support on that."
"We no longer need multiple staff members performing small, mundane tasks."
"We also opted for 24-hour support monitoring for any issues. They are extremely quick to respond on issues we even cause ourselves such as bumping a network cable."
"Their support team is extremely helpful, and they are pretty friendly and knowledgeable."
"The redundancy of two identical nodes that can run alone allows us to have truly "no single point of failure" in our computing and primary storage infrastructure."
"Overall, the solution has improved our system's performance. I was concerned about the physical-to-virtual conversion of our database server. It's actually much faster now, as a virtualized host on this Hyper-V cluster."
"Being able to run StarWind vSAN on top of any free UNIX operating system to build a resilient iSCSI/FTP/SMB storage system would be useful."
"It would be nice to see a new UI for the windows client, as it is not the easiest to find settings."
"Although minor, some of the documentation could be rewritten to be clearer."
"I would like to see more monitoring and alert tools."
"The Command Center, a free guest VM for management and monitoring, leaves something to be desired. It could have more accurate real-time information and better reporting visuals, which seem to be an afterthought."
"I would like to see different levels of support offered."
"Management tools could be improved, sometimes the usage seems to be slowed down and confusing. A native web interface could also be an option. I love to see in the future port of the software on a general Linux distribution like RedHat or Ubuntu in order to avoid windows license costs. I would also like to see features like erasure coding implemented. On the VSAN software, I would like to see some improvements in the storage pools (eliminate the usage of the file as a data container and use the raw partition)."
"StarWind Command Center's single-pane management solution only works with Hyper-V."
"Dell vSAN Ready Nodes' deployment is complex."
"The solution doesn't scale."
"The power switch on the hardware is located in a poor location where it can accidentally be pushed. In an update, they should solve this issue so people do not push it accidentally to have their service go down. A possible solution is the switch should be inside."
"Dell vSAN Ready Nodes must be flexible since it is complex in designing concepts. It needs to improve stability. The product should integrate with the public cloud."
"Upgrades are carried out manually."
"This product is not sufficiently scalable."
"Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes is a great hyper-converged system that is a perfect platform for supporting any kind of workload. The only workload that it's not designed to support is big data."
"Compatibility with other hardware nodes needs to be improved."
"I'd like a better UI and some limitations on "breaking it.""
"The overall product documentation and knowledgebase articles could use some rewriting and clarification."
"The response time is usually several hours after the issue occurred."
"I think some performance metrics would be nice to see, especially on the storage side."
"Shipping options should be explained in detail and offer more white glove delivery options even if it comes at an additional cost for some SMBs without docks."
"The only critique I might have is that the support is overseas in Eastern Europe and, on occasion, there has been a language issue. But in general, they're as good as can be..."
"The truth is that the operation and support offered is good, but we consider that the product's usability could improve, as well as the data resynchronization time after an unexpected closure."
"We need to be very cautious in following every step when updating the physical host. We must move over each VM and drain roles from the servers to ensure everything goes smoothly without interruptions. If this were a more automated process, this would be less taxing each time an upgrade is needed."
More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Pricing and Cost Advice →
Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is ranked 12th in HCI with 14 reviews while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is ranked 6th in HCI with 65 reviews. Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is rated 8.6, while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is rated 9.6. The top reviewer of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes writes "Offers good performance and is easy to use". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance writes "Straightforward to use with good remote management and a simple GUI". Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series, Dell PowerFlex and Fujitsu PRIMEFLEX, whereas StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, VxRail and StorMagic SvSAN. See our Dell vSAN Ready Nodes vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report.
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