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Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series vs VMware vSAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Hitachi Unified Compute Pla...
Ranking in HCI
29th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware vSAN
Ranking in HCI
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
234
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series is 1.2%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSAN is 8.5%, down from 14.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware vSAN8.5%
Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series1.2%
Other90.3%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

AA
Enterprise Information systems/Wintel Systems Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Allows for centralized management with great interconnectivity
My main use is server management and virtualization This solution allowed us to move from using standalone systems to having all our data center management in one place. The most valuable feature is the interconnectivity, which allows me to use the system across my data centers and makes it easy…
ShyamikaThamel - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Tech Specialists at Seatrium
Managing mixed RAID workloads has improved data protection and delivers strong performance
VMware vSAN can be improved in certain areas. In cases involving our large data stores with large VMs, we experience some latency, not during normal operation, but during database backup operations. We observed latency due to buffer issues from the top-of-the-rack switches. These issues are mostly network-related because all storage data traffic travels through the network. I have recently used Nutanix, and I observed that Nutanix provides better performance than VMware vSAN due to its data locality features. VMware vSAN is now providing data locality, but we did not use that option. If VMware vSAN provides additional features in the next release, such as the VM balancing feature called DRS on the cluster that VMware previously had, it would be beneficial. With DRS, VMs can move easily from one node to another within the same cluster. Nutanix does not provide that flexibility. When placing a VM on a cluster in Nutanix, the placement uses a balancing component. After that, the VM remains on the same host. If any contention occurs on the CPU or memory side, the VM stays in place until contention happens. If issues occur, the VM migrates to another host while transferring all objects to the same host. This is how their data locality is maintained. When a VM moves to any host, it moves with all VM objects. VMware vSAN does not currently offer this option. If a VM moves to another host, it accesses the disk object through the network, which increases latency. VMware vSAN now offers an option to select data locality, but it does not function like Nutanix. This is why some latency remains. If VMware vSAN can improve this feature, it would be very helpful and VMware would regain its top position.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the interconnectivity, which allows me to use the system across my data centers and makes it easy to connect to other storage platforms."
"In our implementations, HDS Storage Virtualization has helped in migrating data with the least amount of downtime, compared to other storage technologies."
"The replication technology can move data faster than EMC MirrorView and requires less bandwidth. The Storage Virtualization technology is the most mature in the market, outside of IBM’s Storwize (which has a lot of compatibility issues, and EMC’s very expensive VPLEX solution); and it works."
"This solution allowed us to move from using standalone systems to having all our data center management in one place."
"The valuable feature of the solution is the total hyperconverged facility, and that either it's hyperconverged, or it's standalone with storage arrays."
"Compared with competing products, it provides great cost savings."
"From what I saw, you can create the SAN in a small environment, and then grow, which is a valuable feature of VSAN and makes it cost effective."
"We probably reduced our hardware footprint by 50 percent, which is a lot."
"VMware's software-defined storage finally enables us to build a private cloud solution that scales much easier than we are used to."
"The solution is very stable."
"The newer versions of this solution are much more stable and easier to manage."
"The solution is quite stable."
 

Cons

"An area for improvement would be technical support."
"We prefer solutions other than HDS due to better post sales support, updates, ease of use, flexibility, etc."
"An update to its technology would be good. The G Series has been around for more than five years and HDS seriously needs to ramp up, since the competition has better performance at a lower cost with better features and functionalities. For example, it needs redirect on write Snapshot, preconfigured storage tiering with better IOPS, built-in deduplication technology on hybrid disk, etc."
"HDS reaches a ceiling depending on model. The G200 cannot transition to G400, the G400 can transition to G600 but cannot transition to G800, which is the top-end model."
"An area for improvement would be technical support. In the next release, I would like to see more features added to make this a more complete solution."
"It needs to allow for more customizations and individualization specific to each user. It needs to be more malleable and adjustable to changing requirements."
"This solution is expensive."
"Although the product is very scalable, it is not scalable in a way that the different host sizes can effectively be added to an existing cluster."
"Ease of administration is one area where vSAN could be improved."
"I was not sure about its stability because we have a big SAN shop and I got the impression that it’s good for small offices and not the larger ones."
"It could be more robust. The latency is also an issue for us, and the reliability. I would like it to be faster and a little more flexible."
"The UI could certainly be better. The insight into what's actually going on with vSAN would be nice to know."
"The big thing is pricing, and the rest of it is mostly good. From a scalability point of view, scaling the storage from network or compute should be easier. It is again all around the cost, and it would be good if it was easier to scale your storage separately from your compute."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The cost is expensive. I purchased two servers. The hardware cost was $19,000. The software cost for these two servers, including the vSAN, was $30,000, which is $11,000 more than the hardware. Then I had to pay another $5,000 for installation and implementation for professional services. In total, it was $54,000 for two vSAN Servers."
"The cost of the solution is high and if it could be reduced the customers would be very happy."
"With vSAN, we didn't find the market that competitive."
"I would rate the licensing model a three out of ten, where one is expensive, and ten is cheap."
"It could be cheaper."
"The price is expensive."
"If they could reduce the cost, it would be better. Licensing costs are something that they could take care of. If you are a smaller and strong IT team, then VMware vSAN is a very good product. If you want to expand in the service provider space, then you will have to go for an open-source solution like OpenStack. We are now looking at OpenStack because we sell licensing costs. We are a service provider, so the IT component data is a substantial component in our overall costing. We feel that OpenStack might help us to cut down the licensing cost. Therefore, we are looking at SAS storage instead of vSAN. SAS is open source, but it is not wise to have open source without having the backend support. We are using RedHat SAS, and it is an open-source solution. You can also have a free version, but we are using it with support from RedHat so that we have somebody to back us up in case we have a problem. If you do normal business, then IT expense is 1% or 2% of the total turnover. The higher licensing costs sometimes don't make difference to the big companies who are not service providers and are using it only for their internal use. For them, the IT cost is 1% or 2%, but for an IT service provider, the IT costs will go up to 15% to 16% of the total cost of the operations. This is where the licensing costs become irrelevant. For example, the licensing cost of using VMware, VC, and vSAN is 8% of my monthly revenue. Every month, I pay about $35,000, and, with the revised plan, it will be something like $50,000 or revenue of 600k per month, which means almost 8% of the revenue is going into VMware licensing. In a very competitive world, 8% as a cost element is huge. So, if I can bring it down to 2%, I save 6% in revenue expenditure. In terms of profit, 6% of 30% is something like another 25% increase in my profit. My profit can be almost 25%. It would be 20% to 25% in case I am able to handle the licensing costs and bring them to a very low level. Because these IT costs are substantial for us, that is why we are going with OpenStack. OpenStack has a limitation that it requires more hardware. There will be some increase in the hardware cost, but overall we will save 5% to 6% of our licensing cost by using OpenStack."
"It is not that expensive, and it is not even cheap. If it is designed in a proper way, it has good pricing, but if you do oversizing, the price will be high. There are different licensing models."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Pharma/Biotech Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business101
Midsize Enterprise58
Large Enterprise135
 

Questions from the Community

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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 engineered system. The choice to choose which technology depends on two major fac...
How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?
HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We researched VMware vSAN but found HPE was a better option for us. HPE SimpliVity has ...
How does VMware vSAN compare with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?
We found VMware’s vSAN was easy to set up, configure, and manage compared to other solutions we considered. It is best suited for small- to medium-sized organizations. It is easy to create load bal...
 

Also Known As

HDS Unified Compute Platform, Hitachi UCP, Hitachi UCP Select
vSAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Asia Capital Reinsurance, RMZ, Cigniti Technologies, SPAR, Infosys
Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here
Find out what your peers are saying about Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,495 professionals have used our research since 2012.