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HPE Alletra dHCI vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance 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

HPE Alletra dHCI
Ranking in HCI
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StarWind HyperConverged App...
Ranking in HCI
14th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of HPE Alletra dHCI is 4.9%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is 1.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Antonin Pavlik - PeerSpot reviewer
Effortless upgrades with one-click feature while new server deployment needs a smoother process
I have a data center, and all the servers are connected to HPE Alletra dHCI. I use it for data management with VMware running on the servers The most valuable feature of HPE Alletra dHCI is the one-click upgrade function, which allows all drivers and services to be downloaded to all servers…
Russ Le Puill - PeerSpot reviewer
Proactive support with improved speed and resilience
There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made clear to us that we needed to provide our own SFP modules to connect to our infrastructure, so that could have been a bit clearer. It would be amazing if there was, perhaps, a more automated process for updating the hosts themselves, although the maintenance mode works well. Our StarWind command center doesn't seem to have all the options available currently, which support is investigating for us.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Nimble Storage is a capable platform with high availability."
"HPE Alletra dHCI is very comfortable with high performance and quick installation."
"The nice thing about it is that it truly integrates with the cloud, so I can move my volumes bi-directionally in and out of the cloud."
"The solution is useful for taking storage snapshots, has high performance, and the CASL architecture is good for optimizing workloads."
"The most valuable feature of HPE Alletra dHCI is the one-click upgrade function, which allows all drivers and services to be downloaded to all servers easily."
"The solution works well."
"So far, the solution's performance is very good."
"The product has cut down a lot of service tickets. Earlier, people complained about slowness."
"It did not hurt that the price for the hardware and three years of support cost less than the disparate hardware the cluster used to run on."
"Reliability and overall uptime are key as we're also hosting client environments in addition to our own."
"Their support team is extremely helpful, and they are pretty friendly and knowledgeable."
"Having this all backed up by pro-active support gives us good peace of mind."
"UI Options are simple and easy to find."
"The hardware footprint is great. We've got two 2U servers which replaced four 2U servers. Granted, they were about three years old at that point, but we actually increased our processing capacity by about 50 percent while keeping our storage capacity about the same. We've actually been able to downgrade to a half rack from a full rack because we've gotten rid of some of our network equipment and some of our additional storage arrays."
"In our experience with StarWind, the support has been by far the most valuable feature."
"The pricing and discounts given by Starwind on the hardware were unmatched."
 

Cons

"The only issue I'm really running into is we have a SQL server that we're having a lot of high IO latency on one of my drives and it's my data drive from my SQL server. It's not really giving me any good information as to where that latency is coming from, so that's what I'm trying to track down and troubleshoot."
"Lacking integration to the cloud."
"Sometimes the technical support would get back to us in two hours, but other times it would take them two or even three days to respond."
"The deployment of a new server could be improved."
"They could expand product support to Microsoft Hyper-V and Red Hat Linux platforms."
"I can tier my data in different storage on the cloud, but I cannot tier the data with HPE Alletra dHCI."
"It can be made cheaper."
"The solution could improve by providing better file-level restoration and DVX system options."
"Not much can be improved, to be honest."
"Updates need improvement."
"I had some initial difficulties understanding the solution which could have been solved via additional documentation aimed at newcomers."
"Although the setup documentation was very complete and succinct, I found StarWind documentation to be a bit sparse."
"This product is not one hundred percent enterprise-ready, so it is more suitable for SMB."
"What would have to be done urgently is the adaptation of the hardware to the configuration."
"The only area that the product could improve would be user training."
"The overall product documentation and knowledgebase articles could use some rewriting and clarification."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the licensing model a three out of ten, where one is extremely expensive, and ten is cheap."
"The price of HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is expensive."
"The customers have found the solution to be expensive. However, when compared to the competition the price is reasonable."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is much cheaper than the competition and has value proposition. Customers can see an ROI in three months. There are no additional costs, and VMware licenses can be reutilized."
"The prices are very high."
"The product licensing costs vary depending on whether VMware or other solutions are used."
"With the features that HPE Nimble Storage dHCI provides, I cannot say its pricing is more."
"The cost of the licensing is reasonable."
"This was all completed at an affordable price point for an SMB, which was also a key element for an NPO."
"I honestly feel that there's no one else in the market doing what they're doing for the price point that they're doing it at. That's why I asked them about investing in their company. I think that the options they're providing and the software that they have is sort of revolutionary for the price point... The total cost was $24,400."
"It's an all in one package, making it very easy."
"We looked at Nutanix and found it did almost the same thing but for more money. In fact, StarWind was nearly one-third of the price; it cost us £36,000. That includes five years of monitoring... The Nutanix was near enough £110,000 for relatively the same amount of performance and storage."
"We didn't have any issue with pricing or any of the sales process."
"The other solutions we were looking at were priced much higher than this and they didn't necessarily have full redundancy... Nutanix and VxRail were in the final running... but it came down to our price point."
"When I researched they came the most cost-effective."
"Its cost was reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Educational Organization
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Non Profit
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?
Pricing is rated at six, which is normal. The price is appropriate for the capabilities and features that the customers receive.
What needs improvement with HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?
I would like the HPE Alletra dHCI to provide options to install products separately. When extending or when servers are already present, normal Alletra systems are more suitable. dHCI projects ofte...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?
It's not the cheapest, however, the solution works incredibly well and is so simple to licence and maintain.
What needs improvement with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?
There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made clear to us that we needed to provide our own SFP modules to connect to our inf...
What is your primary use case for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?
We desperately needed to update yet downsize our data centre. We had six hosts for only approximately 14 or so Virtual machines and two old SANs. All of this was running on 10+ year-old refurbished...
 

Also Known As

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Sears Home and Franchise Business
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Alletra dHCI vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.