Dell vSAN Ready Nodes vs VxRail comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 6, 2024
 

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 vSAN Ready Nodes
Ranking in HCI
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
15
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 vSAN Ready Nodes is 2.0%, down from 3.6% 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
 

Featured Reviews

GF
Nov 24, 2021
Scalable with excellent support and allowed for the use of existing hardware
The main issue we ran into was the documentation. We attempted to set up the product in our test environment by ourselves and ran into several areas of the documentation that were unclear to us. Starwind provides excellent pre-sale support and scheduled several meetings between our IT staff and their support team to review the configuration and answer questions. This helped immensely in deploying the software in our test environment and helped us to understand the product better. Support was always willing to help with any documentation that we were confused over and continued to follow up with us after the project went live.
ZQ
Jul 16, 2020
A unified support structure is an important asset; manual upgrades should be automated
We previously used the old traditional type of file storage and we switched because there was almost no difference in cost but we got a product with much better features. With this product you get consolidated sales and distribution, so you don't have to worry about multi-vendors. You can open one ticket and you'll get your issue resolved. It's not vendor specific. Everybody's moving towards this. Everybody is dumping the old infrastructure uploads and moving towards renewal solutions, because it's the basic structure for cloud in the future, for anyone planning to become a cloud provider or build a private cloud.
Saurabh_Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
May 1, 2024
Easy to manage, easy to maintain, and provides a good return on investment
We use the solution to host virtual machines or servers. We host Red Hat Enterprise Linux and other application servers We have automated the build of the VMs. We have automated the complete process. If users need a VM, they go to a portal and fill out a form. The automation takes the details and…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is also quite flexible. As an example, other vSAN solutions that we looked at had more stringent requirements regarding mixed HDD/SSD storage which wouldn't have worked in our environment."
"Active-active HA provides top performance and redundancy."
"Integration with virtualization platforms helped us to resolve many issues we were facing while using the physical storage."
"The best part is the easy way it operates with a very clear GUI without any unnecessary items."
"The product's core feature of virtualizing our storage is by far the most valuable."
"It also provides a seamless and efficient solution for personal storage requirements, showcasing the versatility and scalability of my Virtual SAN configuration."
"The instant failover, with vSAN copying data to the second node, allowed for the continuous availability of our applications."
"VSAN works great; it's very easy to install, configure, and manage."
"The tool's most valuable feature is high availability."
"If I consider the overall product, I would say that it is an excellent solution that offers very good performance and stability."
"We find the initial implementation process simple and straightforward."
"The tool's most valuable features are compression and its usage in Kubernetes."
"The most valuable feature of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is file sharing."
"The product is useful for DR and other things."
"No concerns regarding the footprint in the data center."
"The most valuable feature is the set of user tools that are available."
"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."
"It gives us tons of flexibility. We can create new machines, then destroy them if they don't work out. We test a lot of use cases that may or may not play out. We can build all types of scenarios into virtual machines that we may or may not use. If we don't use them, we just turn them off, no using up resources."
"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. This makes all files act as a single file with a large and huge resource, and, of course, with customized administration, configuration, and resources. It provides automatic failover for redundancy and data recovery."
"Homogeneity is most valuable. The truth is that having everything in a single cluster helps a lot."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the fact that the storage is integrated with the VxRail so I don't have to go in between systems when I have to monitor my storage."
"This product has given us clear visibility into what we need technology-wise to grow."
"VxRail simplifies IT infrastructure management by providing a single management console for compute, storage, and network. The second advantage is that VxRail offers a continuously validated architecture from the OEM. This means that Dell thoroughly tests all firmware updates before being released or installed on the product, helping to prevent compatibility issues. The third benefit is its ten-year roadmap. Dell consistently announces a roadmap for the product spanning the next decade."
 

Cons

"StarWind currently has a Windows native application that it uses for management. There is not a web-based GUI at this time."
"The system failovers properly on its own without too much worry."
"I'm sure it needs bug fixes..."
"It runs until it does not - and disaster recovery documentation is sparse and mostly unclear."
"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)."
"Though I have learned some of the nuances with the upgrading of firmware/windows/etc., it would be nice to have a more efficient method of doing so."
"The documentation can be better for the free tier."
"You have to do a "full" sync on write-back cache disks instead of a quick sync if there is an issue."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required. The price of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes could be lowered."
"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."
"This product is not sufficiently scalable."
"Dell vSAN Ready Nodes doesn't perform as well as IBM. There are significant limitations, especially with scalability and flexibility over time. For example, adding drives can be problematic if the specific drives aren't available with older nodes that are four or five years old. Unlike IBM, Dell vSAN Ready Nodes isn't as flexible and doesn't scale easily. Additionally, while present, features like deduplication and compression don't perform as efficiently as they do on IBM. Our experience shows that the tool isn't as robust or flexible as advertised."
"Upgrades are carried out manually."
"The deployment is done by doing it one by one and could be simplified."
"The solution doesn't scale."
"There is room for improvement in the maintenance pricing. Maintenance isn't difficult, but the prices are high and ridiculous. Some customers feel it is better to go with a new solution rather than renew this one."
"There is an area for improvement with VxRail, specifically the upgrade process. Upgrading the is quite complex and almost exclusively requires Dell support. You can't do it alone, so you need to have support contracts running, which could be streamlined to improve the solution."
"There could be better documentation and they should allow everyone to access the simulator."
"I would like them to include an easier solution to host its own DNS. When they changed to version 6.5, they took out the easy features of letting the rail be its own DNS. You can still trick the system and make the VxRail Manager another one of the rail-required VMs become the DNS, but it's a lot of extra work. I'd like to see it put back into the UI."
"I would like to see VxRail add duplication features to its hybrid solution."
"It would be nice if the update process was shortened and that patching would be simpler."
"If they can provide deduplication compression through the traditional hard drives, as Cisco does in the HyperFlex system, it will be very cost-effective, especially when it comes to archiving workload. VxRail doesn't allow the mixing of old flash clusters and hyper clusters. When I'm starting with an old flash cluster and it comes to archiving workload, I will also need to attend the new cluster. So, I either manage two different clusters, or I pay and upload my work with the archiving mobile hard drive, which is not cost-effective at all. The main key is to allow mixing between two types of clustering, like Nutanix, or allow deduplication of completion over the period of shared hard drive on SAV. It will be much better."
"It could be improved by having more information on the integration portion of ACI."
"Integration could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs."
"When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."
"The cost, including OPEX, is lower compared to other solutions."
"Licensing is based on nodes rather than TBs, which means that the users are free to increase storage capacity without putting thought into licensing."
"The premium support from StarWinds is a must have. The ability to have access to a storage engineer 24/7 is a must for a production environment."
"Licensing is easy and the whole package is cost-effective."
"It's priced fairly. It was definitely cheaper than the competition. The licensing terms are straightforward and reasonable."
"This is a good, economical solution compared to data storage systems."
"The solution is more expensive than a traditional array. The prices are skyrocketing."
"Comparing the price of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes to other solutions it is not expensive."
"There is a problem, which is the lack of an integrated price structure."
"The price of the solution was reasonable."
"My company makes yearly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the solution. The solution is expensive."
"The tool's pricing is competitive compared to others. The tool's licensing is based on annual subscriptions."
"We have a four-year contract to use Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes."
"The tool is expensive."
"The licensing costs can vary depending on the number of processors and specific requirements, which may result in considerable expenses."
"Price is a bit of a challenge, particularly if you want extra features or higher performance."
"The solution is very expensive."
"It varies. It could be $100,000 at the smaller end and millions and millions of dollars at the higher end."
"Most of hyper-converged solutions require additional licenses for the virtualization layer (like VMware)."
"The price would be in the middle to the expensive range. It is not cheap."
"There is an advantage for those who have a good deal with Dell. Its price is good. From a company's perspective, it is always too expensive, but it is about value for money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
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...
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...
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 ...
What do you like most about Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
If I consider the overall product, I would say that it is an excellent solution that offers very good performance and...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
The solution is more expensive than a traditional array. The prices are skyrocketing.
What needs improvement with Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
Dell vSAN Ready Nodes doesn't perform as well as IBM. There are significant limitations, especially with scalability ...
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...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS
vSAN Ready Nodes
VCE VxRail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
Rackspace
World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell vSAN Ready Nodes vs. VxRail and other solutions. Updated: July 2024.
793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.